In 1923, he organized the Association for the Promotion of Civilian Education and wrote the "Civilian Thousand Character Lessons" and traveled to more than a dozen provinces and cities across the country to devote himself to civilian education. He sent the "Thousand Character Lessons for the Commoners" as a teaching material to the homes of commoners, urging every family to become literate and read. Most of his activities were financed by his own fees from writing books.
On one occasion, he was paid more than 10,000 yuan in fees, which he took home and locked in a cupboard. When his sister, who was responsible for all the household chores, saw this, she asked him, "There are old and young people in the family, and there is not a lot of money, so can you keep 1/4 of it for the family?" Tao Hsing-chi thought for a moment and said gently, "I'm going to Nanjing at the foot of the Laoshan Mountain to run the Xiaozhuang Teacher Training Center, and this money is to be used as funding for the school. Though our family is poor, we can still maintain a crude meal. China's 34,000,000 peasants not only have no food to eat, but also no culture. To use this money to set up a school is to burn incense for the peasants and to do our bit to help them. You save it at home, it's kind of helping me to go and do great things!" His sister understood him and nodded silently.
In 1927, Tao set up the Xiaozhuang Teachers' Training School to carry out rural education activities.In April 1930, the Kuomintang's reactionary government closed the school by force and also wanted Tao.
In 1932, Tao Xingzhi founded the "Shanhai Industrial School", the "Morning Shift Industrial School", and the "Labor Kindergarten" in Shanghai, and continued to carry out the Chinese popular education movement. The movement continued to promote universal education in China.
In July 1939, China was in the midst of the Anti-Japanese War. Tao Xingzhi founded the Yucai School in Hechuan County, near Chongqing, Sichuan Province, for children in need. In addition to general education classes, the school offered music, drama, painting, literature, social studies, nature, dance and other classes for children with special talents, so as to cultivate talents. The school was well established and trained many specialists for the country. At that time, the political situation was tense and the economy was very difficult, in order to run the school, Tao Xingzhi often had to run around to raise funds, and his own life was also very hard.
One day in the middle of summer, a student, Gao Ying, heard that the bookstore had arrived with some good books and wanted to take a look. But he didn't know the way, so he wanted to ask Tao Xingzhi to accompany him. He came to Mr. window, the scene made him surprised: Mr. bare shoulders, face, body sweat, is writing. Gao Ying was embarrassed to tell Mr. Gao about his intention, but he did not expect Tao Xingzhi to reply quickly, "Not now." Gao Ying was disappointed, he was very strange, Mr. usually like to be with the students, but also most willing to help people, today is what happened? Tao Xingzhi seemed to see his doubts and pointed to his shirt drying outside the window and said, "I'd be happy to accompany you to the bookstore, but my shirt isn't dry yet. You can come back in an hour, okay?" Gao Ying looked at the still dripping white shirt and thought, "Sir is looking for an excuse, isn't he? He said, "Forget it," and went back unhappily.
After an hour, Tao Xingzhi came to Gao Ying wearing a white shirt that was not yet dry and smiling. Gao Ying is still lying in bed sulking it, see Mr., busy get up and go out on the street together. Later, Gao Ying still couldn't figure it out, so he went to ask the vice principal, Mr. Ma Luoxian. Mr. Ma said: "Everyone knows that Tao Xingjie is a celebrity, but who knows, he is for you children, almost to the point of exhaustion. In order to insist on running a school, he sent his coat and tweed pants to the pawnshop, in exchange for a few pennies to solve the day's food money. In the summer, he had only one decent shirt, and that wasn't unusual!" Gao Ying's eyes reddened as he listened to Mr. Ma's words, and his ears rang again with the words Mr. Tao had spoken in class: "For the sake of the toiling masses, we will do it even if we eat grass; for the sake of the suffering children, we will do it even if we ask for food!" In front of his eyes appeared Mr. Tao and his classmates drink rice together, encouraging everyone to "tighten their belts * * * to tide over the difficult times" scene, he seemed to understand: in order to run the school, Mr. give up everything.
Worship the people as teachers
Early in the run of Xiaozhuang Normal School, Tao Xingzhi put forward the theory of "life as education", "society as a school" and "teaching and doing". "He taught teachers and students to combine with the working people and "teach the people to be progressive, and worship the people as teachers".
