As a teacher within the UAL and generally, as somebody born and raised in central London, I interact and teach with a lot of young Chinese and Western students. Within our western culture, we often point out the educational differences between the Chinese and western education systems, or to put it simply, why Chinese students outperform western students to the extent that they do,
One day I was scrolling TikTok and a video appeared of a young chinese woman discussing ‘the first teachers’ in both societies and how they formed the fundamentals of our outlook toward education. In the video she mentioned the difference between Confucius’s ideas of collectivism, hierarchy, and especially the role of the teacher to Plato’s more individualistic approach. Drawn into this discussion I researched the idea further and felt it was worth stumbling around and seeing what came of the comparisons,
Most notably I was interested in the role of the teacher in both philosophies, Confucius held great regard for the roles we play within the hierarchy of society, and felt one should give themselves fully to the position one is granted. For example a teacher isn’t just a source of knowledge but should act as a wider example of the moral standard within society, whereas Plato argued we should be (still aggressively hierarchical) more individualistic, more egalitarian in our approach.
When reading this I looked back toward my own experience embodying the role, I tended to naturally fall into a more western and leftist position of ‘we’re all lifelong learners together’ and allowed my students to see me as a companion learner and not a guide of any sort. Even toying with the idea is strange to me, there is an immediate rejection of putting myself in a powerful position. But therein lies the problem, I’m not allowing for the minutiae of the arguments to come through, Confucius speaks of the benefits to wider society of embodying an empathic yet strong role of teacher, guiding not out of power but care and tailoring your approach to each student.
I wonder if like my students I wouldn’t benefit from allowing some of the other fundamental pillars of education to be more a part of my teaching, many of my Chinese students enjoy and appreciate incorporating Western individualistic ideas into their learning styles and I had great results by bringing them out of the collective and encouraging them to focus on their unique interests. Maybe it would be good for us to attempt to incorporate the challenging idea of Confucius into our Western approach, and to put it bluntly, be less hippy about everything.
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