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Reference for the Promotion of Adult Life Education

Reference for the Promotion of Adult Life Education

1. Foreword

       In order to explore the adult life education’s objective, main axis and core connotation (the adult here refers to those over 20 years old), propel the construction of formal and informal education support system as well as to provide a reference for the implementation of lifelong learning governance policy, this department plans to assign Nanhua University (NHU) to conduct the Adult Life Education Core Connotation Project in 2015. The conclusion abstract is hereby listed as two following points for the reference and observation of local governments in encouraging life-long learning institutions to promote adult life education.

2. Reference

(1) Core Connotation of Adult Life Education

The objective of adult life education is to seek for the ultimate meaning and purpose in life and moves toward personal integrity, personality cultivation, and spiritual consciousness and development so as to pursue the supreme good and happy life.

The core connotation of adult life education has two levels — “Three Questions in Life (Why do people live? How should people live? How can people live a life they want?)” as well as “Method and Basis”. They are concluded as follows:

Level/ItemDetailsCore ConnotationKey Competency
Early Adulthood (About 20-45 years old)Middle Adulthood (About 46-65 years old)Later Adulthood (Over 66 years old)
Level One Three Questions in Life
1.Value Speculation(A)Moral PhilosophyDisplay principles and the methodology of knowing the good.1A1Capable of using moral judgement principles to make reflections and dialogues on various moral issues.1A2Capable of reflecting self moral faith, keeping the distance of reflection and constantly making recondition and reconstruction.1A3Capable of integrating different moral faiths and going forward toward the dream that manifests the supreme good and the common good.
(B)Moral Speculation and ApplicationMaster the moral essence.1B1Capable of distinguishing moral thinking on gender, couple, family, workplace, information technology, civic literacy and other issues and appropriately making choice of value.1B2Capable of evaluating moral speculations on career, work and family, body and psychology problems and other midlife crises, and appropriately making choice of value.1B3Capable of making donation to moral speculations and application experience on various issues at the early stage of life, and deepening speculations and choices on health promotion in later life, active aging and medical cares.
(C)Aesthetic Accomplishment and AestheticsPossess aesthetic experience and the speculation accomplishment of life aesthetics.1C1Capable of experiencing and promoting aesthetic accomplishment and life aesthetics from career development and family life.1C2Capable of deepening aesthetic accomplishment and life aesthetics from career development, work and family, or society and world, and appreciating the beauty and goodness of people and things.1C3Capable of experiencing leisure, learning, work or family, and creating rich aesthetic experience.
2.Ultimate Concern(D)Purpose and Meaning in LifeExplore the purpose and meaning in life.2D1Capable of reflecting positive purpose and meaning in life from career development, family and social issues.2D2Capable of constructing positive purpose and meaning in life from life of midlife crisis and life issues.2D3Capable of building unique values and life faith from active aging process.
(E)Life-and-Death Care and PracticeReflect suffer and death.2E1Capable of building positive cognition and attitude upon career, family and social problems and difficulties.2E2Capable of reevaluating the cognition and attitude when the middle age are facing death and agony, and constructing positive life blue plan.2E3Capable of understanding the relation between good beginning and good ending, and positively treating hospice and palliative care.
(F)Ultimate Faith and ReligionConstruct an ultimate faith that building an infinite live in limited life.2F1Capable of analyzing the view of life and death from issues of career, family and society, and forming a positive personal life faith.2F2Capable of integrating the life issues of life-and-death, philosophy and religion, and reflecting the ultimate faith of life.2F3Capable of practicing and promoting life meaning from leisure, learning, work and family or religious belief, and reflecting the ultimate faith of life.
3.Spiritual Cultivation(GSupreme Good and HappinessPursue the supreme good and happy life.3G1Capable of understanding the definitions of success and happiness through self-promotion and transcendence.3G2Capable of reflecting the meaning from success to happiness and positively practicing it in life.3G3Capable of engaging in making contribution and service, and display and pursue a life of common good.
(H)Personal Integrity and Personality CultivationHarmonious personal integrity. Do as one wishes but Never Oversteps the Rules3H1Capable of promoting empathetic ability, and improving personal integrity and harmony.3H2Capable of gradually integrating cognition, emotion, will, and behavior and achieving personal integrity and harmony through training the mind and practice.3H3Capable of integrating the physical, psychological and social levels, doing as one wishes but never overstepping the rules, and constantly promoting potential and realizing self-transcendence.
(I)Spiritual Consciousness and DevelopmentPossess spiritual cultivation and promote life state.3I1Capable of improving the insight of inner world, exploring or observing the world and self in time and space.3I2Capable of using spiritual cultivation to experience love, confidence, transcendence, hope, forgiveness, heart healing, and other connotations of spiritual development.3I3Capable of developing perfect body and heart, comprehending the true, the good, the beauty, the meaning, the sacred, the infinite and the eternal beyond time and space, and promoting life state.
Level Two Method and Basis
4.Philosophical Reflection(J)Knowledge and Skill ThinkingPossess logic reasoning and critical thinking.4JCapable of deepening and internalizing various analyzed and judged positive and negative values with complexity and dispute.
(K)Attitude and Affection ThinkingInsight into affection and maintain justice attitude.4KCapable of having an insight into varied motivations and reflecting the affection that you don't have to be neutral, but you have to be fair.
(L)Meta-thinkingDeepen meta-thinking.4LCapable of accurately analyzing the profound meaning and connotation of life lesson, mastering objective facts and transcending different thinking fallacies.
5.Anthropology Image(M)What is human?Possess appropriate human nature view.5MCapable of actively exploring the meaning and value of human existence.
(N)Who am I?Possess an appropriate subject concept.5NCapable of displaying subject self-dignity.
(O) Human in Time and RelationshipPossess appropriate subjectivity.5OCapable of accepting the changing self in time and relationship, and paying attention to the inter-subjectivity between others and self.

