When Socrates Meets Confucius

I guess all of us have already noticed Confucius sculpture stand tall and upright in school campus as a result of the influence of significant Confucianism. Confucius, one of achievements he made was about practical and advanced teaching and learning ideas two thousand years ago. And Chinese teachers and students even for today benefit quite a lot from them. Also in the west, people praise Socrates highly for he made great contribution to education, especially including the way of critical thinking by question-answer format that is exactly what Chinese people lack nowadays.

I have obtained an outdated news from Internet which still could illustrate this problem. It is reported that in 2012, senior high school students in China, for further studies in overseas, they took SAT and unsatisfactory result showed that less than 7% students got the passing grade, 1800 points. Besides, for those who want to study at top-tier universities, only 2% among them got the offer finally. Why? Cause SAT emphasizes critical thinking instead memory ability unlike most of domestic examinations.Therefor, here is a fact we can not deny.

Wait, what is going wrong? China has brilliant and long-lasting education culture since two thousand years ago, Confucius could be an excellent teacher to tell us how to treat learning. But, now are we indeed lacking in critical thinking? Yes. Generally speaking, I think there are 2 reasons. Firstly, the traditional education concept really influenced students too much. Usually students consider that teacher, as transmitter of public knowledge and dedicator of intellectual value, plays an irreplaceable role in education and everything teachers told in class is 100 percent accurate. So they receive information and knowledge in a blind-obedience way without deeper thought in most cases from generation to generation. Secondly, the majority of teachers just concern about admission rates because of all sorts of pressures but ignore critical thinking. Even for most parents, they have always attached great importance to high grades and imitate how eagle dad or tiger mother educate children. Gradually, the adults will not take critical thinking into consideration.

So, how could we change the current situation so that our students will not be memory robots? Personally, firstly in school, courses and curricula related to critical thinking should be offered. In class, teachers should appreciate what students think independently and encourage them to view the authority in a way of question and criticism. Meanwhile, to create conditions by some materials and suggestions could help students realize how important the critical thinking is. And then, there is possibility for students to practice by their own ways. Meanwhile, in home education, parents should care more about the growth of children in family education, stress on the cultivation of morality and creativity, and enlighten them think by themself in order to govern the country when they become adults and at least be a qualified citizens, which may be the purpose of education like what Socrates and Confucius hoped. What is more, as for every educational experts or reformers, even for every Chinese people, everyone should transform our self-conscious from “ critical thinking is not a big deal” to “critical thinking is really important”.

Without critical thinking, school is not educational organization any more yet becomes manufactures producing the same “diploma” and “intellectual”. If students, as social individuals, could not have their fantastic, unique and independent thoughts, where is the hope to make social civilization progress? So, it is high time we did something to return the energy to kids!