A friend's wife came to see Tao Xingzhi, talking about her children to a newly bought gold watch dismantled, she was very angry, and severely beat the child. When Tao heard this, he shook his head and said, "Oops, you knocked off an 'Edison'." Then, he told the story of American inventor Thomas Edison, who liked to do experiments when he was a child and, after being expelled from school, gradually became an inventor under the guidance of his mother. He then personally went to his friend's house, invited the kid out, and took him to a watch repair store to see the master fix his watch. They stood beside the watch repair master, watched him take the watch apart, dipped the parts one by one in the potion, and watched him one by one loaded up, and then added oil to the machine, took more than an hour, and spent one dollar and sixty cents on the repair fee. Tao Xingzhi said with deep feeling: "the watch store is a school, watch repair master is a teacher, one dollar and 60 cents is the tuition fee, in the watch store to see more than an hour is a lesson, their own dismantled and installed, installed and dismantled is the practice. Instead of letting their children get beaten, parents should pay a little tuition and put in a little effort to cultivate their children's interest in asking questions and moving around. In this way, 'Edison' will not be beaten away and driven away."
When the Shanhai Engineering School Corps was first established, the children of farmers had a place to study, and the red temple where incense was burned became a classroom, but there were no tables or chairs for the children. In class, the students brought their own stools, both large and small, of different heights. A week later, the school invited a master carpenter, he bored to do stools, a day can do several. Tao Xingzhi came over, saw the master carpenter sweating, handed him a cup of water, said: "We are not asking you to do stools." The carpenter looked at Tao Xingzhi doubtfully, "Then what did you call me to do?"
"We are asking you to come as a 'sir'."
"I can't read." The carpenter panicked.
Tao smiled and said, "I am asking you to instruct students in carpentry. If you teach one of them, you will get a share of the wages. If you teach none of them, then even if you make all the stools, you still won't get a penny for your work." The carpenter looked embarrassed. Tao Xingzhi kindly said, "It doesn't matter, you can't read and write, we'll teach you. We don't know how to do carpentry, worship you as a gentleman. I'll be the first to learn from you." Said, Tao Xingzhi picked up a saw, aligned with the line drawn on the board, "whimpering" "whimpering" saw up.
The next day, there were carpenter's tools on the square, and the teacher brought the children to learn how to make a stool. One child muttered, "We're here to read, not to be carpenters." An adult saw the child pick up the tools, careless easily break his hand, also frowned and shook his head. At this time, Tao Xingzhi smiled and said, "I have a poem to read to you: 'There are two treasures in life, the hands and the brain. Brain without hands, soon to be defeated. If you use your hands but not your brain, you won't get enough to eat. If you can use your hands and brain, you'll be considered a great man who opens up the world.' What do you think of the writing?" The children all clapped their hands and said yes, and the adult smiled in embarrassment.
From then on, every day the children learned how to make stools, and they also became "little gentlemen," teaching the master carpenter how to read and write. three months later, one day, there were 50 children in the classroom, all sitting on stools they had made themselves. On the podium were toys and instruments such as levers and carts that the children had made themselves. Parents crowded around the windows and doors, nodding their heads in conviction. Tao Xingzhi, in front of the podium, recited a poem he had just written: "He is the carpenter, I am the gentleman. The children looked at the carpenter sitting beside them listening together and everyone laughed.
Yao Wencai was a fellow townsman of Tao Xingzhi, who asked him to teach biology at Xiaozhuang School. The first class, Tao Xingzhi let him first books to the side, to "anytime education, anywhere education, with people education". Mr. Yao had been teaching biology for more than 10 years and had never gone to class without his books, so he couldn't understand what Mr. Tao meant. In the evening, he saw Mr. Tao talking with two beggars. When Mr. Tao finished talking with the two men, he asked his students to lead them to take a bath, and then told Yao Wencai: "These are the two teachers I invited from Fuzimiao in Nanjing to teach you how to catch snakes. There are many snakes near Xiaozhuang, often biting people, so let the snake flower children come to teach everyone to catch snakes, what do you think?" Yao Wencai didn't say anything. Snake Huazi began to give biology lessons to the teachers and students of Xiaozhuang, and the classroom was located in the mountains. A few days later, the most timid girls dared to catch snakes, and they said, "Snakes are nothing to be afraid of as long as they hit the vital points!" They also learned how snakes can run fast without feet, how snakes can hear without ears, and how snakes are the nemesis of rats. Mr. Yao finally understood Mr. Tao's intention. He led the students to collect specimens; invited the old farmer who dug herbs to teach the identification of herbs; invited the florist who planted flowers and trees to teach the method of planting flowers and trees; and invited the experts of the Chinese Science Society to teach how to identify the families of organisms and determine their scientific names. The flowers, plants and trees in the neighborhood of Xiaozhuang all hung up their scientific name plates, and the biology class was lively from then on.