(2)Demand on Spiritual Development of Adult Life Education and the Underprivileged

a)Demand on Spiritual Development of Adult Life Education: This plan takes Chinese community as the consideration. The Great Learning which is one of the Four Books  makes clear the purpose from the very beginning -- “The way of great learning consists in manifesting one's bright virtue, consists in loving the people, consists in stopping in perfect goodness” which is hence taken as the foundation of this plan. The meaning and connotation of the spiritual development of adult life education is concluded as follows:

LevelMeaning and ConnotationDevelopment GoalDemand on Spiritual Development
AManifesting one’s bright virtueNatural EnlightenmentGive full play to human potential and understand life meaning.A1 Integrate the cognition, emotion, will, and behavior to achieve personal integrity and harmony.A2. Achieve the true mental freedom on the level of truth practice and moral state.A3. Understand the meaning of live and the purpose of life.A4. Self-consciousness or the observance of the relation between the world and self in time and space.A5. Comprehend the spiritual development connotations of love, confidence, transcendence, hope, forgiveness and heart healing.
BLoving the peopleRealize the integration of heaven and earth and all creatures.The society is harmonious and the ecology realizes sustainable development.B1. Receive a sense of belonging and build a harmonious interpersonal relationship.B2. Show love care and participate in social development to promote social harmony.B3. Protect the nature and concern the sustainable development of ecology.B4. Build an ecological environment where people and nature live in harmony.B5. Build an ethical concept of people and nature in harmony.
Cstopping in perfect goodnessThe extreme of manifesting one’s bright virtue and loving the people.The complete development of personal ego and world ego.C1. Establish the ultimate faith of life and ultimate concern.C2. Achieve the target of self-realization and self-transcendence.C3. Pursue the integration of self-other and things-persons.C4. Achieve the transcendent state of harmony between man and nature.C 5. Comprehend the truth, the good, the beauty, the sacred, the infinite and eternity beyond time and space.
RemarksThe meaning of “spirituality” in this plan is:The word “spirituality” derived from Latin “spiritus”, meaning “breath, make alive”; spirit means “breath”, that is, the breath of life.Spirituality is the foundation of life, has the power to integrate life, being the source of individuals’ intellectual energy and the spirit of natural enlightenment. It can be seen in the exploration of life meaning, persistence in life values, the accomplishment of self-realization, self-transcendence and the connection with other people.Not only can spirituality explore or observe the world and self in time or space, but also comprehend the truth, beauty, good, meaning, sacredness, infinite and eternity.

