Chinese Philosophy on Teaching and Learning

Description

Written over two and a half millennia ago, the Xueji (On Teaching and Learning) is one of the oldest and most comprehensive works on educational philosophy and teaching methods, as well as a consideration of the appropriate roles of teachers and students. The Xueji was included in the Liji (On Ritual), one of the Five Classics that became the heart of the educational system during China's imperial era, and it contains the ritual protocols adopted by the Imperial Academy during the Han dynasty. Chinese Philosophy on Teaching and Learning provides a new translation of the Xueji along with essays exploring this work from both Western and Chinese perspectives. Contributors examine the roots of educational thought in classical Chinese philosophy, outline similarities and differences with ideas rooted in classical Greek thought, and explore what the Xueji can offer educators today.
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Xu Di, Hunter McEwan, and Yang Liuxin

Section One: Translation

On Teaching and Learning (Xueji 學記)
Translated by Xu Di, Yang Liuxin, Hunter McEwan, and Roger T. Ames

Section Two: Essays

1. On Teaching and Learning (Xueji 學記): Setting the Root in Confucian Education
Roger T. Ames

2. The Teaching and Learning Principles of Xueji (學記) in the Educational Practice of the World Today
Xu Di

3.Conduct, Method, and Care of the Soul: A Comparison of Pedagogies in Confucian and Western Thought
Hunter McEwan

4. The Ideas of “Educating” and “Learning” in Confucian Thought
Chen Lai

5. The Classical Image of Confucian Teachers from the Analects and Xueji Yang Liuxin and Yang Jing
Translated by Xu Di

6. Confucius on the Concept of Study: What Can We Learn from Him?
Qin Wei Hong

7. Uniting Content Learning and Character Development with Self-Reflection: Xueji’s Implications for Reenvisioning Science Education
Mary Chang

8. Pedagogies of a President: Obama as a Twenty-First-Century Junzi
Gay Garland Reed

List of Contributors
Index

Sujets

• History of Asia
• Confucianism
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781438459721
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

C HINESE P HILOSOPHY
ON T EACHING AND L EARNING
SUNY SERIES IN A SIAN S TUDIES D EVELOPMENT

Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock, editors
C HINESE P HILOSOPHY
ON T EACHING AND L EARNING

