Democratic Education:From John Dewey To Tao Xingzhi

Since the May Fourth Movement,democratic education thoughts from John Dewey has had a far-reaching and lasting impact on the reform of Chinese education theory and practice.In the past one hundred years,academic researches on education theories of Dewey or Tao Xingzhi have yielded rich research results.However,the research on the inheritance and development of the relationship between democratic education theory and practice of Dewey and Tao is relatively weak.The previous studies on Tao and Dewey's educational thoughts generally adopted the "life education",as an approach to construct Tao "reforming" Dewey's education theory,and lacked theoretical connection to their educational practice.This study focuses on reviewing the relationship between inheritance and development of education theory and practice from the perspective of the "democratic education",and reconstructing the academic connection between Dewey and Tao.In terms of research methods,the paper uses comparative analysis method to compare and analyze the similarities and differences in the theoretical and practical content of their democratic education.At the same time,the paper uses historical research methods to collates,and analyzes the letters,diaries,speeches,and other historical materials from some important figures,presenting their interpersonal relationship as teacher and student and academic contacts in chronological order.In the research content,the first chapter mainly reviews the research status of this topic in China and at abroad,and finds problems that can be further explored as the starting point of this study;Chapter 2 mainly expounds the reasons why Tao chose Dewey and his democratic education to learn from it,and focused on the common democratic society and education ideals of Dewey and Tao,as well as the interpersonal relationship and academic contacts between them,which laid the foundation for Tao studying and developing Dewey's democratic education.Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the contents of Tao studying and developing Dewey's democratic education theory and practice,taking into consideration the factors such as the social environment and conditions of education development in which the two are living,and explained how Tao's "Life as Education","Society as School","Combination of Teaching,Learning and Practice" theory and its practical activities under guidance,learned from and developed Dewey's theory and practice of "Education as Life","School as Society",and "Learning by Doing".The study found that:(1)What Tao considered in selecting Dewey's democratic education was “Chinese issue”,so that the entire process of studying and development was deeply rooted in the “Chinese soil”;(2)The process of Tao learning from and developing Dewey's democratic education reflects a strong preference to practice,which means the entire process is totally in practice,by practice,and for practice,which will be impressed as "valuing practice and slighting theory" in the process of inheriting and developing Dewey's democratic education.But Tao's spirit to reform theory and practice based on local conditions,to a certain extent,avoids traditional disadvantages like “blind obedience” or “just having the armchair talking”.It is still a classic model for how scholars learn from western education theory and practice currently.