Gu Jiegang And The History Education Of Middle School

Ku Chieh-kang(1893-1980) is a famous historian in modern China. His academic is not only on the basis of tradition, but also absorbs new ideas as a guide. So Ku becomes one of the representatives during Chinese traditional academic to modern transition.In 1920s, Ku Chieh-kang engaged in suspicion of the ancient and detection of forgery. At the same time, he paied close attention to history education, compiling the Modern Junior School Chinese History Textbook. On one hand, in the process of writing, Ku put forward the theory of textual stratification, the idea to promote the academic study of ancient history. On the other hand, he integrated his own research into the textbook, among book permeated with a strong thinking of Doubting Antiquity.Ku Chieh-kang’s thought of historical education showed different tendencies in different periods. It has a mature development process from exploration to accepting the transformation. In the 1920s, Ku formed a systematic thinking of middle school history education under the guidance of the positivistic historiography. With the rise of national crisis in the 1930s and 40s, the school history education that he advocated reflected nationalistic stance with empirical meaning. After the 1950s, under the baptism of historical materialism, Ku’s ideology of tending to people was more prominently in his history educational thought.Ku Chieh-kang’s exploration on the history teaching in middle schools, mainly in the exploration on compiling theory of history textbook, study the quality of teachers and the strategy of teaching implementation. Ku’s practical achievement of compiling middle school history textbooks embodied in the Modern Junior School Chinese History Textbook. The textbook reflects the historian’s multi viewpoint and its content focuses on tailoring. Ku innovated its style and added comments.In view of the quality of teachers, Ku attached great importance to the historical teacher’s social responsibility and historical literacy. In the practical teaching, Ku advocated that teaching plan should be fully combined with the psychological characteristics of students. He paid attention to causing learning interest, provided the historical books to the students, and attached importance to activities of practice investigation outside of the classroom.Ku Chieh-kang advocated using the objective theory of historical evolution to explain history in the middle school history education, which was a great impact on the change of young students’ conception of history during the turn of the age. At the same time, he dedicated to reconstructing the national history, highlighting the rational spirit of nationalism. Ku attached importance to historical research in the use of middle school history education, fully reflecting the close relationship between academic research and discipline education. He also stressed the function of history education, with paying attention to the connection of history and reality, education and society. In the renewal of teaching concept, Ku was keenly aware of the importance of psychological cognitive level of the students on the teaching practice. It is forward-looking that he enlighten students’ historical thinking ability. Ku Chieh-kang had made important contributions to the modernization of Chinese’s middle school history education, which deserve further study and discuss.