Necessary legal literacy has become the basic requirement for modern citizens, especially young college students to stand on the society. However, a steady stream of cases in which college students frequently violate the law and commit crimes in practice tell us that the annual "legal education" course has not made students really understand the law, and the traditional legal education model has come to an end. In view of this, this paper intends to explore the rational reform of law education in colleges and universities in China from the perspective of pedagogy and sociology of law.
Keywords:: college students' legal literacy law education reform
one
From a sociological point of view, China is being integrated into a society ruled by law. For anyone in the future society, it is impossible to survive without laws. With the establishment of the socialist market economic system and China's accession to the WTO, all market players must follow unified rules or systems. In this highly regulated society, "legal means" will be more and more widely used in our real social relations. This means that from personal daily life behavior to the creation of great achievements, it is inseparable from certain legal knowledge or legal skills. When we judge the horizon of practice with the attitude of considering development and caring for life, we will naturally find that the necessary legal literacy has become an indispensable basic element for modern citizens, especially young students, to stand on the society.
What is legal literacy? In short, it refers to the ability or quality to understand and apply the law. A person's legal literacy is manifested in his skills of mastering and applying legal knowledge and his legal consciousness. Legal knowledge mainly consists of two parts, one is the knowledge about the rules in written law, which is the so-called legal provisions system; The second is the knowledge about principles in law, that is, the so-called jurisprudence or legal theory. To learn and understand the law in a general sense means to be familiar with some basic legal provisions and master some universally applicable legal principles. Legal consciousness is a form of social consciousness, "it is the sum total of people's legal views and legal feelings, including their views on the essence and function of law, their requirements and attitudes towards the current law, their evaluation and interpretation of the law, their understanding of their rights and obligations, their evaluation of whether a certain behavior is legal, their understanding of legal phenomena and their legal concepts." [1] Good citizens' legal awareness can drive citizens to actively abide by the law. Only when citizens have good legal consciousness can law-abiding be transformed from the external coercion of state power into citizens' recognition of legal authority and the value elements contained in the law, so as to strictly exercise their rights and fulfill their due obligations according to law; Will fully respect the legitimate and reasonable rights and freedoms of others; Will actively seek legal ways to resolve disputes and disputes, and consciously use legal weapons to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests; Will take the initiative to resist acts that undermine public order. In addition, good citizens' legal consciousness can drive citizens to obey the law rationally and realize the goal of rule of law. Rational law-abiding comes from rational legal emotion and rational legal cognition based on legal ideas. Legal consciousness is generally formed by the integration of legal psychology, legal concept, legal theory and legal belief, among which legal belief is the highest level of legal consciousness and the core of legal education for college students.
The so-called legal belief is people's infinite belief and worship of the law, and it is the highest criterion of behavior. "The formation of public legal beliefs is very important and is a key element of the rule of law in a country. Because of this, Pahlman's wise saying "the law must be believed, otherwise it is useless" will be widely circulated and become the principle of truth believed by all those who advocate the rule of law. [2] "Legal belief is people's recognition and obedience to the law, and its essence is the pursuit of legal supremacy and legal rule. Only by believing in the law can we abide by it. As a symbol of fairness and justice, obeying the law is only the external expression of legal belief, and the spirit of obeying the law is the soul of legal belief. The spirit of abiding by the law requires the subject not only to abide by the law, but more importantly, to internalize it as a moral responsibility and obligation, to change compulsory law-abiding into voluntary law-abiding, to change compulsory law-abiding into conscious law-abiding and to change heteronomy into self-discipline.
Throughout the development history of human society, the more democratic and orderly the society, the stronger the citizens' respect and demand for the law in this social scene. The reason why these citizens pursue the supremacy of law (rules) is because they are used to trusting legal rules; More importantly, they have the conditions to ensure the maximization of their rights and the concretization of government power control through legal rules. This is because "the rule of law is a universal, stable and clear social norm, and it is a kind of public authority, not personality authority, privilege majesty and affection. When the development of society is adjusted to a higher level, it can automatically eliminate or resist the infringement of contingency, arbitrariness and privilege, so that the society can form a highly stable and orderly order and state in a strictly standardized and institutionalized benign movement; Secondly, in terms of people's living arrangements, legal rules need a tacit understanding between individuals, between individuals and governments and organizations, and a self-regulating mechanism is needed. This kind of "tacit understanding" and "adjustment mechanism" can promote the high harmony of human life, protect human freedom and dignity to the maximum extent, give people absolute power, and design a free and caring life mode regardless of class and country. [3] Therefore, to improve the overall legal literacy of a country's citizens, we should start from two aspects: one is to impart legal knowledge to citizens and cultivate their legal awareness and even legal beliefs; The second is to vigorously promote the process of social democratization and rule of law.
