So, what elective courses should be offered in high school? In the vast sea of ancient texts, which treatises are the most valuable and worth reading? This is a matter of divergent views, no need to be conclusive. However, it is not difficult to find that when the short and concise "Analects of Confucius", the subtle Tang and Song poems, the encyclopedic "Dream of Red Mansions" and so on have become the first choice of students and teachers, but the "Records of the Grand Historian", which has been praised as "the last song of the historians, the unhypnotic leavings of a riot", is often abandoned in the corner of the mind. In fact, the "Historical Records" should be read, read what, how to read, such a problem in the new educational background had to be mentioned on the agenda.
Perhaps we should change a vision to re-examine this work more than two thousand years ago.
"The sync of the six scriptures and biographies, and the integration of a hundred different languages" of the "Historical Records", pre-Qin and early Han Dynasty culture, "Shangshu", "Guoyu", "Spring and Autumn Anniversary", "Zuozhuan", "State Policy", "Analects", "Mencius", "Zhuangzi", "Xunzi" and other pre-Qin canonical works, can be found in the shadow of it. For example, almost all of the 10,000 words of the Analects of Confucius were quoted by Sima Qian. In this sense, the Records of the Grand Historian is a library of the pre-Qin period, which records in detail the political, economic, military, legal, medical, astronomical and other achievements of that time, a glimpse of the whole picture. Compared with the pre-Qin works, it has many advantages in form. First of all, the superficiality of the language. Sima Qian combined the written language with the vivid spoken language of the Han Dynasty, creating a new language style that is fresh, simple, shallow, colloquial, and easier for today's high school students to understand and accept. Secondly, the plot is peculiar. Yuan Mei, a Qing scholar, said, "When Shi Qian narrated a story, he knew that it was not accurate, but coveted the novelty of what he had heard in order to help his own article, so he ordered the whole story in the language of fantasy, so that people could get the meaning of it outside the words, and the readers of the history should not be unaware of it." ("Suyuan Suibi") nature "love strange" Sima Qian in the narrative history, still do not forget to write on the absurdity of a stroke. According to the record of "The Family of the Five Sectors", Liu Rong, the king of Linjiang, was murdered by his father, Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty, and "Liu Rong was buried in Lantian, and tens of thousands of swallows were placed on the mound with earth". There are many other stories in the Records of the Grand Historian that are similarly romanticized, such as the Siege of Gaixia and the Orphan of Zhao, all of which are so wonderful that they have been passed down as beautiful stories. Among the twenty-four histories, "The Records of the Grand Historian" is the most literary one, which is more like a collection of historical stories and novels, whose plot twists and turns and vividness coincide with students' aesthetic interests. Finally, the relative independence of style. The Historical Records of one hundred and thirty articles is a unified whole, the chronicle, table, book, family, biography, five bodies for each other, through the whole book. But at the same time, each of them is relatively independent, with distinctive characters and complete storylines. It is like a short story with twists and turns in the plot, but also like an intriguing and exquisite poem, from which the reader can choose one to read at will, and is not subject to the limitations of the context. This is undoubtedly one of the best forms of reading for middle school students who do not have enough time to read. In addition, the tragic and lyrical nature of the Historical Records is also in line with the characteristics of the thinking of high school students, and can easily arouse their ****songs. Even though we can not refuse "Poetry and Classic", "Analects", "Mencius", "Dream of the Red Chamber" and other excellent classical works, they are also the carrier of the Chinese culture and spirit, but today the reason why we have to be alone in the "Historical Records", but with the physical and mental development of the law of the students, the current situation of the current reading, our educational philosophy and so on are inseparable.
Of course, not every one of the 130 articles in the "Records of the Grand Historian" is suitable for high school students to read. There are two kinds of reading, one is non-utilitarian, for the purpose of pleasing oneself and cultivating one's temperament; while the other is reading with research, which is something that experts and scholars consider. We offer an elective course to read the "Records of the Grand Historian", not just for some kind of intellectual acquisition, not to memorize a few tedious historical events and figures, but to appreciate the experience and draw a kind of spiritual nourishment from it. When children face difficulties in the future, they can obtain a kind of strength from the humiliation of Sima Qian, which is the ultimate goal of our education. Let the students get acquainted with such spiritual masters from childhood and communicate with them to master a way of being, learning and seeing the world, which is something that will benefit them for life. Along this line of thought, the five body in the book, table can be put aside for the time being, the other 112 biographies, you can arbitrarily select a slowly taste, or pick their own interest in the deeds of historical figures to get a glimpse of, in short, not confined to one style, depending on the person.
