How did Chinese develop?

Chinese teaching in the 20th century was independent from the comprehensive and encyclopedic education in ancient times, and its symbol was "language specialization". The history of modern education in China is a process of transformation and development from traditional encyclopedic education to "language specialization" education. In this process, "knowledge" is an important part and the internal driving force of change. There is also language teaching in traditional Chinese teaching, but all of them are "book-based" and "hearing clearly and inexpressibly", and the efficiency is extremely low. China's first grammar book, Ma Shi Wen Tong, was written by the author, who felt pain for "being a scholar" and "loving me all the time", but just "letting nature take its course without seeking reason". Therefore, it took more than ten years of hard work to complete this book, hoping that "later generations can learn from it". It can be said that Ma Jianzhong's Ma Shi Wen Tong is the forerunner of "knowledge" in Chinese teaching in China. At the beginning of last century, language knowledge teaching including phonetic symbols, punctuation marks, Chinese strokes, rhetoric and grammar began to appear in Chinese classes in primary and secondary schools. In 1930s and 1940s, with the efforts of a large number of modern linguists and Chinese educators, a large number of Chinese knowledge such as pronunciation, reading, calligraphy, exercises and affixes began to appear in Chinese textbooks for primary and secondary schools, the most prominent of which should be Hundred Chinese Courses edited by He Ye. This textbook takes Chinese knowledge as the classics and selected works as the latitude. It is the first mature Chinese textbook systematically constructed under the guidance of epistemology in the history of modern Chinese education in China.

There is no doubt that "knowledge" is a sign of progress in the history of Chinese education in primary and secondary schools in China. Its progressive significance lies in: First, it has replaced "Confucian classics education" as the main body of Chinese teaching, and to a great extent, it has realized the course of "language specialization" in Chinese education and completed the transformation from ancient Chinese education to modern Chinese education. Secondly, it makes Chinese teaching get rid of the "unspeakable" backward situation, greatly improves the teaching efficiency and realizes the upgrade of Chinese teaching paradigm. Generally speaking, the "knowledge" of modern education in China conforms to the development trend of modern science and society. In fact, it is the product of the development of modern science and social trends.

However, compared with other subjects, Chinese teaching in middle schools has its particularity in knowledge. On the one hand, "Chinese knowledge" is an important content of Chinese curriculum, and "knowledge" is the basic guarantee to improve the efficiency of Chinese teaching. Therefore, it can be said with certainty that it is a retrogression of Chinese teaching to return to the teaching state of "Confucian classics" and "divine knowledge". On the other hand, it is also certain that Chinese class is not a knowledge class. In other words, Chinese course is not a course aimed at systematically mastering one or several subjects. The basic task of Chinese teaching is to "cultivate students' ability to correctly understand and use the language and characters of the motherland", which seems to have become common sense. However, many people equate this sentence with "mastering language knowledge", or although it is not equivalent, they think that the transition from "mastering language knowledge" to "forming language ability" is automatic and natural. In fact, the core of "understanding and using the language of the motherland" is "pragmatic method" and "speech experience", not "language knowledge." Language knowledge tells us "what language is", but the fundamental goal of Chinese teaching in middle schools is not to train people who speak language, but to train people who use language. Only "pragmatic method" and "speech experience" can give middle school students the ability to correctly understand and use the Chinese language and comprehensive cultural literacy with "Chinese ability" as the core.

The complexity of knowledge in middle school Chinese teaching makes modern Chinese education go through a tortuous road. I once outlined two clues of modern Chinese teaching in an article. One clue is the development process from Confucian classics education to language education, and the other is the development process from language element (knowledge) education to language function (pragmatics) education. The former is marked by "knowledge", while the latter is marked by "knowledge dilution". This tendency of "diluting knowledge" first appeared in the discussion of "diluting grammar teaching" in the 1980s (the basic view is that the existing grammar knowledge does not reflect the reality of Chinese, and it is useless to learn it); It reached its climax in the criticism of "knowledge-centered theory" in the 1990s (its basic position is that Chinese class is not a knowledge class at all); In the educational discussion in China at the turn of the century, "knowledge" has become the target of public criticism (this criticism is mainly aimed at the absolutization and formalization of knowledge itself). In the new ideological trend of Chinese education represented by the new curriculum standard, "knowledge" is completely banished (its main theoretical expressions are "it is not appropriate to deliberately pursue the systematization and integrity of Chinese knowledge", "it is unnecessary to conduct systematic and centralized teaching of grammar and rhetoric knowledge" and "grammar and rhetoric knowledge is not taken as the examination content").

But the problem is that this "anti-knowledge" position has a specific historical background and historical premise, that is, "anti-knowledge" is justified and established for "such knowledge" and "such knowledge teaching". It pays more attention to the imperfection of knowledge itself and the mental retardation of knowledge teaching methods, but does not look at the knowledge problem comprehensively from the perspective of "curriculum theory" and "teaching theory". A very simple thinking is that "such knowledge" is not good, and our Chinese teaching is not good at dealing with knowledge, so our most appropriate choices should be "changing knowledge" and "changing this way". Obviously, questioning the knowledge system itself and criticizing the teaching method of knowledge does not necessarily lead to the proposition that "Chinese class does not need knowledge" and "Chinese class does not need knowledge", and the specific connotation of "anti-knowledge" does not necessarily lead to "knowledge removal". A more fundamental and important question is whether knowledge is needed in Chinese class. This formulation of the problem enlightens us that we need a broader theoretical vision than "such knowledge is not good" and "such knowledge teaching method is not good"; We need a deeper epistemological position.