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Teaching, Learning, and Reflective Acting: A Dewey Experiment in Chinese Teacher Education by Zhixin Su — 1996This article illustrates how Tao Xingzhi, a former student of John Dewey at Columbia University
and a most prominent figure in the modern Chinese history of education, boldly experimented
with Dewey’s philosophy in Chinese teacher education. Turning a “half somersault" of
Dewey’s theories to conform to the social and educational conditions in China in the 1920s,
Tao transformed Dewey’s “school as society" into his “society as school," Dewey’s “education as
life?into his “life as education," and Dewey’s “learning by doing" into his principle of the
“unity of teaching, learning, and reflective acting." On the basis of these principles, Tao
established the famous Morning Village Normal School in a small rural area in Nanjing,
China. The Normal School served as both a base for preparing rural teachers and a center for
village renewal: The students learned to run village schools by running village schools and
the whole village became a learning community. Although Tao’s experiment in the Morning
Village lasted only for three years due to political pressures and military intervention, his
efforts represented the most thorough and creative implementation of the Dewey philosophy in
Chinese teacher education. Widely recognized as a viable solution to problems in Chinese
teacher education and rural education and an avenue for national development and reconstruction,
the Normal School was reestablished in 1949 and has continued to serve as a
national experimental site for teacher education reform in China.
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- Zhixin Su
University of California, Los Angeles
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