Logos Review · Issue 1 (Spring 2026) · Special Topic: Education — Interview
Guoyong Fu, Songzan Xu
Abstract
Against an intensifying exam-oriented regime in China, Fu advances a humanities-first, imagination-centered pedagogy: the flagship “Dialogue with the World” curriculum (“three-hundred-thousand-ten thousand”) uses the mother tongue as fulcrum to cultivate aesthetic discernment, independent thought, and expressive capacity through deep reading, memorization, writing, drama, and travel. Drawing on a civilizational frame (Schiller, Havel, Brodsky), Fu proposes three linked theses—Educational Encounter, Educational Dialogue, and Educational White Space—arguing that childhood requires time and openness to form durable moral-aesthetic habits (Bildung). Case vignettes from early cohorts illustrate outcomes and constraints; mentors and texts (classical and modern, Chinese and global) scaffold a deliberately “handmade workshop” rather than a scalable model, an “imagined community” that resists industrialized schooling. Fu reads AI as a tool, not a telos; and he situates private education’s limits within contemporary institutional conditions. The interview thus offers a theoretically grounded, practice-tested template for educational self-help—balanced classic reading and parent-child co-reading—while clarifying what such work can and cannot do within present constraints.
Keywords: aesthetic education; humanities curriculum; exam-oriented schooling; Bildung; imagined community
https://doi.org/10.64053/SFIQ8956
Interviewer’s Note:
On the morning of July 7, 2025, Mr. Fu Guoyong passed away suddenly in Hangzhou, something I never anticipated when we completed this interview in early June. This interview has thus become my final conversation with Teacher Fu. The man himself is gone, but the Guoyu Shushu lives on, and the young boys whose lives he impacted live on. May Teacher Fu’s spirit and integrity continue to be with them, and with us. This is in his eternal memory.
Interviewee: Fu Guoyong
Bio: Historian and practitioner of children’s mother-tongue education. His main research focuses on modern Chinese history, particularly the history of public opinion over the past century, the role of intellectuals, and educational traditions. In 2010, he was selected as one of the “100 People Who Have Influenced the Course of China’s Era” by Time Weekly. In 2017, he founded the Guoyu Shushu (National Language Academy), dedicating himself to children’s mother-tongue education. His published works include Waves at the Tip of the Pen, The Moral Backbone of a Literatus, The Centenary of the 1911 Revolution: Private Records of Eyewitnesses, 1949: Private Records of Chinese Intellectuals, From Gong Zizhen to John Leighton Stuart, A New Record of Learning: Eight Lectures on the Origins of Modern Chinese Education, and Seeking Another Possibility for Mother-Tongue Education: Fu Guoyong’s Notes on Teaching Children.
Interviewer: Xu Songzan
Bio: PhD candidate in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Cambridge. From 2015 to 2017, he participated in Teacher Fu Guoyong’s seminar on modern Chinese history, and from 2019 to 2020, he planned and produced Teacher Fu’s audio program A Youth’s Daily Record of Knowledge.
The world always says, “people strive to move upwards,” but I have gone against the current, choosing to “walk to low places.” “Aiming ‘low’ for the long term” is how I position myself. As a low-key idealist, standing with children is, in fact, standing with the future. The future does not begin in the future.
— Fu Guoyong, in a May 2025 interview with Chinese Language Journal.
I. The Eighth Year of the Guoyu Shushu: Not to Turn the Tide, But to Find Another Possibility for Education
Xu: In the autumn of 2017, when you founded the Guoyu Shushu, what were your observations of the problems in Chinese education at the time?
Fu: When this small educational experiment of the Guoyu Shushu had just begun, the Chinese education I observed was an exam-oriented system centered on memorizing facts and endless test-drilling. The pursuit of high test scores was the overwhelming goal. Under such an evaluation and examination system, students were confined to a predetermined track from a young age, with no time for free reading and no space for independent thinking. Their days revolved around repetitive knowledge drills, lacking exercises for the mind and for the soul. Such an educational model pays no attention to the cultivation of a person’s creativity, emotions, or character. In the pursuit of high scores and advancement, students are tied to the war chariot of examinations from childhood, constantly in a state of tension akin to an arms race. After-school tutoring institutions have sprung up to meet this need, and many students spend their out-of-school time in various training classes aimed at improving scores, euphemistically called a “must-have.” Over time, the light in the children’s eyes gradually dims, and many fall victim to the disease of apathy. Can we expect such children to grow up with any imagination?
Xu: This is an old problem in Chinese education. It has been eight years now. Have these problems been “alleviated”?