two
Undoubtedly, as an education-oriented institution of higher learning, it is its unshirkable responsibility to lead and rapidly improve the legal literacy of young students, participate in the process of social modernization and shape "modern talents". However, in recent years, the crime data of college students has been rising frequently, which tells us that the campus is not calm and the legal literacy of college students is still very poor. Comrade Wu Yunnan of Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Justice made a survey of 49 ordinary colleges and universities in Guangdong Province, and the results were shocking. According to 198 1- 1998, there are 626 students in these 49 colleges and universities who violate the law and commit crimes, accounting for about two-thirds of the total number of students in the same period. On the afternoon of April 3, 2003, two civil servants from the Personnel and Labor Security Bureau of Xiuzhou District, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province were assassinated in the office. The police confirmed that the suspect was 22 years old on Monday and was a fresh graduate of the Department of Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University. It turned out that he passed the written test and interview in the open recruitment of civil servants in the district, but failed the physical examination and was not hired. Because of pessimism, I had the idea of revenge, so I was very angry with the recruiters in the personnel department, which eventually led to murder. On March 28th, 2003, the first college student crime prevention center was established in Pukou District Procuratorate of Nanjing, and Nanjing 10 universities such as Nanjing University and Southeast University became the first members of the center. The reason why this "Center for the Prevention of College Students' Crime" was established is that through investigation and analysis, it was found that the crime rate of college students in this area increased by 300% compared with the previous year in 200 1 year, and increased by 120% compared with 200 1 year in 2002. At the same time, it was concluded that most college students committed crimes because they didn't know the law. [4]
Faced with these shocking data of college students' crimes, a more appropriate explanation is that the current "legal education" course in schools has not really made students understand the law. As Liu Haiyang (a student in Tsinghua University), the party involved in the case of "sulfuric acid hurting a bear", said: "We studied the Basic Law as a freshman, and studied civil law and criminal law, but I only know that it is illegal to hunt wild animals, and I don't know whether it is illegal to burn animals with reagents in the zoo ..." [5] From this heart, we may get more enlightenment than the "incident" itself and universities in China. It is also based on the recent worries and long-term concerns about various practical major issues that the author will further talk about the ideological accumulation of the rational reform of "legal education" recently formed.
First of all, we should change the cognitive orientation of law education.
According to the spirit and practice of China's official documents, "legal education" in schools is subordinate to "moral education" and has no independent status. It is unreasonable to understand and position that "legal education" is inferior to "moral education". This not only makes it difficult to realize the educational nature of legal education, but also makes "legal education" buried. It is precisely because of this unreasonable understanding that for a long time, in colleges and universities of all sizes, it has been difficult to see independent law teaching and research offices, and it has been replaced by the same moral education teaching and research offices. Therefore, it is difficult to carry out legal education.
Moral education and legal education belong to the category of social value education, and they are both different and related. As far as contact is concerned, their purpose is the same, and they are all to cultivate "qualified citizens" who meet the needs of society. Differentially speaking, moral education focuses on purifying people's inner world, while legal education focuses on regulating people's external behavior. We say that improving people's quality should be shaped from two aspects: thought and behavior, which is conducive to the combination of legal education and moral education, but there is no question that legal education is subordinate to moral education or moral education is subordinate to legal education. Therefore, the educational game of legal education needs to construct a legal education arrangement with complete system and independent status.
Second, optimize the teaching staff of law education.
Law education is a comprehensive education that integrates politics, theory, knowledge and practice. Not only should we have clear objectives, standardized contents and relatively stable educational channels, but we should also have a team of law teachers who have undergone formal training and have a certain theoretical level and practical experience. Nowadays, many so-called "law teachers" are "half-way monks", even political cadres who have not received legal education. It is conceivable that the "apprentice" who is "baked" in this case will have much legal literacy.