b) Life Education Demand of the Underprivileged Adult: The underprivileged can be classified into the economically underprivileged, culturally underprivileged and ethically underprivileged. When it comes to the demand of adult life education, this plan, after research, discovered that, the adult did not reduce their demand on life education and the difference can be seen in the process of satisfying demands; most adults took filling the insufficiency as their target and sought for meeting the demand of growth. The detail table is listed as follows:

ItemDetailDemand on Life Education
Value SpeculationBalance PhilosophyCapable of making moral speculations from different perspectives, improving self-values and balancing the trouble and tension brought about by the environment so as to achieve positive creation and maintain upward dynamic balanced state.
Moral Speculation and ApplicationCapable of transferring moral speculations from binary cognition to multiple cognitions, and implementing value choice.
Aesthetic Accomplishment and Life AestheticsCapable of satisfying the basic life demand of leisure, learning, work and family and enjoying rich aesthetic experience.
Ultimate ConcernPurpose and Meaning in LifeCapable of using various resources to solve life difficulties and moving onward and upward; capable of transforming into self-constructed unique value and life faith via other people’s help and external environment.
Life-and-death Concern and PracticeCapable of dissociating from misery, expelling diseases and fears of death, overcoming difficulties, and promoting the relation between health and good beginning and good ending.
Ultimate Faith and ReligionCapable of breaking through the concept of self-centeredness and limited life, and pursuing the realization of the self and embodying the ultimate faith of life sustainability.
Spiritual CultivationSupreme Good and HappinessCapable of serving other people and displaying the common good life through self-life satisfaction and self-realization.
Personal Integrity and Personality CultivationCapable of transforming from depending on others to subjectively constructing interpersonal relationship, from utilitarian binary concept to diversified concept and attitude and faith without requests and desire, to personal integrity and harmony.
Spiritual Consciousness and DevelopmentCapable of transforming from pursuing love to be filled to love without any request, and using spiritual cultivation to develop a healthy and integral mind and body.

(3) Relations between Adult Life Education and Related Issues

After this plan’s research, the relations between adult education and related issues are listed as follows in accordance with the rate: moral reflection, mental adjustment, life philosophy, life-and-death issue, marriage and family, religious belief, and spiritual development. Their connotations are:

a)Relation between life education and moral reflection: life education and ethics (What is good? How do we choose to be good?) are closely linked. The former lays the foundation for the latter, while the latter is the application of the former.

b)Relation between life education and mental adjustment: Life education highlights the unity of knowledge and practice and refreshment of one’s mind, and can help the adult cultivate stress tolerance.

c) Relation between life education and life philosophy: Life philosophy stresses the philosophy of living in peace and dealing with affairs. It is about the study of life and can return, integrate and nourish life.

d)Relation between life education and life-and-death issue: Death education is a part of life education. Death is the terminal of life journey. Discussion on death in life education can help the adult to appropriately confront death and reduce anxiety and pressure.

e)Relation between life education and marriage and family: Life education should be practiced, experienced and reflected in marriage and family so as to solve social problems embedded in it.

f)Relation between life education and religious belief: Religious belief guides the adult’s spiritual growth and spirit transcendence. It also explores the ultimate concern of life. Hence, religious belief is naturally related with life education.

g)Relation between life education and spiritual development.

(4) Construct Diversified Teaching Implementation Mode for Adult Life Education

This plan concludes adult life education instruction, stimulates learning  motivation, highlights self-concept and rich experience and emphasizes instant application and problem-solving.

In addition, the research results of this plan show two teaching and learning methods that “adult” life education needs to be strengthened most. The learning methods are “problem-solving learning, experience learning, and self-directed learning”. Teaching methods are “teaching of value clarification and reflection teaching”.