Fu: Nearly eight years later, not only have these problems not been alleviated, but they have become more and more serious. There have been some changes, of course. Eight years ago, children were mainly exhausted from rushing between various training classes. Since the crackdown on the tutoring industry and the so-called “burden reduction” a few years ago, schools’ exploitation of children’s time has reached an unprecedented level. Children are already overwhelmed just completing the various requirements and assignments from school. Add to that the after-school training classes, and their time is completely filled, making truly autonomous extracurricular reading and time for creative thought increasingly rare.
Xu: Looking back at the Guoyu Shushu itself, have there been any changes in these eight years? Is the situation now different from the very beginning?
Fu: The positioning of the Guoyu Shushu itself has not changed much. It is still centered on imagination, not on memorizing facts, and is committed to broadening each child’s horizons, inspiring their imagination, cultivating their aesthetic sense, and enhancing their capacity for thought, that is, the ability to think independently. The main course I designed is “Dialogue with the World.” Although it uses mother-tongue education as a fulcrum, it is not a language class in the usual sense, but a humanities class. I summarize the educational experiment of the Guoyu Shushu with the mnemonic “three-hundred-thousand-ten thousand”: that is, over three years, to give the children one hundred “Dialogue with the World” classes, to introduce to them one thousand authors from China and abroad throughout the ages, and through traveling ten thousand li, to weave a humanistic map of their own in their hearts. Our classes do not get bogged down in words and sentences, nor do they fixate on a certain set of facts. Instead, we start from aesthetics and imagination to help children form their own ways of thinking and expression, not just an accumulation of knowledge.
If you ask what is different now from the beginning, the main change is in the children themselves; the time they can control has become less and less. Most of the first children who came to the Guoyu Shushu were in the fifth grade of primary school. They attended the “young boys’ class” for three years and continued for another three and a half years in the “youth class.” The second and third batches of children were also able to stay at the Guoyu Shushu for five years. The children who came later faced increasing academic pressure and internal competition at school. After entering junior high, it became very difficult for them to find time, and extracurricular reading was almost completely abandoned. This change has become more obvious year by year. This is the rigid macro-environment that very few families can resist, and the children can only become its victims. In other words, the educational arms race has become more intense than in the past, and has even begun to extend down to the primary school level.
Xu: So for you personally, have your state of mind and awareness of the problems changed?
Fu: My personal state of mind hasn’t changed particularly. My original intention was never to turn the tide; I had no grand ideals, but rather to find another possibility for mother-tongue education or humanities education. Today, this small educational experiment is still ongoing, and my exploration and reflection in practice are also continuing.
Xu: I’m very curious about what the children from the first and second batches of the Guoyu Shushu are doing now. Perhaps from them, we can see more of the Shushu’s potential.
Fu: Most of the children from the first batch are taking the gaokao this year and are in the final preparation stage. A very small number have already entered university. Fu Runshi was admitted to the junior class of Xi’an Jiaotong University before graduating from junior high, so although he was accepted by Hangzhou No. 2 High School, he relinquished his spot in the latter. After a year of preparatory study at Xi’an Jiaotong University and another year in the physics department, he was admitted to the physics department at Stony Brook University in New York and has been studying there for a year. While studying physics, he has not given up on extensive reading in the humanities; recently, he has taken a liking to Susan Sontag. In the early spring of last year, his collection of correspondence with his classmate Zhang He, A Youth’s Letters, was published in Tokyo. What surprised many friends was not which books they read, but the depth and breadth of their thinking and the way they expressed their ideas. Fu Runshi chose physics as his major, but he has a very good foundation in humanities, switching freely between physics formulas and novels, poetry, and philosophical works. After arriving in the United States, he felt no sense of disconnect at all; he could find a spiritual anchor between Eastern and Western civilizations, which has a lot to do with the cultivation he received at the Guoyu Shushu. From the very beginning when he came to the Guoyu Shushu in October 2017, I have always emphasized the need to move between the classical and the modern, the East and the West. He is no stranger to the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Spinoza, Tagore, Hu Shih, Lu Xun, Emerson, Kawabata Yasunari, and Einstein. His life has long been marked by a global perspective.
The other author of A Youth’s Letters—Zhang He—is still preparing for the gaokao. He aspires to study history and has a special affinity for the National Southwestern Associated University. His ability to grasp new ideas is excellent, and he can often see problems from perspectives that others miss. Among the second batch of students, Chen Tianyue is currently in the first year of high school at Hangzhou No. 2 High School, Ye Youran is in the first year at Cangnan High School, and Yuan Zixuan is at the high school affiliated with East China Normal University. If all goes well, they will enter university in two years. When they left the Guoyu Shushu, they could all write respectable articles. I sometimes read their articles in the small journal Xiaguan, which they run themselves. They are well-written, interesting, and have a certain depth. The heavy academic pressure has not crushed them. I don’t know how far they will go or how high they will fly in the future. I just believe that the foundation of humanities education laid in their childhood and youth will always have an impact.
