Located on the historic campus of Qufu Normal University and covering a construction area of 12,000 square meters, China Teachers Museum is the only museum of its kind. This unique museum is an homage to teachers’culture and teachers’ethics education in China, filling the national gap. It hosted its first exhibition in October, 2018 and the entire museum was put into use in September, 2023.
China Teachers Museum is designated as“National Cultural Memory, Educational Historical Heritage, and Teachers’ Spiritual Home. It aims to build a training base for teachers’ethics education in the whole country, and a window of teacher’s cultural exchanges in the whole world. It stands as the only national teachers’ethics education base in Shandong Province set up by the Ministry of Education and the only national base for international youth exchanges, jointly built by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and Shandong Province. The museum was awarded the“Innovation Award”and“Cultural Innovation Award”and incorporated in the major education projects in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).
Gu Mingyuan, Honorary President of the Chinese Society of Education, and Yu Yi,“Educator of the People”, were appointed as the honorary curators of China Teachers Museum. Shan Jixiang, Chairman of China CulturalRelics Academy, has been appointed Director of the Committee of Experts. He Jingtang, academician of South China University of Technology was entrusted with the architectural design of the museum. Qi Wanxue, national master teacher and leading talent in philosophy and social science of the Ten Thousand Plan,formulated the initiative.
In accordance with the instruction of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, “A museum is a big school”, the main line of the exhibition is “Teachers’Doctrines” and the concept of the exhibition is “seeing history through objects, seeing people through history, and seeing the spirit through people”. The aim is tocreate a “New Xing Tan” that can trace the origins for guidance, cultivate oneself in a moral and ethical manner, and emulate those better than oneself.
Three Permanent Exhibition Halls
The museum features three permanent exhibition halls: “History of Teachers”, “Cradle of Teachers”, and “Model Teachers”.
The first hall, “History of Teachers”, which serves to “trace the origins for guidance”,illuminates thesource of teachers’doctrines and guides understanding of the original aspiration of becoming a teacher.
The second hall, “Cradle of Teachers”, is designed to illustrate how teachers “cultivate oneself in a moral and ethical manner”, and can inherit the doctrines of teaching, there by nurturing our noble sentiment for teaching.
The third hall, “Model Teachers”, articulates that persons should emulate those better than oneself, which means to admire the model teachers and take the teacher’s aspiration to a new level.
Four Major Thematic Sub-halls
Educator’s Seminar Hall:Venue for Xing Tan talk, Xing Tan school, Xing Tan open class, Xing Tan lecture and other related activities.
Educator’s Collection Hall: Repository and showcase for a collecteddisplay of representative works and manuscripts of famous educators throughout history.
Educator’s Image Hall: To collect and display films and TV series on the theme of teachers in different periods.
Tin Ka Ping Memorial Hall: Expressions of Tin Ka Ping’s touching deeds of donating money for education and his inspiring dedication to his country.
Five Functional Areas
Exhibition area: The main function is teachers’culture-themed exhibition, including permanent exhibition, special exhibition, temporary exhibition, etc.
Education area: The main function is to provide educational practice for teachers’and students’research, training and learning. The areaincludes“Educators’Seminar Hall”,“Educators’Collection Hall”,“Educators’Image Hall”,“Tin Ka Ping Memorial Hall”, and others.
Cultural and creative area: Space for cultural and creative products that put forward themes of respect for teachers and education, and provides leisure reading and buffet service for museum guests.
Cultural relics management area:Administrative and working area for collection storage, information collection, sorting and restoration.
Security area: Offices of service operation support, including administrative duties, on-duty reception, etc.
In accordance with the important instruction of General Secretary Xi Jinping,“Let the cultural relics collected in the museum, the heritage displayed on the vast land, and the words written in ancient books come alive”. TheChina Teachers Museum, fully upholds its core philosophy on all fronts andstrives to build a museum for the public that maintains the museum’s unique characteristics, operates without borders, and builds up cultural landmarks, that advance the inheritance of our resplendent cultural relics. Furthermore we will continue building on the legacy of our century-old museum, retaining eternal cultural memory for our nation, furthering our historical heritage for education, and creating a commonly shared spiritual home for all the teachers.
