On the Historical Characteristics of Chinese Educational Culture: Discussions on Fundamental Theoretical Issues of Education

This article presents an academic dialogue on the fundamental theoretical issues of education, highlighting the historical characteristics of Chinese educational culture through comparison with the West. The original meaning of "education" is to make people good, which can be traced back to the ancient Chinese word "jiao", pronounced jiào. Since ancient times, making people good has always been regarded as a secular affair in China, and education was once an unique undertaking of our country. In the West, there has always been a tradition of entrusting the mission of making people good to religion, and it was in only modern times that secular education and the concept "education" was constructed. The western Pädagogik, however, which focuses on Bildung and Unterricht, impacting Chinese educational culture as it spreads eastward.