II. “Children’s Mother-Tongue Education” is Just the Fulcrum; the Goal is the “Person”
Xu: You just mentioned that what you are exploring and practicing is a “mother-tongue education” that emphasizes imagination and the power of thought. This was a concept you had when you first started the Guoyu Shushu. What is the role and significance of this kind of mother-tongue education in a person’s educational and growth history?
Fu: The “children’s mother-tongue education” I have referred to is actually just a fulcrum. The goal is the person, the exploration of the value of being human, that is, humanistic value. Without a doubt, a person begins to learn to dialogue with the world through their mother tongue. Considering the receptive capacity of children, my entry point is aesthetics, because a person’s aesthetic sense is the first step towards spiritual adulthood. As Schiller said: “Aesthetic education is a necessary condition for man to achieve spiritual freedom and human perfection.” And the mother tongue is the starting point of aesthetic education. The kind of mother tongue a person is exposed to in their childhood and youth determines their aesthetic starting point. I emphasize starting with aesthetics because I believe that a child’s world is a world of pictures; they begin to understand the world through images, but must eventually move from images to concepts. The mother tongue is also the starting point of everyone’s thought life. A German poet once said, “Where words break, there all things cease to be.” The Czech intellectual Václav Havel also said that language is the beginning of all things. Language is a miracle; because of it, we become human. I engage in a dialogue with the world together with the children—by no means a vague, empty dialogue, but one with a solid fulcrum. This fulcrum is our mother tongue. With the mother tongue as the fulcrum, we continuously enhance our ability to think, comprehend, and express ourselves in the process of dialoguing with the world. Once a person gains this ability, he possesses an indestructible fulcrum.
Xu: In your view, what is the fundamental definition of “education”?
Fu: I’m afraid there is no fundamental definition of “education” to date, but the ancient and modern sages of both the East and the West have described “education” in many different ways. Education is the channel through which finite human beings, in their limited time on earth, inquire into certain and unchanging values. Through education, it becomes more possible for a person to transcend their own biological limitations and thus obtain a more certain and real understanding of people and the world they inhabit. In short, education is simply to help everyone become “a person among people,” to affirm the value of “being human.” The essence of education is freedom, to achieve the self-liberation of life through education.
Xu: So, what is a “good,” “flourishing” life? How does education help lead to such a life?
Fu: I am reminded of the American philosopher Will Durant’s words. He believed that the three goals of education are: to control life through health, character, wisdom, and technology; to enjoy life through friendship, nature, literature, and art; and to understand life through history, science, religion, and philosophy. Education involves two processes, and these two processes are complementary. In one process, humanity passes on a rich heritage accumulated over generations to the growing individual, including knowledge, skills, morality, and art. In the other process, the individual uses this legacy to develop their own abilities and enrich their life. Education is the process of making life more perfect day by day, that is, enriching the individual with the heritage of humanity. If this important process of transmission and absorption is interrupted for half a century, then civilization will perish, and our children and grandchildren will be more primitive than barbarians. I am very fond of these ideas from Will Durant. Education, in the end, is about helping people to better control, enjoy, understand, and enrich life, which is to say, helping people move towards a “good,” “flourishing” life.
Xu: But for those who have not received a good education, are there other possibilities?
Fu: Not having the opportunity to receive such an education does not mean there is no opportunity to enjoy such a life. Every person’s life experience and encounters are different. As long as there is an opportunity to enter the chain of human civilization, to receive this civilizational legacy, and to use it to understand and enrich life, it is not impossible. It just requires greater effort and a more difficult path.
Xu: The editors of Chinese Language Journal are also very concerned about a certain question: for educators themselves, how do they know they are on the “right” path? And how do we know what we ought to know but do not know?
