The philosophy of Confucius in education is something that I can resonate the most. I first knew about Confucius as a kid because of popular proverbs and quotes such as the “golden rule - Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself”.
Confucius was a Chinese philosopher born around 500 BC (Csikszentmihalyi, 2020). He was highly influential in Chinese history in the areas of politics, social values, morals, and education. He was also considered as the first private teacher in China wherein he shared his philosophies and theories to his students (Donn, n.d.). His philosophies and teachings are now what we regard as Confucianism and his philosophy in education is something that I can closely relate to my practice in higher education.
Teaching is a difficult career. You have to love the act of teaching in order to survive. It is a job for the selected few. You have to be passionate to do it well. I am a nurse and can actually just decide to work in the clinical areas but I still went into teaching. Nursing in the clinicals is great but I believe that with this line of work, I am also able to help people in very different ways. Higher education is the area that I am involved with at present.
In one of Confucius’s concepts of education, McEnroe (2001) briefly discusses about the theory of value wherein one of the goals of education is to question what knowledge and skills are important in learning, as well as questioning and finding the answers to what the goals of education are in the first place. This theory when applied to practice requires a lot of thought for an individual. The reason why I talk about passion as essential for success in teaching is because I am cognizant that without this, it will be very hard to find the value of what you are teaching and why you are teaching. Of course, one can just browse through objectives written in lesson plans, but for me, I go beyond what is written on these plans.
Every time I am assigned for a teaching session, I always think and reflect about what benefit will the lessons bring to my students. If the topic is something that I find as difficult to connect in terms of its relevance to the learners, I will question this. Sometimes, I have this feeling that teaching, especially in regulated courses, is occasionally becoming very prescriptive and people just follow what they are given as pre-planned in the curriculum. I think as a teacher, it is also important to find the value of what you are teaching. Without this reflective exercise, it will be very hard to love and enjoy the day to day tasks and it will just make the job routine and stagnant.
It is important to note that the Confucian philosophy is a much broader philosophy covering social rituals and on becoming more human. Its inner poles were reformist, spiritual and idealistic. Thought to be also religious since many people followed this in history, this is not the main intention. It is characterised as more of a social and ethical system of philosophy (Berling, 2020). I teach because I want to be a role model for others. Sometimes, I use my teaching sessions as a venue to share stories and experiences. Furthermore, the teaching sessions also serve as my opportunity to motivate the learners.
For Confucius, the purpose of education is to become fully human (Ryu, 2008). It is to inculcate humanity, known as the “ren”, which is done by showing the normative behaviours called the “li” so that students will have a good and broad realisation of the “way” also known as the “dao” (Tan, 2018). Every so often, in the nursing modules that I teach, I sometimes find this Confucian concept very hard to follow because the subjects are highly content-based, with anatomy and physiology modules as an example. But I still make it a point to get to share important life lessons to my students. There was an instance before, in my anatomy lecture, that I first shared with them some insights that I got from the book titled Mindset by Carol Dweck (2017) in the beginning of the session. This was to hopefully help them realise that to succeed is to have a positive mindset no matter how challenging and demanding the situation can be. Since a lot of them verbalised their struggles with the level of difficulty in the module, I used the early part of my session as an opportunity to motivate. I feel that this is my purpose aside from delivering the module content to them. There’s always a way to redesign a session. I believe in being holistic in practice. And for Confucius, to achieve being more human in relevance to education is to aim for a more holistic curriculum, where students can socially integrate so that they can self-cultivate themselves (Tan, 2018).
Students in higher education are adult learners. As adults, they learn from experiences. It is important that as a teacher, I also share my experience with them. My teaching practice in higher education is centred around linking theory with practice because I am an educator that hopes to develop competent future clinicians. Teaching in nursing education cannot be just about inculcating knowledge and facts alone. It is a field where one needs to be human, with care as its focus. It needs compassion and commitment. The Confucian philosophy of education takes with it a humanistic approach and I am teaching because I want to be a role model for future clinicians. I teach because I want them to observe. As Confucius said from one of his famous words of wisdom:
“When you see a good person,
think of becoming like him.
When you see someone not so good,
reflect on your own weak points”
(Quote Ambition, 2020).
Thank you very much for reading!
-Ed
Reference List:
Berling, J. (2020) Confucianism, Asia Society. (online) Available at: https://asiasociety.org/education/confucianism
Confucius (2020) 100 Famous Confucius Quotes, Quote Ambition. Available at: https://www.quoteambition.com/famous-confucius-quotes/
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2020) Confucius, Plato.stanford.edu. (online) Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/
Donn, L. (no date) Confucius - The Great Teacher, China.mrdonn.org. (online) Available at: https://china.mrdonn.org/confucius.html
Dweck, C. S. (2017). Mindset, Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Robinson: London
McEnroe, A.M. (2001) Confucius's Educational Theory. (online) Available at: https://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Confucius.html
Ryu, K. (2008) The Teachings of Confucius: A Humanistic Adult Education Perspective, Newprairiepress.org (online) Available at: https://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2941&context=aerc
Tan, C. (2018) Confucianism and Education, ResearchGate. (online) Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/326412668_Confucianism_and_Education
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