Xueji ( 學記 ) in the Twenty-First Century
EDITED BY
X U D I
AND
H UNTER M C E WAN
S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS
Published by S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS , A LBANY
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Production, Laurie D. Searl Marketing, Michael Campochiaro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chinese philosophy on teaching and learning : Xueji in the twenty-first century / edited by Xu Di and Hunter McEwan.
pages cm. — (SUNY series in Asian studies development)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5971-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5972-1 (e-book)
1. Education—China—Philosophy. 2. Xue ji. 3. Philosophy, Confucian. I. Di, Xu. II. McEwan, Hunter. III. Xue ji. IV. Xue ji. English. LA1131.C5325 2016 370.951—dc23 2015011061
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Xu Di, Hunter McEwan, and Yang Liuxin
S ECTION O NE : T RANSLATION
On Teaching and Learning ( Xueji 學記 )
Translated by Xu Di, Yang Liuxin, Hunter McEwan, and Roger T. Ames
S ECTION T WO : E SSAYS
C HAPTER O NE
On Teaching and Learning ( Xueji 學記 ): Setting the Root in Confucian Education
Roger T. Ames
C HAPTER T WO
The Teaching and Learning Principles of Xueji ( 學記 ) in the Educational Practice of the World Today
Xu Di
C HAPTER T HREE
Conduct, Method, and Care of the Soul: A Comparison of Pedagogies in Confucian and Western Thought
Hunter McEwan
C HAPTER F OUR
The Ideas of “Educating” and “Learning” in Confucian Thought
Chen Lai
C HAPTER F IVE
The Classical Image of Confucian Teachers from the Analects and Xueji
Yang Liuxin and Yang Jing
Translated by Xu Di
C HAPTER S IX
Confucius on the Concept of Study: What Can We Learn from Him?
Qin Wei Hong
C HAPTER S EVEN
Uniting Content Learning and Character Development with Self-Reflection: Xueji’ s Implications for Reenvisioning Science Education
Mary Chang
C HAPTER E IGHT
Pedagogies of a President: Obama as a Twenty-First-Century Junzi
Gay Garland Reed
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
We would like to express our thanks to the following colleagues, institutions, and organization for making this joint scholarly work between American and Chinese colleagues feasible over the years.
First, thanks go to Roger T. Ames for introducing Yang Liuxin to Gay Garland Reed, who sponsored him from the Institute of Moral Education at Peking University as a visiting scholar in the Department of Educational Foundations at University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa in the fall of 2007.
To Yang Liuxin and Hunter McEwan for initiating the translation of Xueji ( 學記 ).
To University of Hawai‘i Press for its generous permission to use Chen Lai’s chapter “The Ideas of ‘Educating’ and ‘Learning’ in Confucian Thought,” from Educations and Their Purposes , edited by Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008), 310–326.
To all the translators and contributors, Yang Liuxin, Hunter McEwan, Roger T. Ames, Xu Di, Chen Lai, Yang Jing, Qin Wei Hong, Mary Chang, and Gay Garland Reed for years of dedication, persistence, and teamwork.
To Brett Adam for his assistance in making all the essays consistent in style and references.
To Zhang Xingshi, former editor-in-chief at Beijing Foreign Languages Press, and Xu Zhengyuan, professor emeritus at Peking University, for their assistance, advice, and support in Xueji ’s translation.
To our SUNY editor Nancy Ellegate, who worked with us kindly and patiently with since fall, 2013. Nancy passed away on September 27, 2015; her dedication, expertise, and spirit bring our book to the light of final publication. We would also like to thank SUNY editor Laurie Searl for production and cover design, and Jessica Kirschner for her assistance and guidance in preparing the manuscript for publication.
This book is the first publishing collaboration between University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa and Peking University. This unique circle of scholars has truly connected, worked as a team, and learned together over the past eight years.
Introduction
X U D I , H UNTER M C E WAN , AND Y ANG L IUXIN
Xueji ( 学記 On Teaching and Learning ) is a relatively brief essay on teaching and learning—a statement of an ancient Confucian philosophy of education that is summarized in 1,228 Chinese characters. It was canonized as a fascicle in Liji ( 礼記 On Ritual ), a text that was included as one of the Five Classics together with Chunqiu ( 春秋 Spring and Autumn Annals ), Shijing ( 詩經 Book of Songs ), Shujing ( 書經 Book of Documents ), and Yijing ( 易經 Book of Changes ) that are associated with Confucius himself in the tradition and formed the basic curriculum of Confucian education. The inclusion of Xueji in Liji was because it documents and explains the ritual protocols of the Imperial Academy ( 太学 taixue ), an institution that dates back to earliest times but that became increasingly critical in the Han dynasty for the education of a bureaucracy that was needed to rule the empire. It is, moreover, one of the earliest scholarly essays in ancient China to systematically discuss the system of teaching and learning, the philosophy, principles, methods, roles of teachers and students, and actual educational methods practiced during the Han dynasty. The author of Xueji is often considered unknown. Scholars have long debated its authorship. Some consider it to be written by a disciple of Confucius; others believe it to have been penned by a student of Mencius ( 孟子 ) whose name was Le Zhengke ( 樂正克 ). But in spite of the uncertainty of its authorship, Xueji remains an authoritative statement of classical Chinese pedagogy and a foundational educational text—one that invites comparisons to educational writings of classical Greek philosophers, particularly Plato and Aristotle. Thus, it is the aim of the contributors to this volume to bring this work to the attention of contemporary scholars and students in the field of education in the global context.
The project of translating Xueji began in the fall of 2007, when Yang Liuxin ( 楊柳新 ), an associate professor in the Institute of Social Economy and Culture at Peking University, came to the College of Education at the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa as a visiting scholar. Yang’s visit was funded by the China International Exchange Program from the Chinese Ministry of Education. While the main focus of his research was to study moral education in America, Yang also sought opportunities to introduce the classics and essence of Chinese educational thought to his American colleagues and students. After some initial scholarly conversations and interactions with his American colleagues, Yang attended a class on the philosophy of education taught by Hunter McEwan, who was at that time chair of the Department of Educational Foundations. McEwan’s class included some readings from Plato’s Phaedrus and Republic . This led to further discussions on the origins of Western educational thought vis-à-vis the origins of Chinese educational ideas and the similarities and differences between the two traditions.
Yang introduced Xueji as an exemplary Confucian text—one that provided an early statement of Chinese educational thought—that he felt would be useful in marking some of the fundamental differences between the two traditions. Though productive, these early discussions involved some misunderstandings due to the language barrier, but soon Yang and McEwan were joined by a third member of the group, Xu Di, who has taught in American higher educational institutions for over twenty years. Thus, the three of us formed a team with weekly regular meetings to discuss and translate the essay. These intellectual conversations were rich, lively, and engaging, and the philosophical discussions that followed focused on both the Eastern and Western philosophies of education. A first draft of a translation of Xueji was completed in 2008. As we progressed with the work of translation, the group gained a greater understanding of the value of Xueji , not only in providing a contrast to Western educational thought but also in revealing certain ideas that we felt were important to bring to the attention of modern educators. For example, a great deal of our discussions focused on the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning as it is represented in Xueji —an idea that seems very much at odds with the more technical notions of teachi