Remembering Wang Fo-wen, educator and scholar a brief look at his prominent career and the influence of John Deweys educational philosophy

Xing Hong, Ina Zhang

Abstract

Wang Fo Wen (1903 1972) w as a prominent educator in Malaysia’s education history, distinguishedin particular by an incredible career of some four decades in Malay(si)an Chinese education. Studying in the Southeast University in Nanking of China where he was trained as a bilingual educationist, Wang Fo Wen was imbued with the teaching principles of renowned American educator John Dewey and his Chinese student Tao Hsing chih; and upon graduation, Wang signed up for “overseas Chinese education” and was sent to British Malaya (then to Dutch Indonesia) to teach in Chinese high schools in the 1922s. This paper traces Wang Fo Wen’s life trajectory in Malay(si)a, by examining the three vastly different, if not contrasting, roles that he assumed in Malayan Chinese education at different st ages of her life, respectively as Chinese language high school teacher in the 1920s 30s, Chinese Schools Inspector in the 1930s 50s, and as principal of Foon Yew High School, the first independent Chinese high school in the country’s post independence educ ation system. By looking closely at the historical contexts respectively highlighted by the “Malayan Emergency” at the turn of the 1940 50s and the introduction of a uniform national curriculum in 1956, in which Wang Wo Fen was affectionately referred to as “Father of Teachers Training Classes” and “Pioneering Man at the Helm for Independent Chinese Schools” by the Chinese communities in Malay(si)a successively, this paper argues that Wang Fo Wen’s views of modern education were enlightened by the philosop hy of John Dewey and Tao Hsing chih , shaped in the midst of the tumultuous times faced by Malay(si)an Chinese education, and were eventually elevated and evolved to Wang’s own unique outlook on Chinese education and teaching in Malaysia.

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