On September 17, 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping gave important instructions to the ideological and political work of colleges and universities in Yuelu Academy of Hunan University, and said to the students present, "On the new journey of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way, students will be the main force to take over the historical baton. I hope that you will live up to the great trust of the times and your youth, study hard, establish a correct outlook on the world, life and values, take a good path in life, and contribute your wisdom and strength to the realization of the second centenary goal and the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation! ". The speech made by General Secretary Xi Jinping is another "focus" for the ideological and political work of colleges and universities after the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Opinions on Strengthening and Improving the Ideological and Political Work of Colleges and Universities in the New Situation", which pointed out the development direction for the ideological and political work of colleges and universities in the new era. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, youth is the future force and core power of socialist development. Youth ideological education, especially the guidance of ideological and political education for college students in the "bootstrap" period, has become one of the important guarantees to promote the sustainable development of the new era of socialism, Therefore, how to grasp the initiative of students' ideological education guidance when promoting ideological and political work in colleges and universities has become the key point of ideological and political work in colleges and universities.
The Importance of Grasping the Ideological and Political Work of College Students
General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed at the symposium of teachers of ideological and political theory courses in the school that "the youth stage is the 'jointing booting stage' of life, which needs careful guidance and cultivation". Teenagers are the key stage in our life to achieve "continuous rise" and "laying the foundation stone" in terms of thought, action and ability. It is extremely important and critical for everyone, and even can be said to be a critical time node to determine a person's future role and contribution to society. College education is responsible for the education of students of this age group. Therefore, if we want to realize General Secretary Xi Jinping's mandate of "careful guidance and cultivation", we must first find out the fundamental position and significance of college students' ideological and political education, Only in this way can the ideological essence of General Secretary Xi Jinping's ideological and political work in colleges and universities be truly implemented into the ideological and political work of students.
Grasping the guidance of college students' ideological value is the essential characteristic of college education. For the country and society, from the macro perspective, the existence of the socialist education system is to continuously promote the socialist system and social development. Its fundamental purpose and social function of survival, in essence, has doomed its own class characteristics and social attributes. Therefore, from the essence of socialist education, its fundamental purpose is to cultivate talents that meet the needs and direction of socialist development as the ultimate goal, and college education as a link in the socialist education system is no exception. The ideological and political work in colleges and universities, as an effective guarantee mechanism to ensure college education in cultivating socialist talents, is actually meaningful in ensuring that college education is relatively "free" in academic and ideological aspects, while not deviating from the general direction of cultivating useful talents for socialist development.
Grasping the guidance of college students' ideological value is the internal demand of college education. Grasping the ideological and political work of college students is not to restrict "ideological freedom", but to ensure that the goal and direction of socialist education work do not deviate from the original source. There is no doubt that receiving compulsory education is a right that every Chinese citizen must enjoy, but education, as an important social public resource, is not a public resource that is abused at will. How to invest educational resources reasonably to cultivate useful socialist talents has always been one of the important development goals pursued by the socialist education system, especially higher education. In fact, from the perspective of college education itself, as an important hub in the socialist education system and a talent training institution, ideological and political education guidance is essential to cultivate talents who are qualified in ideology, ability and politics and meet the socialist core values and development needs.
Grasping the ideological value guidance of college students is the value guarantee of college education. No matter how excellent students are cultivated by college education, they can realize their own value only when they enter and integrate into the society. From the perspective of educators, college students themselves are relatively vague and passive in their own value orientation, especially in the direction of social value during their education, However, college education, as a social education institution, is extremely strong, or even decisive, in shaping the social value and ideological value of students at the stage of education. Therefore, how to guide college students to have a view of life, values and world that meets the requirements of socialist values has become the key impression factor for college education to cultivate college students to realize their future social values. As the main way of educating and guiding students to cultivate socialist core values, the ideological and political education work in colleges and universities has played a role as a value guarantee for the education work in colleges and universities, which ensures the lowest bottom line of college education work in helping college students integrate into society to realize their values.
The Dilemma and Problems Existing in the Ideological and Political Work of College Students
In terms of the overall state of the current development of ideological and political work in colleges and universities, we must admit that while we have made a lot of achievements in ideological and political education, there are still some unavoidable problems in our work, especially in the promotion and suppression of extreme values in the mainstream values.