Law teachers in colleges and universities should not only be familiar with the laws of school education and the growth of young students, but also have systematic knowledge of law subjects and high legal quality. Different schools should, according to their own conditions, set up a full-time teacher team with ability and considerable level through full-time, part-time and employment, and at the same time hire some part-time teachers who have been engaged in judicial practice or legal education for a long time as a supplement to form an authentic and high-quality legal education teacher team.
Third, adjust the content of legal education.
The "legal education" in colleges and universities is to cultivate college students' legal consciousness (legal belief) and legal knowledge (legal skills), which mainly includes the education of basic legal theory, basic legal knowledge and legal concepts. Through legal theory education, students can master the basic viewpoints of Marxist law and establish legal authority ideologically; It is necessary to explain and introduce the constitution, so that students can understand that the constitution is the product of a democratic system, help students establish a correct view of rights and obligations, and establish a sense of national ownership; Combined with different majors, some departmental laws are selectively introduced to students, so as to cultivate students' knowledge, skills and awareness of obeying the law, protecting the law and applying the law.
At present, all different types of colleges and universities are forced to offer "legal basis" courses to cope with "legal education". Because of the lack of class hours and various contents, professors are like skimming the water and eager for success, and can only simply list and accumulate a series of knowledge; Learners, often tired of coping, rote learning, coping with customs, teachers and students are miserable. This obviously violates the real purpose of "legal education". In the content selection of legal education, it is more appropriate for different types of schools to offer legal education courses at different levels. According to the types of schools, majors and key needs of each school, besides popularizing laws such as Constitution, Criminal Law and Civil Law, some legal courses related to each school's majors (industries) and connected with various students' recipients are also offered, so that "legal education" can be close to college students' lives and integrated into their internal needs.
Fourth, strengthen the implementation of legal education.
Law education in colleges and universities should first follow the unique laws of law education. Legal education is the education of "understanding" norms, "accepting" norms and "digesting" norms, and it is the education of cultivating the spirit of consciously and voluntarily obeying the law and shaping modern concepts of rule of law such as democracy, justice, efficiency and fairness. In fact, it is very difficult to rely on the traditional boring "classroom preaching". It is more suitable for students to feel why and how to abide by these norms in vivid and intuitive practical activities. Law is a very practical subject. Without legal practice, it is impossible to learn law well. Therefore, we should imitate the "practical law education model" of common law countries. For example, using heuristic teaching to make students become the main body of the course, encouraging students to get the best answer through their own thinking and analysis, teachers constantly asking questions, guiding students to discover the relationship between relevant legal norms, factual materials and various factors, and guiding students to think with their brains, so that the knowledge they master will be more solid and in-depth; For example, role-playing and simulation cases are used to analyze and discuss real or simulation cases in class, so that more students can learn useful knowledge through observation, comment, role change and debate. Its advantage is that more students can participate in case analysis, and it is easy to identify, screen and produce the best scheme from various cooperative schemes. This method can not only make the case analysis in class more profound and practical, but also make the relationship between students and between students and teachers more harmonious. Teachers are no longer simple educators and main case providers, but equal case participants and students' helpers. Another example is to break the boundaries between classes, separate books from reality, open up a second class teaching, visit prisons regularly, and attend the trial activities of criminal, civil, economic and administrative cases, so that students can consciously obtain value judgments in face-to-face experience and fact analysis, thus subtly influencing students to form attitudes towards others and methods to deal with related problems, and so on.
In addition, the conscious cultivation of legal consciousness and the mastery of legal skills can not be achieved by learning a basic legal course, nor can it be achieved by giving a course to some people in a certain grade. The legal education of college students should run through the whole study period, and different grades should have different tasks and priorities. Of course, this should follow the general law of school education. It is impossible for universities to offer legal courses for several years in a row. Instead, we should make full use of the campus, a specific cultural communication space, and give full play to the role and function of relevant professional courses in legal education, so that students can receive systematic legal education in the process of learning cultural knowledge. In fact, the organic combination of professional education and legal education is more conducive to students' internalization of legal knowledge closely related to professional knowledge, so that it can be really used in students' study and future work, thus increasing the effectiveness of students' study of law.