Fu: How an educator determines whether they are on the right path depends on their understanding and grasp of the history of civilization, because every person lives within the context of the history of civilization, not as an isolated being without precedent. The word “right,” if not qualified, can easily lead to ambiguity, so I am not very willing to use it. I only know that since the times of ancient Greece, India, and pre-Qin China, the history of human civilization has established certain fundamental values. Mei Guangdi, who studied in the United States in the early twentieth century, once said, “We must understand and possess all things true, good, and beautiful that have stood the test of time.” I particularly admire this. This is a different view from evolutionism; humanity does possess more deeply enduring, unchanging values that have stood the test of time, fundamental values that were formed independently in different contexts in the East and West but are coincidentally similar. An educator is not a being who looks down on the world from on high, but is just a member of civilized humanity engaged in the ordinary yet magical work of education. In a stricter sense, the teacher and the student are not two opposing sides, but stand together to dialogue with nature, with people, and with the world. In other words, the teacher and the student stand in the same direction, facing the authors of ancient and modern times, from China and abroad. As a teacher, one does not face the child with the total sum of one’s own knowledge, but connects one’s own life with the child’s life. The process of education is also a process of life meeting life. In terms of knowledge, no matter when, the teacher is always limited. In fact, the problem of “what we ought to know but do not know” does not exist. From beginning to end, we should all know our own limitations. But this limitation in knowledge does not prevent the teacher from bringing the child before the legacy of human civilization. As I said just now, the teacher and student stand on the same side; they are also fellow travelers. I was once very frustrated by human limitations, until one day I read a sentence by Brodsky and was suddenly enlightened—”Infinity can only be comprehended through the finite.”
III. The Materials, Tutors, and Learning Methods of the Guoyu Shushu
Xu: I’d like to delve deeper into some of the details of the Guoyu Shushu. For example, in the selection of teaching materials, teaching methods, and the students’ learning methods, how are your educational philosophies reflected? What considerations and adjustments have you made?
Fu: Of the one hundred “Dialogue with the World” lessons I designed, four series of sixteen lessons have been published so far. The five lessons of the fifth series have also been submitted to the publisher, meaning twenty-one lessons are now in book form. Each lesson is a small booklet, and each booklet includes a transcript of the class, the reading texts, and the children’s writings. The “reading texts” I compiled myself, about one to two million characters, are our teaching materials. The way we have class is through dialogue between teacher and students, and not only that, but all of us together dialoguing with the authors of ancient and modern times, from China and abroad. The classroom is a dialogue, and it is also a weaving of a web. Centered around a theme, we weave a web of aesthetics, a web of imagination, a web of thought. Besides asking and answering questions and taking notes in class, children learn mostly through extracurricular reading. In addition to the ten to twenty thousand characters of reading texts for each lesson, there are also designated classical Chinese texts to memorize and recommended reading lists. So, for a child to get into the swing of things and truly achieve the learning goals I envision, it mainly relies on their work outside of class. If they cannot invest sufficient time and energy outside of class, what they learn in the classroom will have much less of an impact.
Xu: After all these years, how have the children invested themselves?
Fu: Over the past seven or eight years, I have seen that the children who have grown well are all those who have invested a great deal outside of class. One of my educational philosophies is to let the children be like a tree—rooting downwards and growing upwards. This cannot be achieved solely through their limited time in the classroom. Therefore, I constantly emphasize “reading it out,” “memorizing it out,” “writing it out,” “walking it out,” and “acting it out.” All these are to stimulate their passion and awaken their inner strength. I have seen this hidden power in the children time and again. Once awakened, they are like completely different people. Drama performances and offline study tours are often the moments that inspire them, because the time I spend with them is usually too short. Many children are very shy and timid when they first encounter drama. Once they get into character, they let their inhibitions go. In the process of auditioning for roles, there seems to be a powerful driving force behind them, making them learn to express themselves boldly and grasp the character’s personality, which is also a blossoming of their own individuality.
Xu: I remember you once said that one should read the great classic Chinese works directly, rather than the simplified versions adapted for children. How did that work out? Were there any children who couldn’t adapt?
Fu: I said one should read great works, not limited to works in the mother tongue, but also including works from other peoples and languages of the East and West. As long as they are translated into our mother tongue, they should be encountered early on. This is to broaden their horizons, cultivate their literary tastes, and develop a global perspective. The reading lists I recommend take this factor into account. A child who encounters the Homeric epics, Shakespeare’s plays, and of course, Chinese classical works and the best vernacular works of the twentieth century early on will experience something truly special. I have always said that the books a person encounters in their childhood and youth will have an immeasurable impact on their entire life. For many children, shallow, juvenile children’s books may be more pleasurable to read and more tempting, while good works with depth may not necessarily attract them. I have also encountered many children who could not adapt. As they grow older, they slowly abandon juvenile books and mature into discerning readers. And some children are quickly captivated by good books. For example, a fourth-grade child read Thoreau’s Walden for the first time and could read it in one go.
Xu: I was also very impressed by the drama performances of the Guoyu Shushu children. I’ve also met several other tutors, such as the literature tutor and the philosophy tutor. How do you consider and choose these tutors?
