On The Integration Of Chinese Classical Poems Into Junior High School Physics Teaching

As the most beautiful as well as the most important literary genre in ancient Chinese history,Chinese classical poems are a bright pearl of Chinese civilization, which not only represents a great ancientartistic peak, but also conveys endlessly the unique humanistic spirit and wisdom of our Chinese people.Despite the short form of poems, their content is abundant;“be a miser with words”, they imply a verybroad conception. Their contents are derived from the author’s profound observation of and deep insightsinto life. According to the junior high school physics curriculum standards, it is required that theconstruction of the physics course be based on students’ real life. Similarly, poems are a highly condensedsummary of the phenomena happening in the author’s real life. Although the author is always unconsciousabout the physical knowledge implies in his/her poems, a picture of physical environment is vividlydepicted by him/her. So many questions on the examination papers of The Entrance Examination intoJunior High School and numerous exercises are compiled to examine physical knowledge in poems, whichaccelerates the progress of poems’ integration into the physics class. From the perspective of literary,classical Chinese poems are the essence of our excellent traditional culture. Bearing the unique culturalcharacteristics of the Chinese people, poems are full of humanistic and aesthetic value. As to the promotionof the development and prosperity of socialist culture, President Hu Jintao expressed the following opinionson the report of the17th Congress of CPC: In the present era, culture has increasingly become an importantsource of national cohesion and creativity, and an important factor in the competition of comprehensivenational strength. Traditional Chinese culture is the spiritual foundation to improve the country’s soft power. The aesthetic factors of poems, whose impacts are even more far-reaching and extensive than those of theintellectual factors, are essential for a student’ growth as a complete person. Thus, to meet the requirementsof both the curriculum of physics and students’ self-development, it is necessary that poems be integratedinto junior high school physics class and, on the basis of psychological characteristics and cognitive levelsof students in this age group, two of them be combined and harmoniously unified, and then it will be seenthat the rational beauty of the physical sciences will not conflict with the emotional beauty reflected inpoems any longer, that the physics class will be full of interest and humanity, and that students will have anew understanding and experience of physical beauty.However, according to the results of both teachers’ and students’ questionnaires, the status of theintegration of poems into junior high school physics class is not so satisfactory. In the aspects of teachers’personal sense and professionalism and students’ mastery of physical poems many problems are exposed,among which there are two main problems: one is that teacher, as a preacher, does not clearly recognize thesubtle and powerful role of the introduction of poems in promoting mental factors and non-intellectualfactors of student learning activities. Students’ power of observation, memory, thinking ability, imagination,attention, and operating activity, as well as their interest, motivation, emotion, will power, character cannotbe completely separated from others and exist independently. On the contrary, they are so closely related toone another that any change will affect the whole. The use of classical poems in physics teaching wouldimprove the factors mentioned above to varying degrees so to help improve the quality of students’learning of physics. The other problem arises from the lack of rich sample poems which couldsystematically explain the theories of physics, so teachers have no adequate reference for the teaching ofphysics. Given that teachers are willing to apply poems in the teaching of physics, but they are not offerednecessary materials. Furthermore, teachers are forced by teaching loads and the heavy pressure coming from the rate of admission into higher schools, so they do not have any more strengths and energy to studypoems. All in all, due to these reasons, this novel and peculiar means of teaching is not widely applied. Thispaper would give a detailed description of the causes and the consequences of the integration of classicalpoems into physics teaching. A brief summary of poems that involves the knowledge about sound, light,heat, reference substance etc. in physics of the junior high school level. A teaching case which integratespoems into physics class has also been designed in this paper.Although the integration of poems into physics teaching can only be applied to a relativelynarrow range rather than cover all the scientific and technological achievements of modern society,teaching methods should not be fixed. Any practice should be preceded by the awareness, so new teachingideas should be accepted and new teaching methods should be encouraged. Any method favorable tostudents’ learning and growth, as long as timely and properly used, is worthy of our educators’ unremittingprogress and efforts, even if it only helps students have a little bit of progress and harvest.