Western ideology has a profound influence. If the mainstream values do not "occupy" and guide the "highland" of students' ideological and political work in time, it will be affected and occupied by other values, even extreme values. In particular, since the reform and opening up, China has opened its economic door to the world, and in essence, it has also opened a door to ideas. For more than 40 years, China has accepted not only western goods and capital, but also various values representing western capitalist countries. With the strengthening of ideological work and the improvement of the effect of ideological and political work in colleges and universities, it has been transformed and improved. However, there are still some teachers and students in colleges and universities who are still affected by these ideas, such as hedonism and liberalism.
Some extreme ideas continue to spread and expand. Young students' thoughts are both fiery and immature. In their bodies, we can see the infinite creative possibilities brought about by youth, as well as the impulses and extremes caused by the lack of social practical experience. As an important node of the convergence of academic ideas, it is normal for college students to be influenced and guided by various ideas.
The mainstream socialist values are not well displayed. We must admit that there is still obvious room for progress in the ideological and political work in colleges and universities in terms of publicity, education and guidance, especially in the ideological and political classroom education. For a long time, some ideological and political education teachers have lagged behind in teaching theories and methods, which has led to the limited influence of the current social mainstream values at the university level, even becoming "marginal" in individual campuses Thought. Of course, it is also because of the backwardness in teaching methods that most of the ideological and political courses have become "textbooks". They have neither the ability to respond to real social problems nor the ability to infect students' thoughts, which is far less profound than some western capitalist value theories. As a result, students reject mainstream values ideologically, Some even excessively believe in the "superiority" of western values.
Improve the Ideological and Political Work of College Students
The core of ideological and political work in colleges and universities lies in the effective education and guidance of college students, rather than the so-called completion of tasks and decoration of "appearances". Therefore, how to find the right ideas, find the right key, and find a good way is the core to improve the ideological work of college students.
To improve the ideological and political work of college students, we need to clarify our thinking. If you want to continue to improve the ideological and political work of college students, you can never use the "old" control thinking to promote the ideological and political work of college students. This is because, in terms of the essential purpose of the ideological and political work in colleges and universities, it does not exist to control and prohibit students' thoughts. The reason why the ideological and political work in colleges and universities has long been misunderstood by some teachers and students as an act of ideological control is mainly because some colleges and universities excessively rely on or even only use the most crude and simple prohibition To solve the problems caused by ideological and political education through management and control. In fact, from the perspective of the essential purpose of ideological and political education in colleges and universities, it exists for the purpose of educating and guiding teachers and students to correctly understand the current reality of the party, the state and society as well as the state of the environment. Therefore, its work implementation mode should be more inclined to the "soft" education guidance, persuasion and persuasion, rather than the control and prohibition we currently see. If we can clarify our thinking in time and change the use of "new" education guidance methods to promote the ideological and political work of college students, we can also effectively change the "rebellious" mentality that has long been generated by forcing students to study ideology, which will greatly improve the effect of the current ideological and political course in the process of student education.
To improve the ideological and political work of college students, we need to start with defining the core. Both the management system and the assessment method promote the ideological and political education of students from the management perspective, but The core of college students' political work is not to build more management systems and assessment methods, but to really put the core of ideological and political education on students. It is necessary to find ways from more perspectives and dimensions, so that students can learn and understand the process and content of ideological and political education more actively and deeply, This is the path that the ideological and political work of college students can ultimately achieve the greatest results.
To improve the ideological and political work of college students, we need to make breakthroughs in innovative ways. At present, the ideological and political work of college students urgently needs a breakthrough in methods, but this breakthrough and innovation is not what we call "innovation" for "innovation". The purely theoretical teaching effect is far from the impact and shock that practical comprehensive education can bring. As far as the needs of student groups are concerned, they expect the breakthrough and innovation of ideological and political courses to be more content than form. This is because no matter how different students' ideas are, they will have common questions and confusion about social development and their own growth, and these questions they most desire to be answered and responded to, In fact, it is an innovative ideological and political lesson they need. Therefore, what we say at present is that the ideological and political work in colleges and universities needs to be innovated, which is not to change the form and content in a single way, but to truly focus on students and achieve "change according to needs" and "innovation according to reality".
(The author is Jiang Juncheng of Chenzhou Radio and Television University)