Fu: The Guoyu Shushu has hired several tutors. My standard for choosing tutors is, of course, that they are knowledgeable and accomplished, and at the same time, love children and are willing to stand alongside children. Those who have taught the children include Professor Jing Kaixuan from Nanjing University, who is an expert in classical literature and a scholar who translates and studies Eastern European literature and thought. He has taught classes on classical poetry appreciation and Eastern European literature for the children. Professor Huang Yuejie from Hangzhou Normal University has dedicated his life to promoting drama education among university students. The “Liuxia Drama Society” he founded has had a profound impact and he is known as the “campus Shakespeare,” the “bearded old Huang” in the eyes of his students. He has taught many drama and recitation classes for the children at the Guoyu Shushu, rehearsing The Ballad of Mulan, excerpts from Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, Sha Yexin’s Jesus, Confucius, John Lennon, Li Jing’s The Great Master, and Zhang Xiaofeng’s The Man of Wuling. He has also taught recitation classes for the children, including works from Hamlet, Faust, The Peach Blossom Fan, Dream of the Red Chamber, and The Songs of Chu. His passion for life has inspired many children.
There is also Professor Wen Zhong from the China Academy of Art, who is dedicated to the study of Indian philosophy and has translated Tagore’s poetry collections. He has taught a Chinese-English bilingual reading class for the children at the Guoyu Shushu, using Tagore’s Stray Birds as course material, and has also taught a class on Dante. Wang Xiaoqing is an expert in English education and has compiled a very good set of English readers. She has taught an English recitation class for the children. The involvement of all these tutors has given the children of the Guoyu Shushu the opportunity to meet such accomplished teachers from a young age. The threads they lay in their lives, what kind of role they will play in the future, is something we cannot see today, but I believe in the “surprise in the ordinary.”
Xu: For the educational practice of the Guoyu Shushu, it seems that parents need to be fully aligned and invested for it to work. Does this relatively limit the “scale” of the Guoyu Shushu?
Fu: The Guoyu Shushu has never pursued scale, because it is a “handmade workshop,” not an “industrial assembly line.” It cannot be replicated, so it can only be a small, or even micro, experiment. From the very beginning, I thought, this is just me and my one life, personally trying to help the children of this era. My life is connected to their lives. Whether I can truly influence them depends on many factors. Although it is not a decisive condition for parents to be fully aligned and invested—because with partial alignment and partial investment, they may also send their children to dialogue with the world with me—insufficient agreement and investment will inevitably lead to lackluster fruit for their children. This includes the aforementioned Fu Runshi, Zhang He, Chen Tianyue, Ye Youran, and Yuan Zixuan, as well as Zhao Xinyue, Liu Yiting, Jin Tianxin, Feng Yanzhen, and others. It is because of the high degree of parental alignment that the children have grown increasingly strong wings in their spirits and have begun to take flight under the sky of human civilization’s history.
IV. The “Prescription” for Contemporary Chinese Education: The Best Path to Educational Self-Help is Balanced Reading of the Classics
Xu: How does the practical approach of the Guoyu Shushu differ from other innovative educational experiments and school education programs?
Fu: Actually, from the very beginning, there have been no comparable educational programs to the Guoyu Shushu, at least none that I have discovered so far, so it’s impossible to talk about any differences— because the Guoyu Shushu is not a school or an institution, but an “imagined community,” “composed of all the children’s memories of the Guoyu Shushu.” The practical approach of the Guoyu Shushu leans more heavily on spiritual development. I wrote this on the sixth anniversary of the Guoyu Shushu: “The Guoyu Shushu is actually a Peach Blossom Spring, just with a few peach branches planted in the ground. It is not a physical entity, not a school, not an institution. It is the connection of my life with the children’s lives after I turned fifty, a connection in a spiritual space, established through the bond of the mother tongue, with classic texts from ancient and modern times, from China and abroad, as the medium. It is like a cloud that cannot be grasped, yet it is a spiritual home that truly exists between heaven and earth. I sow the seeds of the mother tongue in the children’s hearts and water them with my heart’s blood, but it is up to them to gradually grow into different forms. Whether they become towering trees, whether they will be fruitful, depends on many factors, both external and internal. I merely bring them together in an ‘imagined community’ or an ‘imagined republic,’ where they collide with each other, dialogue with each other, not only with the visible people of today but also with the invisible people of the past. As long as the timeless texts exist, the living water of civilization flows. One by one, the lives of the long departed also live on in the history of civilization.”
Xu: Yes, the Guoyu Shushu is small and focused, but the number of children this “imagined community” can accommodate is after all limited. Are there any practical action plans that more parents can refer to?
