The Influence of Confucianism on Education

Culture is the source and foundation of education, and education itself is a special culture, bearing the inheritance and development of culture. Culture and education are closely related and develop together. China's 5,000-year-old traditional culture, especially Confucian culture, is extensive and profound, as if it were a huge treasure house. Its essence is self-evident. Educational ideas such as "building the country and building the army, giving priority to education", "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" and "giving priority to moral education" have greatly promoted the development of modern education in China. However, the utilitarian aspect of Confucian culture cannot tolerate the negative impact on modern education.

The traditional Confucian culture advocates "learning to be an excellent official", which seriously misleads students' learning motivation. The Classic of Three Characters says: "Gentlemen serve the public, villains serve the people, make a name for themselves, show their parents' prestige, take the lead, and be rich in the future", from which we can see that it was a unique family thought at that time, but there was little mention of their physical and mental development. For thousands of years, this educational concept of "there is a golden house in the book, and there is a Yan Ruyu in the book" is deeply rooted. "Learning is the only way for children to get out of their misery, get a high diploma and finally find the so-called' iron rice bowl'. Now, our college graduates are competing to apply for civil servants and Selected Graduates when they look for jobs after graduation. Hundreds or even thousands of people compete for a position at all costs, enroll in various remedial classes, and practice various "magic skills." In a word, they have done their best. This phenomenon is related to utilitarian learning purpose and learning motivation. How can such an educational purpose achieve the real development of people and society? Similarly, in the process of education, in order to improve the enrollment rate, teachers ignore students' personality differences and students' active participation in the learning process, blindly instill book knowledge, make students mechanically memorize, and completely regard students as containers for storing knowledge, which completely deviates from the true connotation of quality education and forms a "comedy" tragedy of "no one asked at a cold window for ten years and became famous in one fell swoop".

The thought of "respecting teachers and attaching importance to teaching" in traditional Confucian culture hinders the development of students' personality and thinking to some extent. Respecting teachers and attaching importance to teaching is one of the ideas advocated by Confucius. In feudal society, the ruling class generally did not allow different voices to appear in order to unify people's thoughts. Therefore, in those days, respecting teachers was the only teacher, and the teacher was the authority. Everything the teacher said was correct. Generally, students were not allowed to disagree, so they followed it carefully. Although freedom of speech is advocated now, the influence of ancient "dignity of teaching" is still deeply rooted. Many schools and families instill in children ideas such as "be obedient", "don't contradict the teacher", "the teacher has authority" and "what the teacher says is correct". Especially in many primary and secondary schools, school education is a one-way transmission of teachers' teaching and students' listening, and there is a lack of teachers, students and students in the teaching process. In fact, children's thinking is extremely active. They have many novel and interesting ideas, but they are bound by the idea of "being obedient" instilled by their parents and teachers. Because of the teacher's authority, they seldom dare to express their opposition. In the long run, they are used to listening to the teacher's arrangement and no longer have their own ideas. Then, after the teacher asks questions in the university classroom, there will be a situation of "silence" and he is no longer willing to take the initiative to express his opinions. Many people have been "influenced" since childhood. In fact, there is nothing wrong with respecting teachers and attaching importance to teaching. We really should respect teachers' personal dignity and the fruits of their labor, but the mistake is that we respect teachers too much or even only, taking teachers' words and deeds as the only measure, thus ignoring students' own personality differences and seriously suppressing students' personality, so that they can not develop fully and freely in the best period of intellectual, thinking and imagination development.

The traditional Confucian culture's contempt for "labor" (here mainly refers to manual labor and material production labor) is also not conducive to the smooth implementation of contemporary quality education. From Confucius' disdain to talk about "crop nursery" to Mencius' view that "industrious people govern the people, industrious people govern the people, governing the people eats people, and governing the people eats people", it can be seen that the educational concept contained in Confucian culture does not advocate manual labor and material production labor, and even despises manual labor, and thinks that scholars should be polite and gentle, "hands and feet are not stained with mud, and pores are not sweaty" and should study. What contemporary quality education advocates is the all-round development of morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor. The "labor" here is labor education, that is, certain physical labor and material production labor. The essence of education is that students combine mental labor with physical labor, mental labor with material production labor to realize the development of their own potential and ability, which is deeply influenced by traditional Confucian culture. No matter our society, whether it is educators, parents or students, there is always a contempt for labor. They think that manual labor is a very low thing, and those who are incapable will engage in manual labor. Although there are labor education courses in schools now, they are only forced by political needs and administrative pressure, not from the real educational ideas of educators themselves. Therefore, many schools' labor education courses exist in name only and are occupied by other courses such as Chinese, mathematics and English. Society and parents also believe that manual labor is inferior from the bottom of their hearts. They always think that the purpose of study is to get rid of manual labor, to be hardworking people in the future, especially some parents in rural areas, and to take school as a springboard to get rid of manual labor. With the popularization of education and the rapid development of science and technology, we must change this traditional concept. It is not necessarily the ruling people who work hard, and it is not necessarily the ruling people who work hard. Moreover, modern material production workers are no longer just laborers, but their production is a combination of physical strength and mental power. Therefore, we should understand "labor" more scientifically, and educators should also scientifically educate students on labor, so as to train more qualified workers for socialist modernization.

We should actively carry forward the essence of traditional Confucian culture, but these negative effects on modern education also need urgent attention. Education is the basic project for the prosperity of a country and a nation, which promotes the continuous development of politics, economy and culture of the whole society. Therefore, in the selection of the whole traditional culture, education should give full play to its screening and development functions, treat the traditional Confucian culture dialectically, take its essence and discard its dross, and update and transform some old cultures that are not in line with the laws of children's physical and mental development and social development.

Author: Song Ying Setting: School of Education, Shandong Normal University.