Tao Xingzhi, as a professor of higher education and a nationally renowned educator, did not have the slightest frame of mind, and paid attention to worshiping ordinary working people as teachers, he is the model of millions of teachers in China, and he is also the pioneer of the earliest combination of intellectuals and working people.
Thousand teachings teach people to seek the truth
Tao Xingzhi educated teachers and students with a famous saying: "Thousands of teachings teach people to seek the truth, and thousands of learning to learn to be a real person." He hoped that his students would not only progress academically, but also learn more skills, pursue truth, and become talents needed by the country.
At Yucai School, students take cultural classes every morning: language, foreign language, math and philosophy. In the afternoon, they took professional classes: literature, music, drama, etc. They also had to carry out labor, military training and social surveys, and their schedules were always full. For a while, some students got tired of such a stressful life and secretly played poker during study time. Teachers found, went up to discourage, they also said that this is "have labor have leisure". One night, Tao Hsing-chi walked past the boys' dormitory, by the way to go in to see, just in time to have seven or eight boys in the poker game, playing very energetic. Tao Xingzhi did not make a sound, stood next to look. A student suddenly found the principal Tao, hastily pushed the students next to him, a few people scrambled to put down the poker, shamefully stood up, lowered his head and waited to be criticized. Principal Tao did not say a word, and after a moment of silence, he turned and walked away.
The next day, Principal Tao told the whole school meeting about the situation of the anti-Japanese war and asked: "The anti-Japanese need talent, the future need talent to build the country, can you waste your time? You have a lot of skills to learn ah! I want you to consciously hand over the poker and burn it like opium smoke! Know that time is most precious." The children bowed their heads and placed the decks of playing cards on the stage in a pile. Principal Tao lit the cards with a match and said gently to the children again, "Some people say, 'There is labor and there is leisure,' but 'leisure' means only playing poker? You can practice the piano, write poems, paintings, also can play ball, play chess ...... only learn a little more skills, can build the country in the future. Time is precious, once gone, never return ah!" From then on, the students all cherish time and study hard.
Yucai school literature group organized dozens of wall newspaper, but also in Chongqing poetry recitals, very popular. They set up the "Durian Fire Poetry Club", President Tao specially for the poetry club inscription, the students of the literary group a little fluttering. Some of them wore shaggy hair, and some wore torn clothes, which they regarded as the style of artists. Others thought they were great, looked down on others, spoke harshly, and loved to be sarcastic. On New Year's Eve, Principal Tao called the students of the literature group together, eating melon seeds on one side, on the other side, said to them in a long-winded manner: "A man of letters should be a clean soul, noble character. Clothes are very dirty, broken also do not make up, this is a beggar, never a man of letters should look like." He also touched a male student's disheveled hair and said, "This is thatched mountain. I'm going to set a fire and call it 'setting fire to the mountain'!" Several students with long hair laughed in embarrassment. Principal Tao picked up the scissors, personally cut their hair, and patiently told them "to be serious about learning, do not be a frog in the bottom of the well," the students were convinced.
On his own children, Tao Xingzhi also strict requirements. His second son Xiaoguang did not have a formal education. 1940 summer, Xiaoguang was introduced to a radio repair factory in Chengdu to work. The factory wanted to see his academic qualifications, he could not get, so he wrote to the vice principal of Yucai School, asking him to send a certificate of graduation from Xiaozhuang School. The certificate had just arrived when Tao Xingzhi's urgent telegram arrived, sternly preventing the use of this certificate and asking Xiaoguang to send it back immediately. Then, another fast letter, the letter said: "We must adhere to the 'would rather be a real white man, not to be a fake showman' advocate ...... In short, 'the pursuit of truth to be a real man ', there must not be the slightest compromise. If you remember these seven words, you will be useful for the rest of your life." Afterward, "the pursuit of truth to be a real person" seven words, has become Xiaoguang's motto.
On July 25, 1946, Tao died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He devoted his life to "searching for the dawn of education in China" and devoted his whole body and mind to the cause of education in the motherland. Mao Zedong wrote an elegy for him: "Mourning the great people's educator. Mr. Tao Xingzhi for the ages!" Song Qingling's elegy reads, "Teacher of all ages." Zhou Enlai's words represent the voices of millions of revolutionary teachers and students: "Go in peace, Mr. Tao, you have done right by the nation and by the people. Your unfinished business will be persisted in and carried out by your friends, by your successors. You rest assured to go!"