Introduction
Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development is one of the most successful works by Vincent Shen. He and his colleague Tan Van Doan wrote this book, and Van Doan Tran, George F. McLean, and Ching-Sung Shen edited it in 1991. The place of the first publication was Washington, DC, and the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy was its first publisher. This book is considered to be one of the series that highlight Chinese cultural heritage and Chinese life in general.
Nowadays, education plays a very important role in the life of every citizen, this is why it turns out to be crucially important to use any single opportunity to enlarge own level of knowledge about one more country, its traditions, and customs. In Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development, Vincent Shen and his team make a wonderful attempt to describe how rich and captivating Chinese cultural heritage may be, how considerable knowledge for this country is, and how modern life and its conditions influence the development of Chinese culture and its significance for people.
Descriptive Part
About the author of the book, Professor Shen
Vincent Shen started his writing career several decades ago, and his writing potential provided him with the opportunity to create useful and educative pieces of work, amaze, and educate the reader about Chinese culture, its uniqueness, and the necessity to study it on a high level. To present properly arranged ideas, Vincent Shen got his B.A., then M.A. in Philosophy and Social Sciences, and finally, his Ph.D. at the University Supérieur de Philosophie. The peculiar feature of this author’s style of writing is unbelievable attention to each detail, each point that has a close connection to the theme under discussion. For example, in order to explain the concept of moral education, he decides to clear up how exactly the Chinese metaphysical foundation influences the comprehension of moral education, and what this foundation means.
The language this author uses in his works is not simple, but still, while reading his works, the reader does not face any challenges or difficulties in understanding the essence of the book and its lessons. Vincent Shen also demonstrates his careful attitude to each reader be means of presenting different kinds of examples, taken from our everyday life in order to help in comprehending the material from modern perspective, and those, taken from the history in order to make the reader being involved into their own history and the development of the events, which have an impact on current perception of the matter.
About the author’s intentions and their role in the book
In my opinion, the intentions of the writers while creating a new book plays a very important role in its results and success recognition among the readers. If an author concentrates on interesting and clear ways to present information and explain new material, the reader feels such an attitude through the book and tries to spend as much time as necessary to go deep into details and meaning of each term. Vincent Shen and Van Doan Tran pursue several goals while writing their book Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development.
They involve exploration of richness of Chinese culture be means of modern knowledge, connection of past life and its traditions to our current practical life, and finally, discovering of a new way of life that touches upon both old and new traditions, which depict the essence of Chinese people, their needs, interests, and goals (Shen and Tran vii). Due to such intentions of the authors, this book turns out to be interesting for people of different professions and even of different races: professors will find new ideas, which describe Chinese character, students will learn how it is important to respect own roots, and foreigners will get another opportunity to learn Chinese culture and its heritage in a clear and captivating way.
Analytical Part
Book’s structure and the analysis of each chapter
Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development is a non-fictional book that opens to its readers a new world of Chinese people, their customs, and traditions. The subject area of this work is closely interwoven with Chinese philosophy, history, ethics, and even psychology. Due to its non-fictional character, it becomes interesting for a wide range of people, who may find it reliable because of its clear structure and style of writing.
The structure of the book is rather simple. It consists of Preface that underlines the major purposes of the authors and the ideas, which are going to be discussed in this book; Introduction, where the authors explain why this book may be interesting to modern people and introduce each chapter briefly. In general, the book has three logical parts, each of which concentrates on a certain theme and the ideas of different writers; and three parts, which explain the subject of the book.
There are three chapters in three parts of the book; each chapter has its own title and underlines the contribution of one particular author. These three parts are divided according to the spheres, which are obligatory for proper comprehension of the topic.
Part One represents several Chinese resources, which are important for the Chinese character’s formation. The work by Peter Kun-Yu Woo is about the metaphysical sense of several periods in Chinese philosophy. He admits that “the origin of education was remote and obscure, but philosophy of education seems to have been born along with the philosophical schools” (Shen and Tran 7). The second chapter is devoted to the essence of human education and its connection to Classical Confucianism. The last chapter in the first part of the book touches upon the psychological aspects of Confucian philosophy.
The second part of the book under consideration discusses the connection between Chinese and Western foundations to moral education. The ideas of John Farrelly, George McLean, and Vincent Shen help to comprehend how exactly the development of psychology as a science influence the comprehension of human being and his/her moral growth. Vincent Shen pays much attention to the anthropological perspective that may be used to study moral education and take into consideration the fast development of technologies.
The final part of Shen and Tran’s book is devoted to moral education itself and the cooperation of teachers and students. Tran Van Doan succeeds in the analysis of moral and ideological education. He admits that “moral education has been radically transformed from the noble cause determining human nature to a sheer instrument… helps the State in keeping social order, in maintain status quo of society and in uniting the nation” (Shen and Tran 114).
Critical Part
Critics and recommendations will help to make the right choice as for reading this book
In my opinion, the purposes, which the authors created at the beginning of writing this book are achieved properly. One of the strong sides is the presence of examples from Chinese history and current events. The collection of different writers’ ideas and their logical connection prove that the chosen ways of moral education analysis are reliable. I do agree with the authors’ idea that “education has become a mass effort” (Shen and Tran 1), and its implementation and management play not the last role in its success.
One of the weakest points of this book is its close connection to other books of the same series, which devoted to Chinese cultural heritage. This is why in order to gain a clear comprehension of the matter, it is crucially important to continue reading other books and become aware of the matter. However, in general, the book under consideration is successful enough and has to be read by everyone, who has serious intentions to study Chinese culture and its unbelievable influence on contemporary life and people’s attitude to their culture.
Conclusion
Van Doan Tran and Vincent Shen present a powerful source of information about the Chinese style of life in their book Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development. They gather the ideas offered by several writers and prove how significance moral education for people of different nations can be. Chinese culture is one of the oldest ones, this is why it may reflect in many other national traditions. Those who want to learn and comprehend deeper why Chinese customs gain recognition among different nations, get a wonderful opportunity to get the answers to their numerous questions, and share their knowledge with the others. In fact, it does not take too much time to read this book because each chapter is a wonderful trip to the history of China, its secrets, and
its uniqueness.
Works Cited
Shen, Vincent, Tran Van Doan, and McLean, George, F. Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1991.