Fu: Many years ago, I once said: how far a person can go, how vast a world they can see, ultimately depends on the quantity and quality of the extracurricular books they read from childhood and youth to young adulthood. Only having high test scores and attending a famous university, but not having read any decent books, one’s vision will be limited to the small gains and losses right in front of them. Only by reading can one escape all that is imposed on you by an irresistible fate and reach a larger horizon. One can start with more aesthetic reading. A person who has read the Homeric epics, Goethe, Tagore, Tolstoy, Kafka, Brodsky… who has read Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Russell… who has read Galileo, Newton, Einstein… enjoys greater freedom of the soul. The best path to educational self-help is balanced reading of the classics. It is parent-child co-reading that every family can carry out. This is the path with the least risk and the lightest cost. Compared to monotonous test-drilling and fighting for high scores, good reading is the way to truly connect a person with the entire history of human civilization.
Xu: There are currently some educational NGOs that are also practicing parent-child co-reading, classic mother-tongue reading, etc. How do you view these different educational programs?
Fu: Other different explorations in the field of education each have their own emphasis and direction. I have not paid enough attention to specific cases, so it is difficult to make an accurate and objective evaluation. I have always believed that exploring different paths is meaningful in itself. At the very least, these small efforts from the private sector can open up different possibilities. An open, diverse, rather than closed, monolithic educational ecosystem is something to look forward to.
Xu: The Shushu mainly holds classes on weekends and holidays. Have you ever considered adopting a more thorough form of homeschooling?
Fu: Due to practical limitations, the Guoyu Shushu has not yet considered a full-time homeschooling format. The conditions required for full-time education are very difficult to solve in today’s reality. There is also a lack of good models among the “homeschooling practices” I know of.
Xu: Are the limitations of these real-world factors also the key problem that private schools in China collectively face?
Fu: In today’s institutional design in China, private schools, in fact, can hardly achieve much. They cannot have much independence in their operating models, teaching content, or evaluation methods. In this macro-environment, it is too early to talk about the significance of the existence of private schools. “Private schools” must have institutional guarantees to have a truly free space to operate and explore their own educational directions, such as the private schools of the Republican era like Nankai and Nanyang, which were products of that time period.
Xu: Yes, the current era is completely different. Our era has a new variable, which is the rapid development of artificial intelligence, and it has begun to affect exam-oriented education. How do you view its impact on education? Or rather, has artificial intelligence brought about more possibilities?
Fu: At the tool level, the development of artificial intelligence will have some impact, even a great impact, on the field of education. But I believe that education is centered around people, for the sake of people’s lives, and the richness and complexity of human personality, emotions, and thoughts. Artificial intelligence is just a tool invented by humans. No matter how advanced it becomes, it cannot replace humans themselves. “I think, therefore I am,” “I love, therefore I am,” “I imagine, therefore I am.” Artificial intelligence, at the end of the day, can only be a tool.
V. Looking Back on Modern Chinese Educational History: Experience, Problems, and Reflections
Xu: You have long studied the history of the Republic of China and modern educational history. When you started your school, did you have any historical schools in mind as a benchmark? I remember you mentioned Chunhui Middle School by Baimahu? Or were you exploring completely new, uncharted territory?
Fu: For decades, I have paid attention to the history of education since the late Qing Dynasty, especially in the Republican era. When I was looking for “six or seven young boys” and began the experiment of the Guoyu Shushu, what inspired me were the cases of Tagore in India, Fukuzawa Yukichi in Japan, and Tolstoy in Russia. They all had experience in running schools, but I never thought of comparing myself to them, because the environment I am in is completely different, and most of the conditions they had, I do not have. I have edited books like Middle Schools of the Past and Primary Schools of the Past, and have also written books like An Encounter with Beauty and A New Record of Learning: Eight Lectures on the Origins of Modern Chinese Education. I am familiar with the valuable resources for later generations to draw upon from the experience of running middle and primary schools in the Republican era, including Nankai Middle School in Tianjin, Nanyang Middle School in Shanghai, and Chunhui Middle School by Baimahu in Shangyu. But from the very beginning, I never thought of imitating any school from the Republican era. Not only is the Guoyu Shushu not a school, but we are in a completely different era. So the path I am exploring is just a personal one, me personally reading, walking, and dialoguing with the world together with the children.
Xu: Yes, the era is completely different. But have the thinking methods of the Republican-era scholars, and their ways of running schools, had any influence on your teaching content and methods? For example, I see that you also use a lot of vernacular literature from the Republican period.
Fu: I have long focused on and studied the history of the Republican era, and its education has influenced me unconsciously. My “Dialogue with the World” course is not limited to vernacular Chinese; classical Chinese and classical poetry also account for a considerable proportion. But I do not agree with the paradigm of using single model essays, which has been adopted in mother-tongue education since the Republican era. I want to open up a new path. In the preface to my recently published book Seeking Another Possibility for Mother-Tongue Education, I wrote this:
“I am trying to find and practice another path outside the mother-tongue education paradigm that was practiced and established by masters like Ye Shengtao, Xia Mianzun, and Zhu Ziqing in the Republican era.
