Dewey To The Student-centered Moral Education The Main Concept Study

John Dewey (1859-1952), the well-known American philosopher and educator, a founder of the philosophy of pragmatism, and the representative of educational campaign of progressivism in US. Dewey's theory of moral education is derived from American social transition, namely from a traditional society to industrialization, urbanization and modernization, aiming to explore the moral philosophy and effective measures which comply with the new demands of social development. From the philosophical viewpoints of pragmatism and empiricism, he proposes a students-centered moral education concept of subject on the basis of the criticism and inheritance and dialectic comprehension of the previous doctrines of moral education, which provides a new direction for the development of school moral education theory in the future. As China is in the transitional period from a traditional society to modern one, we believe that it plays an important role in answering and solving the problems in the current moral education and it will do some good to the implement of the people-centered scientific concept of development in school moral education field, and the reform and improvement of our school moral education system by applying the Marxist scientific world outlook and methodology to analyze and do some research on Dewey's student-centered moral principal concept, and therefore, it deserves our in-depth and systematic study towards this topic.This paper is divided into four parts:Part I mainly introduces the reasons why we choose this topic, and its theoretical and practical significances, and then briefly discusses the development of Dewey's concept of subject in moral education and the main work of this paper.Part II explores the producing process of Dewey's students-centered concept of subject in moral education from social background, sources of information and practical bases.Part III analyzes the basic content of Dewey's students-centered concept of subject in moral education from Dewey's discussions towards the basic concepts, basic theories, basic principles and ways of moral education, and makes a brief analysis and evaluation on the progress and limitations of Dewey's students-centered concept of subject in moral education.Part IV: Regarding Dewey's students-centered concept of subject in moral education, the author put forwards his thoughts and suggestions towards the promotion of schools' moral education reform and perfection. We claim that schools' moral education in the new era should insist on "people-oriented" moral concept and actively promote students-centered concept of subject in moral education, and treat the social life practices as the starting point and destination of the current schools' moral education theories, and create the moral models and expand moral education channels, and the establish of a new type of equal democratic and harmonious relationship between teachers and students and realize the unification of moral education and knowledge, and promote the harmonious development of the students.