MAO Ze-dong's Faults in Exploration of His Educational Theories and Practice during the Period of Cultural Revolution

MAO Ze-dong's ideas on education are an important part of MAO Ze-dong thought. During the period of Cultural Revolution, MAO put forward considerable correct theories to guide education, such as educations' inseparable relation with CPC's leadership, education's service for construction of socialist economy, education's combination with productive labor, the schooling education as orientation, and educational examinations free from the old testing system. Due to the Cultural Revolution with class struggle as guiding principle and the “Gang Four” who were in charge of ideological work and took education as their tool for seizing political power, the people's educational thoughts proposed by MAO gradually were replaced by the content of class struggle. Thus, the education of this period highlighted its political function and educational principles abandoned the learning orientation in their implementation. And the additional learning of others became the productive labor. Further, the educational forms overstressed “opening school without teaching” and the educational content was completely politicized.