In the era of transition from classical to vernacular Chinese, they explored a practical and feasible path for modern China’s mother-tongue education. Their own foundation in the mother tongue and the efforts they put in, from their frontline educational practice to the compilation of textbooks and extracurricular supplementary readers, have all become unsurpassable models in the history of education, their value proven by time. However, as time goes by and circumstances change, how can we find a better path to open children’s minds in a changed era, so that they can truly learn the pure mother tongue and continuously enhance their ability to dialogue with the world in their mother tongue, to stimulate their imagination and cultivate their aesthetic sense—can this be accomplished merely with the established paradigm? This becomes a question worth asking.
The teaching method pioneered by Mr. Ye, Mr. Xia, and others, which is widely accepted and centered on single-text reading and words and sentences, may be suitable for most children, but not necessarily for all children. Moreover, in an era with the internet and search engines, it seems passive to continue emphasizing fact-based knowledge as the center. What I am thinking about is how to make a breakthrough and build something on the foundation they have laid. ‘There has never been a successful attempt since ancient times,’ is a line from Lu You’s poem. What I seek is not success, let alone to replace the old. What I seek is only new possibilities, new creations, new values. The attempt itself is valuable. The ancient nation of China has only broken free from ancient education for just over a hundred years. Everything is still evolving, on a journey. How could we stop striving toward a better way now, of all times?”
Xu: Brilliant! But how can the shortcomings of the Republican-era scholars in running schools be overcome and surpassed today?
Fu: The intellectuals of the Republican era, in running schools, certainly had their shortcomings. For example, the orientation towards nationalism and statism was still very obvious, and there was not enough emphasis on the individual spirit. They did not advocate that the state originates from the individual, nor did they place the rights and dignity of each person first. But to be honest, in my personal opinion, we are not yet at the stage to discuss “how to overcome and surpass” their shortcomings. Instead, we should sort through the past traditions of running schools and mine them for wisdom. “Looking back” is sometimes the best way to “look forward.” This is also my intention in compiling Middle Schools of the Past, Primary Schools of the Past, and writing A New Record of Learning: Eight Lectures on the Origins of Modern Chinese Education.
Xu: You “look back” when you study history, but you “look forward” with this group of children. Do you have any expectations of them? Will there be any historical baggage?
Fu: No special expectations, and no historical baggage. Everyone can only strive under the conditions given by their own era; it is impossible to transcend one’s own era and create out of thin air. I once said, “Three years, one hundred lessons, one thousand people, ten thousand li, to lay the humanistic foundation for a Chinese youth’s entire life.” This is an expectation in a baseline sense. Historical changes always happen quietly and silently in inconspicuous corners. The insignificant efforts made by an insignificant individual in an insignificant corner may seem insignificant at the time, but perhaps on a larger time scale, they will hold important meaning and value. This is the wonder of the history of civilization.
VI. Contemporary Chinese Public Intellectuals and the Possibility of Education
Xu: In the Republican era, there were diverse career paths for intellectuals such as entering politics, running newspapers, running schools, doing business, and independent writing. What can contemporary Chinese public intellectuals do inside and outside the system? Is running an educational institution a new path?
Fu: The space of the Republican era allowed intellectuals to have more diverse choices. The fields of journalism, publishing, education, industry, finance, literature, etc. all offered the possibility for one to settle down and make a living. Such a space does not exist in contemporary China, so it is also difficult to achieve much. Running an educational institution is an even more difficult path. As I said before, what I am doing is just an insignificant thing. I am walking a different path from those predecessors who had the opportunity to run schools in the past, and it is even more impossible for it to become a widely adopted model. The world always says, “people strive to move upwards,” but I have gone against the current, choosing to “walk to low places.” “Aiming ‘low’ for the long term” is how I position myself. As a low-key idealist, standing with children is, in fact, standing with the future. The future does not begin in the future.
Xu: So, how can public intellectuals achieve their spiritual pursuits and social value in real society?