Next is how to read, that is, how to teach the problem. Looking back at our past teaching of the literary language, we strung together word by word and sentence by sentence, dismembering the literary work into a real word, an imaginary word and a string of special sentences. As a result, wonderful chapters such as "The Hongmen Banquet" were broken down paragraph by paragraph and strung together, losing its soul and moving away from the essence of reading. Literature is humanistic, and the purpose of literary education is to improve students' quality of life and their sense of life, which can also be said to be the purpose of offering an elective course on the Historical Records. Specifically, one of them is to recognize life. A book called "The Records of the Grand Historian" records more than 4,000 characters, of which more than 100 are depicted in a focused manner, ranging from emperors, generals, and royal relatives to merchants, commoners, women, and advocates. A person is a book. From these typical characters with distinctive personalities, we can read a lot of things. Bo Yi, Shuo Qi's Jie Ren Jie line, Qu Yuan's martyrdom, Gou Jie's lying down, cruel Lu Hou, cunning Liu Bang, flattering Shusun Tong, Gongsun Hong ...... which human nature of the good and evil beauty and ugliness are worthy of our deepest thought, it teaches us how to be a man, how to deal with the world. Secondly, recognize the society. "Learn from history, you can know the rise and fall." Today, we remember history, more importantly, to be from "don't suspect, clear right and wrong, determine hesitation, good good and evil evil, virtuous and inferior", to establish their own values. Huangdi Tangwu so the rise, Jie Zhou two so the collapse of the rule of the world; the full of a world of Qin Shi Huang's dying and abalone for the company's tragic scene ...... history is always amazingly similar, the "Records of the Grand Historian" not only for us to show from the Yellow Emperor to the Han Emperor Wu Di this more than 3,000 years of the historical arena, but also our understanding of today's society, a small window, which is still quite important to us to rule people and countries today. It is also a small window into today's society, and it still has a lot to teach us about how to rule people and the country today. Thirdly, to master a little bit of the method of reading and learning. The completion of the Records of the Grand Historian was a product of the times, but at the same time it was inseparable from Sima Qian's personal efforts. When Sima Qian was ten years old, he was able to read Zuo Zhuan, Guoyu, Shiben, and other ancient texts, and was later trained by Dong Zhongshu, a master of the Modern Literature School, and Kong Anguo, a master of the Ancient Literature School. Through his studies, Sima Qian acquired a wealth of historical and humanistic knowledge, and became a great scholar with a good understanding of the ancient and modern worlds. After the age of twenty, Sima Qian left his hometown and traveled around the country for more than ten years, covering the north and south of the Yangtze River. This is not a pure pleasure trip, but to visit historical and cultural sites, collect historical data for the purpose of academic field work. Everywhere he went, he carefully and meticulously to the local people to understand the situation, fieldwork, to ensure the authenticity of his writings. "Reading ten thousand volumes of books and traveling a thousand miles" is a true reflection of Sima Qian's academic work, and these two points are especially important for today's high school students.
The study of these three points can not be exhausted by a few intensive lectures on real and imaginary words, nor can a few texts and a few optional lessons. The sense of life, the reading of the classics, and the pursuit of the free spirit is a lifelong endeavor. "All history is modern history", Sima Qian became a family man, in order to let future generations take warning, to understand good and evil, and to recognize right and wrong. Similarly, we read history today, not for the test, not to decorate their facade, but from the master to draw spiritual nourishment, access to how to live, how to die eternal things.
Of course, there is no definite way to teach, the key is to have such a concept in mind. The teaching implementations described below are just some preliminary ideas.
Mengzi said, "Ode its poetry, read its books, do not know its people can? It is to discuss his world." ("Mencius - Wan Zhang") Understanding the life of Sima Qian, and the general social environment in which he lived, this should be the first step to let students into the "Historical Records". However, there are too many dazzling halos hanging over Sima Qian's head, "world cultural celebrity", "great historian, literary scholar, thinker", such titles can only make people feel in awe and refuse to go beyond a thousand miles. How to restore Sima Qian as an ordinary person with flesh and blood, this is the direction of our efforts. Knowing people is still only the initial stage of reading the classics. In addition, we can read the Historical Records in the form of topics by starting from the areas that students are most interested in, such as Sima Qian and traveling, etc. Each week, we set up a topic to guide students to read the classics. Each week set a topic, guide students with the library, the network and other channels, *** with the exploration, *** with the completion. Or invite experts and scholars of the Historical Records in the form of lectures and seminars to come to teach and exchange ideas. In short, we have to make full use of all kinds of resources to stimulate students' desire for knowledge and arouse their active exploration of knowledge. On the basis of the preliminary reading of the Historical Records, we then interpret the Historical Records from the perspectives of linguistics, literature and philosophy, from sensibility to rationality, from the surface to the inside, through the lines, to capture the level of its spiritual core, and to excavate Sima Qian's outlook on life, history, literature, etc. The Historical Records is the most important book in the history of Sima Qian's life, history and literature. The Records of the Grand Historian is Sima Qian's "writing from the heart" ("Outline of the History of Chinese Literature"), which is the author's emotional outburst, and we should be full of emotion to interpret such a work. The elective course is to provide students with such a platform, giving them an opportunity to communicate and dialog. Between classmates, between students and teachers, between readers and authors, works of multiple dialogues, multiple collision and exchange of ideas. The teacher's function is not only to impart knowledge, but also to shape the soul and open up the students' spiritual home in the interactive exchange. Such a "History" elective party is full of interest, is full of vitality.
The famous German cultural educator Spranger once said, "The ultimate goal of education is not to teach what already exists, but to induce the creative power of man, the sense of life, the sense of value 'wake up'." The purpose of offering an elective course on the Historical Records is also being to open students' minds, awaken their deepest emotions, and teach them to learn to learn and to survive. Of course, the reading of classics can not be completed in one or two semesters of electives, this is a lifelong project. Although the above idea is still just a momentary dream, but I firmly believe that things are people, the new standard, the new curriculum, the new language, need to pay a new educational practice.