Sept 28 (Sa) 2013 From "Happy Teachers' Day-教師節快樂" to the Oldest Bureaucratic System (官僚系統)- thinking of Confucius (孔子)... My sharing on fb.

Sept 28 (Sa) 2013 my fb post:
Crystal Huang
Yesterday

Happy birthday to Confucius -孔子 (September 28, 550 B.C.)!
Happy Teachers' Day !!

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郭墉, Johnson Lin, Shu-ping Chen and 33 others like this.

Crystal Huang The annual Ba Yi Ceremony (八佾舞)- a complex type of Ceremonial Dance based on Confucius' ethics/philosophy, passed down for many centuries to celebrate the birthday of the very first teacher in Far-Eastern Asia.
2 hours ago · Edited · Like · 2

Bev Slattery Hartford Sharing!
Yesterday at 4:53am · Unlike · 1

Steve Chen 好玩就好!別把孔丘當神祇拜
Yesterday at 6:44am · Unlike · 1

Kristy Huang 教師節快樂!
Yesterday at 9:00am · Unlike · 1

Dawn E Comer I Have a Friend Leaving for Beijing on Monday, He is going to be teaching there.
Yesterday at 10:11am · Unlike · 1

Crystal Huang @ my dearest classmate Steve Chen (at NTU), glad you mentioned that, because I tried not to get into the ideological things on this Holiday!! We need to be Happy and Celebratory once in a while. Since you mentioned "Just for Celebratory fun, but don't get into 'The Land of Idols"..." - all ready, let's tap a little bit of the iceberg!! Have fun :)!

In fact, my mother (she never got a chance to attend the elementary school, like the majority of women suffered during her time in the 1930s) treated him like an ethical god and asked us children to respect and worship him (- you know the popular yet respectful false consciousness), just like most of the Far-easterners do ! She had no clue of the feudal/monarchical society' conservative values to benefit the privileged few who dominated the Nations, not just Taiwan, China ( in fact, had an iconoclasm targeting on him as a token during the Cultural Revolution in 1966-76 and does not observe the September 28th) and part of Japan, Korea and Southeast Asian regions for thousands of years!

The reason I posted this was, mainly, from the Pedagogical perspective. Confucius was/is a super wise teacher mastering in Educational Psychology. He did develop excellent " lesson plans" and "teaching strategies". As a teacher myself, it is interesting to investigate his teaching philosophy, style and effectiveness, and then I found several perspectives that you might have known. Here is a brief of the reminiscence:

1. His class size was very small. Every student was showered with the teacher's care and attention. Sometimes, it could be as small as 3 (including the teacher. Proof, according to 論語, if true...- 顏淵季路伺. 盍各言爾志? ) :D!

We, The Population - Quality, not Quantity !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Most of his students had high IQ and EQ (except one who was known for his stubbornness - I think it was 季路?), self-motivated, self-disciplined, and goal-oriented, and many of them came from aristocratic or powerful families (similar to Socrates’ or Plato's). Among his students, 72 of them were renowned political figures or socio-economic successful men, such as, the famous one - 子貢. (成德達才者七十二). Is HIGHER education a luxury - for the few, by the few, and of the few? You tell me!

3. He was erudite (刪詩書制禮樂贊周易修春秋...and so on) and man of ability (吾少而健, 固能多畢事), yet conservative, who enjoyed history a lot (信而好古). Inquisitive and imaginative mind teasing (不知生, 焉知死) was not a priority of his teaching (you need to put yourself into his timeframe and socio-cultural background). There was no haranguing lectures, or time-wasting projects- not the Deweyan style of learning by doing hands-on approach, but learning by stimulating moral/ethical communications or dialogue - the Socratesian’s mind-on methods.

4. Tuition was paid by students' financial capacity (自備束脩而誨). He truly propounded equal educational opportunities for the diverse population, while what happened was that 99%-ish of his students were rich and powerful. He really cared about a couple of excellent yet born poor students (such as 顏淵, died quite young - indeed, there was a strong correlation between social class and the life expectancy). Education, from his mind, was to plant the acorns. Many decades later, you will be shaded under the handsome Oak trees -a long term investment on morality (倫常) as the base of human capitals. Later, it developed into this cliche - 十年樹木, 百年樹人. Since talking about 樹木樹人 things, might as well share a side bar/anecdote : an inquisitive student asked a question - "Why do you teach in U.S.?" I scratched my head; indeed why I end up teaching here. Ohhh, yes, got to be some good excuses for me to get by ! I answered, "Some lands are good for planting Apple seeds, while others, Pineapples'." In fact, 小的我, 實在不夠格, 沒法度在本國樹人(卻配當個女丘八), 只得退而求其次 ,就像宿命的媽媽的嘆息 (苛政猛於虎??)- "你認命哦",
去去(為淵驅餘??), 去國為他人作嫁衣裳 (枳遇淮兒化微橘??)... 一把薪酸累, 啼嘯皆詼...