Fu: The concept of “intellectual” is very general. In terms of educational attainment, they are in fact mixed with other social groups and have no specific connotation. In terms of their profession, their faces have also become blurred and they have no spiritual characteristics. Only by redefining this concept in a spiritual sense can its social value be reflected, and that is to act as the conscience of society, to maintain a sober critique of reality, and to speak the responsible truth not only from a professional perspective but also from the perspective of human civilization. This comes at a price. In an era like today, talking about this topic, I feel it is a luxury, let alone playing this role. As for “public intellectual,” the term has long been stigmatized in the context of mainland China. In comparison, professional intellectuals find it easier to survive; true public intellectuals have almost lost their place to stand. In an extremely complex and difficult social environment, to achieve one’s spiritual pursuits and social value, the first thing, of course, is to maintain independence in thought, not to give up independent thinking, to have a deep understanding of history and reality, to be down-to-earth, to start from small and low places, but to look from high and far places, and to adhere to the most basic human values that have stood the test of time. If possible, one should transform one’s own thoughts and research into spiritual achievements that can be shared with the world or left in time. To overcome this era within oneself is not an empty phrase, but something to be carried out in reality through the efforts of one’s individual life. The efforts made in today’s imperfect world are the greatest realization of one’s own spiritual pursuits and social value.
Xu: In your experience of running a school, are there any topics that could be further explored through academic research? What other educational issues are worth further exploration?
Fu: My small educational experiment is still ongoing. Perhaps we have to wait for the children of the Guoyu Shushu to grow up to be able to more accurately assess the value of this experiment. Education is a slow business, not something that yields immediate results. It must unfold slowly in time, like the growth of a tree, a long, subtle, and silent process. Before this experiment began, I completed A New Record of Learning: Eight Lectures on the Origins of Modern Chinese Education, explored the origins of modern Chinese education, and also thought about the “theory of educational encounter,” publishing the book An Encounter with Beauty. But that was just a collection of essays, not systematic research. The Guoyu Shushu has allowed me to immerse myself in the practice of the “theory of educational dialogue.” I designed one hundred “Dialogue with the World” lessons. Over the past few years, sixteen volumes of the “Dialogue with the World” series have been published, and four volumes of the study tour course “A Youth’s Journey Through China” series have been published, including A Tale of Two Cities (Beijing, Nanjing), A Youth’s Journey Through Xi’an, and A Youth’s Journey Through Jiangnan (Wuxi, Jiaxing, Haining). A Youth’s Reading Tour of the West Lake and A Youth’s Reading Tour of the Fuchun River will also be published. The study tour course “A Youth’s Journey Through the World” has not yet been compiled and published. “Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand li,” boils down to “dialogue with the world.” At the same time, I have gradually formed the “theory of educational white space” (liú bái). Giving children “white space” in time is especially important in an era of intense educational internal competition. Without this white space, a child who is exhausted in their childhood and youth cannot exercise their imagination. I call the “theory of educational encounter,” the “theory of educational dialogue,” and the “theory of educational white space” the “three theories.” This is my basic view of education. I think the “three theories” are very worthy of further exploration.
Xu: The last question may be quite direct. Are there any limitations to the practice of the Guoyu Shushu at present? What adjustments might be made in the future?
Fu: The experiment of the Guoyu Shushu is inherently a dance in shackles. Of course, there are limitations, and very great limitations. We are just gazing at the world from within these limitations. Sometimes a sentence comes to my mind, “Bodhidharma came to the East only to seek a person who would not be deluded by others.” The environment around us is so harsh. Day after day, we face irresistible forces. Seeing the harried figures and tired eyes of one innocent child after another, I often feel powerless. The school is not protecting their innocent childhood but is shaping them according to an administrative, quantitative management model. The families of most children are not protecting their childhood but are passively or actively cooperating with the school. What the Guoyu Shushu can do is really too limited—to snatch a little leisure time from the school so that the children can read, think, and have some white space. This little bit of time is too much of a luxury. The result of being busy is the gradual loss of innocence, which is the loss of their ability to grow and set down deep roots like a healthy plant. I am convinced that this ability in childhood is extremely precious. The Czech novelist Kundera said that a person’s life grows its roots in their first ten years. Childhood is a deep well of memory, and the continuous living water from this well can nourish a person’s entire life. You can see that kind of innocence in Einstein, a prime example of this potential.
The future is full of uncertain factors. What I can adhere to is to believe in the basic values of the history of civilization that have stood the test of time. They are contained in those timeless texts. I bring the very few children who have the opportunity to read the world with me to these authors and texts. Even in extremely uncertain times, we must pursue and affirm such values.
Practical constraints prevent the Guoyu Shushu from expanding further. I also do not want to deviate from my original intention and make compromises. I still deeply believe that the books one reads, the people one meets, and the places one has been to at the prime of youth will enter the depths of their being and become a spiritual source for their entire life. The Guoyu Shushu is not about giving the children a ladle of water or a bucket of water, but about leading them to see the surging rivers flowing into the sea, to see the vast starry sky of the history of civilization, and to let them become “children of civilization” in the words of Brodsky.
This is the English version of an article published in Chinese in Logos Review (汉语学志). Read the Chinese original (中文原文) · All English articles
