Confucius

Confucius' Main Teaching Methods??and Their Applicability??to China' s Education Today

Confucius (551-479 BC) was a great philosopher, statesman, and educator of the late Spring and Autumn Period. Regarded as a sage for about 2,000 years from the Western Han to the Qing Dynasty, he occupies a unique place in the intellectual history of China.

Confucius' philosophy has much to do with the way of government. He was greatly concerned with building a well-governed state, in which harmony between the individual and the society prevailed. To achieve this ideal, Confucius advocated that moral obligations and proper human relations should be observed. He said, \ruler should behave like a ruler, the minister like a minister, the father father, and the son son. \also advocated that filial piety and brotherly respect were the two fundamental virtues. The people should be loyal to their ruler, and the ruler should practice virtue and operate for the benefit of the people. Confucius was also considered a philosopher of ethics. Benevolence (ren) is the central concept of his ethical thought, with \other men\as its starting point and the rites (li) as its basic form of expression. Being a coherent and comprehensive theory, his political and e ethical philosophy, known as Confucianism, had tremendous influence on Chinese thought. In fact, throughout China's long feudal period, from the Han to the end of the Qing, Confucianism was the state cult and dominated the intellectual scene.

However, it was perhaps in the field of education that Confucius made the greatest contributions to China. Just as Feng Youlan pointed out, \

Confucius devoted nearly fifty years to teaching and formulated a systematic and profound theory of education. He was the first public teacher in Chinese history who made teaching a profession, and thus he popularized education. He was the first in China who openly declared that \there should be no class distinction\education to all. He was also the first in China, who, \editing and compiling the antiquated books and knowledge of the Chinese people into the Six Classics (Odes, History, Rites, Music, Changes, and Spring and

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Part I Introduces Confucius as a statesman, philosopher, and educator. The author claims that Confucius was primarily an educator whose teaching methods are still

applicable today.

Autumn) to serve as texts for teaching, proceeded to formulate a pedagogical system of the Six Arts (propriety, music, archery, charioteering, reading and arithmetic) which combined virtue with intellect and mental with physical cultivation.\flocked to him from all parts of the country to seek his instruction, and among them about seventy-two became steeped in the Six Arts. Confucius' immediate success as a teacher was remarkable. \envoys, efficient administrators, respected counselors, and influential teachers.\Chinese for two and a half thousand years he was \Master\Of all Confucius' educational ideas, the most famous and advanced were his teaching methods, which are applicable even to modern education.

Part II

His two main teaching methods were the elicitation method of teaching and that of \in accordance with their aptitude\both of which were first advocated by him.

Part II, A, 1 This part contains 7 paragraphs, discussing in detail

Confucius' way of teaching by elicitation. Part II, A, 2

In his long career of teaching, Confucius believed that learning should be A process of exploring and understanding of one's own initiative, so is was very important for the students to learn by themselves. The role of the teacher was to guide, to supervise and, above all, to induce and initiate learning on the part of the learner.

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Of course, learning by the students themselves does not mean that the teachers are no longer necessary. Actually, in Confucius' elicitation method of teaching, great emphasis was laid on the teachers' role in guiding students in the course of study.

As a good teacher, Confucius was skillful in helping and encouraging his students to learn by themselves.

When a disciple raised a question, Confucius seldom offered a ready answer, but dropped a hint or asked a question in reply, leaving the answer to be reasoned out by the student himself.

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Confucius often encouraged his disciples to express their own ideas so that they would form the habit of active thinking. When a student was too timid to express hi idea, the Master urged him on in a most friendly

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manner and did not command him with the severity which usually characterizes the old-style Chinese teacher.

Confucius knew that' the knowledge a teacher could impart to his students was limited, so he tried hard to foster the students' ability of perception, that is, the ability of cognition by relating new ideas to familiar ideas, the known to the unknown, or the surface to the underlying. When Confucius told his students one thing, he encouraged them to analyze it and deduce the assumptions behind it, so that they could understand ten.

So, Confucius really had many ways of helping his students to learn by themselves.

What is more, Confucius was also skillful in arousing students' interest and eagerness in study. It was his opinion that only by making students interested in what they were learning, only when they were eager to learn, could they study on their own initiative. If so, there would be no barrier between their minds and the knowledge to be learned. Confucius' instructions were always interesting, and they attracted and held the attention of his students.

To sum up, the teacher’s role of guiding was twofold. One was guiding the student to do better in the process of learning, and the other was developing in him an interest and eagerness in study.

Confucius' elicitation method of teaching succeeded in bringing his students' initiative into full play and contributed a great deal to his success in training capable people.

Part II, B, 1

Confucius realized that students varied in their individualities, interests, capacities, and backgrounds of learning, and their ambitions and life styles also differed. So as a teacher, he always accommodated to these differences and used various methods in teaching or solving problems for his disciples. That was one of the reasons why he gave different answers to the same questions brought forth by different disciples.

Part II, B, 2

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In order to apply the principle of \students in accordance with their aptitude\the teacher should know very well each of his students. This is the prerequisite of using this method.

Part II, B, 3 Examples are

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Owning to his great respect for individuality, Confucius always