Many times, when people talk about education, they relate it to the matter of politics and economy, but mostly and most importantly humanity. This is because education is the most fundamental building blocks of human development. It is a formative process of passing on the knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to the next. An impact of education is greatly. When given the opportunity to learn, people tend to contribute to the development of their lives. Once their lives are improved, people can then contribute to their communities and their countries, which finally affects in the betterment of this world. Therefore, it is essential to look at this matter on a global context.



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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

My Take on Confucius

A Reflection on the Seminar on Confucius (1 April 2011)
By Kalyakorn Naksompop
Written on 1 April 2011

Yesterday, if you talked to me about Confucius or Master Kong (Kong Zi), I would have seriously rolled my eyes thinking you’re “one of those people” – you know, the people who like to say that every woman is supposed to stay home and respect their husband or that children have to submissively listen to their parents regardless of what’s right and what’s wrong because it’s their “duty”. Thanks to A. Korsak Dhammacharoenkij and K. Nopporn Thepsitthar, who spoke at a seminar on Confucianism held by Executive Go Club, I now understand that those people are just self-claimed Master Kong’s worshipers who have actually twisted the real teaching of this Chinese noble to protect their role as “the man” of the society. Yes, I’m talking about the belief that men are more important than women, which has deepened in Chinese culture for long. Evidence? Remember how One-Child-Policy had impact the imbalance of male and female population in China? And people said that a big part of this belief is Confucianism. I must confess that even I once blamed it on Master Kong but now I know I was wrong.

One of the fundamental principles Kong laid in his philosophy is the balance in the society, also known as social harmony. This harmony can only be maintained if everybody in the society knows their duty and is committed to their duty with respect to one another. This includes the duty of men and women, parents and children, and leaders and their people as expressed in his words, “There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son" (Analects XII, 11, trans. Legge). The bottom line is everybody has to be happy and the only way everybody can be happy is to maintain this harmony.

“How?” one may ask. Kong proposed that social harmony begins with the understanding of ethics. It is when you know your role in the society and perform your duty with the best of your ability in the right manner – not to step over other people’s foot and neither to under do nor overdo your job. What happens when one knows his/her role but doesn’t do his/her job? Take what’s happening in Libya as example. Gaddafi knows he’s the leader of the country. He has authorities in his hands. What he does can and does affect his country and its people. In other words, he knows he has power but has he been using it rightly? I would say no. Did he fail to perform his duty as the leader of the country? I say yes. My guess is Gaddafi has completely forgotten that he can only be a leader when there are followers. Once he forgets his duty, people are not happy, they don’t feel the need to perform their duty, the harmony then disappears, and many other problems are to follow.

Comes with ethics is morality. In fact, morality is a very big word in Confucianism that stresses on how one should act towards others. Kong’s philosophy circles around humans and their relationship with one another. To make the relationship “work”, one must recognize that everybody is equal. Since everybody is equal, everybody deserves equal respect and that everybody should be treated with respect – as much respect as you want to be treated from others. Hence, the Golden Rule: "do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you."

If Confucius believed in equality, it’s not possible for him to teach men to value only men or mothers to value only sons. Nevertheless, new questions arose: what went wrong? Why is the view on gender of Chinese, whose culture was built around Kong Zi’s teaching, so….. controversial?

When One-Child-Policy was much more strictly enforced, it was common to see dead female bodies on random streets. What can this tell us? Daughters are not as much appreciated as sons? Because women are not seen as important as men? This is definitely not equality.

Again, what went wrong?

Looking back at Master Kong’s teaching, I’ve realized one thing. Confucianism accentuates the duty of every individual: leader as leader, worker as worker, father as father, and wife as wife. Depending on how you look at it, his teaching can be interpreted in many ways. One is that women are supposed to stay at home. If women are to stay at home, men are to work and to financially support the family. Men are then automatically viewed as providers while women are supporters. If this is the case, to the eyes of the society, who do you think are more important: provider or supporter?

As a woman who strongly believes in equality and with respectful consideration that Master Kong also strongly believes in this very same principal, I admit that I too see this as a kind of discrimination. If everybody is truly equal, why are women limited to stay home and why only men are entitled to work outside?


However, Confucius lived thousands of years ago. In his time when it was much tougher, men were the priority of the society since their physicality more fitted to be the provider. Though to him, women are not just supporters as he saw that the duty at home was as equally important as the duty out of home, many might fail to recognize this fact and chose to interpret his teaching the way it benefits them best.


But even with this argument, my question remains: isn’t separating duties by gender a kind of discrimination?


Then, I remember. One of Kong’s teaching was about how different people have different talents and are good at different things. Keep in mind that in his time, people with fighting skills, literacy, or any other skills necessary to serve the emperor were being valued more. However, Kongzi were able to overlook that social norm and recognized that individuals should be encouraged to pursue in what they are good at. Therefore, if there are women who are good at something other than house work and are willing to step outside to work like men, I believe that Master Kong, as liberal as he was, would have opened to their ability than their gender. The man spent years teaching people about equality. There is no way that being man or woman matters as long as one performs their duty with dignity and in the best of their ability.