5. There was no teaching evaluation or complex formative or summative assessments on students' learning outcomes, because, you know, every student's thinking and behaving was in the gradebook embedded in his brain, heart, and mind. Obviously, there was no distance education available - all Face To Face, no blended/hybrid or MOOCs, without all sorts of fancy, expensive, made for obsolete edu-capitalistic gadgets and gears, plus 7/24 students-the instructor-contents intense interactive pedagogy. Again, Class size - matters, though expensive nowadays!!!! (學而不厭, 誨人不倦, 如撞鐘, 如攻堅木).

6. He took students to political-field trips quite often in a frugal way. (週遊劣國, and once 困於陳蔡).

7. He was not required to do research or intimidated by the publish or perish artificial pressure. It was natural, not manufactured! (述而不作).

8. He did not use lecture notes. Surely, students did not have to purchase the expensive textbooks. Fortunately , later on, students compiled his teaching into several world renowned books (such as 賜書) - not for sale, but to pass on the ethical values to model wholesome moral beings in the functional societies torn by the brutal wars - not the notion of modern day's mind-soul emancipation. (again, 述而不作 but 刪制六藝).

9. His ethic theory later, was orchestrated by the ruling elites as the dominant ideology collaborating well with the feudal/agrarian society. Since then, the society was highly stratified, but not so extreme as India's Caste system.(罷畜百家, 獨遵孺術, 錢制思想).

10..... I might want to add a post-modern pedagogy that he was super good at - serendipitous teaching and sharing... will be continued later :)! - work in progress! Stay tuned.

In short, he is a great teacher and helped stabilize societies operated by the ruling class' necessity.- could be my personal bias, be aware !

One more observation- seemingly a wise teacher tends not to be "a smart politician" (so as Socrates??) from Confucius' personal experience transiting between the educational setting and the officialdom.

- 學而優則仕, 仕而優則貪, 官大學問大, 學-產-官 兩棲 三棲 的 鈔/抄/超/操人, 這兒比較少見 ! A friend asked me to explain the above sentences.

Here you are: In the traditional society, it might not be severely stratified as aforementioned India's caste system. Mainly, the mass could change life destiny/social mobility via the academic success through the throat-cutting National Entrance Examination. This extremely selective system scrutinized the cream of the crop to serve to various levels of government bureaucracy and sometimes, infusing new blood into the royal family, such as a successful examinee from a low social class marrying the daughters of the aristocrats.

Note - Marriage was one of the main mechanisms that Caste system (so as other feudal societies) survived thousands of years- reinforcing the endogamy- only marrying within the same caste (homogamy). The inter-caste marriage was banned. The other one was controlling the occupational capitals- the son had to carry on his father's job title (if he had a job!), such as if one was born into an untouchable caste or sub-caste, for thousands of years, they stayed put, for the only job choice a son could possess was to take on what his father did. In the close society, upward social mobility was a detriment if not a threat to the status quo.

This type of slim opportunity consumed the tremendous energy and endeavors of males who were encouraged to be ambitious to pursue their career success via being a bureaucrat which was the most important access to prestige, status, power, and then wealth would follow.

For, with power, the bureaucrat possessed avenues to interlock with academic institutions, business-complex and the rest of opportunities for the upward social-mobility and accumulating the generational cultural capitals. In many cases, the small scale of the absolute power created absolute corruption happening among different levels of the social institutions. This system also functioned as a mechanism to stabilize society and maintain status quo for more than two thousand years.

One of the latent functions was that it might have caused delaying the division of labor and limiting the diversity of job creations and availability for the upward social mobility during many dark centuries.

Here is a well-known saying to depict the tip of the iceberg in this challenging, yet rewarding journey: "書中自有黃金屋, 書中自有千鍾粟, 十年寒窗無人問, 一舉成名天下知".

Literally, they were powerful and extrinsic motivations for males to concentrate on austere studies to be successful via the bureaucratic system: "There are golden mansions in the textbooks; there are abundances to fill your life with all your needs in the learning materials", and "Stay put for a straight 10 years of studying hard, and you would be rewarded with the great fame and success" - Not exactly like the American Idols, though ! 9 minutes ago · Edited · Like
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Crystal Huang   An anecdote- whenever the throat-cutting National Entrance Examination (still, one of the most fanatic social events in the Far-Eastern countries) happening several decades ago in Taiwan (since I have many siblings), my mother would take us to temples, piously, earnestly asking Confucius' blessing, since us siblings had no chance to get the expensive cramming schools' reinforcement, praying and worshiping were doable and affordable- in order to achieve into top high schools and universities - to Steve Chen, unfortunately !

Ohhh, "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes"! Yesterday at 2:21pm · Edited · Like