So, the problem with Confucianism is definitely not Master Kong’s actual philosophy. In fact, I’ve learned that it is rather treasure for many later generations what he left in his teaching. Then, what went wrong? Hint: we have to look at who twisted his teaching, in what context, and how that benefits them.




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THE SUN IS GREEN

If I say the sun is green, what would you say?

Of course, if you have seen the sun, you would probably think I'm crazy because the sun is supposed to be red or yellow. But if you really look at it, you would probably see the same thing I'm seeing. It's not the sun that is green, but it is my imagination that made it green. It is not the fact, it's just a thought.

However, that is not the way we run the classrooms, isn't it? It is obvious that the education now is developed out of knowledge of today. We we made assumptions of how education should be using researches and philosophies, not to forget about traditions of the education. Nonetheless, what we found today will become history as soon as the sun sets, which basically means that we developed the system of education based on history and beliefs. Yet, what we are doing as educators is to prepare our students for the future. The future that is yet to come. The future that even we are uncertain of. The future where what is right today maybe wrong then. Who knows, the sun may really turn green tomorrow.

Thus, the question is, what knowledge do we have to pass on to our students?

Brutally, the answer is probably no, we don’t actually have any of today knowledge that we are sure to be relevant 30 years from now. Then, what is our job? What is our role as educators, particularly as teachers? Is teacher a lecturer? Is teacher an instructor? Is teacher a facilitator? Well, if we don't have absolute right knowledge to teach, what can we lecture them about?

In this case, being a facilitator seems to be a little more appropriate for our job description. The key is probably to facilitate the learning for learning. In other words, we should equip our students with foundation for their life as a whole, where learning can continue throughout life in a self-directed manner. “The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people,” Ayn Rand. Our job is to facilitate students to develop their motivation in learning as well as their abilities to process the learning.

As mentioned above that the task is to implant the facility for learning, what is it that we have to do to facilitate the learning? Allow students to develop the personal growth, perhaps? Yes, there is the system where we still have to provide information and facts from text books, but do you think we should also leave some room for students to be themselves, express their thoughts and play with it a little bit? Meanwhile, they may have time to look back at themselves, learn about who they are, know what they want, and would eventually learn by themselves that learning is one way to achieve their goal.

As reading this, some people may start to nod their heads as educators around the world are also starting to appreciate the thought of educating the whole child. Not only we have to focus on literacy, we also need to focus on creativity, as Sir Ken Robinson said, "creativity now is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status." Unfortunately, though many schools and teachers are aware of this fact, the accentuation of creativity is yet not widely practiced. In 1999, a report on the importance of promoting creativity and culture in schools were sent to English government. A year later, a response made by the government, agreeing with the report. Today, "there has certainly been cultural activity in schools but even the strongest champions of creative and cultural education would have to admit that the report - called All Our Futures - has not dominated schools policy" (Baker, 2009). This is just one example of how the idea is already out there but has not been practiced.

Now, a much simpler example. We sure do provide enough time for students to practice on reading, writing, calculating and all those, but do we leave enough space for students to practice their creativity in classrooms? Do we have enough room for them to think and practice their imagination?

I remember an art class I had in kindergarten. The teacher taught me to paint the sun with red, water with blue, and mountains with green. I don’t remember if anyone asked why, but we were told it is what is it. This is the simplest example of how we are taught to be so limited in our imagination. A lot of times, education does not leave room for the learners to see what “it” can be because they were told what it is or what it should be even before they can start thinking about it. I was told the sun is red even before I could think about what color the sun could be. Once information is given by someone you believe to know more, in many cases, you just assume that it is the fact. No more questions needed to be raised, no more thinking needed to be processed because the answer is already there for you.

But even if I really thought the sun was green, do you think I would dare not to paint the sun red? The funny thing is we often hear someone says, "everyone is born creative." Isn't that true? Don't you agree that children are always creative? They always find ways to be so imaginative. Is it possible that because they "know less"? Since children know less, they see less boundaries when it comes to thinking or imagination. We were probably used to be as creative and as imaginative when we were smaller. Somehow, through education, we were put into, as Robinson said, right-or-wrong system and all the capability of being creative just seemed to fade away as we became someone who's afraid of being wrong. "If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original" (Robinson, 2006). Nonetheless, that is how the education is until these days. We were told what is right and what is wrong. We were told the sun is red and the water is blue. What happens if you do the wrong things, you know that teacher can deduct your points and you would fail. And you if you keep on doing the wrong things, you would keep on failing and failing until you can become a failure. That is scary. It is always scary to be a failure. Then, it becomes a loop of not being able to think freely and be creative because you're afraid to fail. And what will happen to your creativity?

Well, if painting the sun green should make me be a failure, then I would always use red and only red.


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By Kalyakorn Naksompop
Written on December 6, 2009
(original article)

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