There is no question that Confucius was an important thinker, educator and cultural figure in ancient China. However, it must be said that it is precisely because of Confucius that the monopoly of official learning was broken and private learning was born, which is probably not a historical fact.
China has a tradition of attaching importance to education since ancient times. Before Confucius, the popularity and level of education were probably beyond many people's imagination. The Book of Rites says: "The ancient teachers have learned, the party has a dilemma, the technique is orderly, and the state has learned." Mencius also said: "Set it as a library to teach the people, the library to raise it, the learning to teach it, and the order to shoot it." Zi chan is about 30 years older than Confucius and is a contemporary. It can be seen that "rural studies" were very popular in the Confucius era. The scale of "township" is interpreted as 1.25 million and 3600 people. If even "villages and towns" have "schools", it is hard to say that it is a monopoly of government-run schools.
In the article Reflections on Ancient and Modern Confucianism and Its Research, Professor Chen Lai expounded the origin of Confucianism and the educational situation before Confucius. The article also said: "The tradition of administrative education in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which consists of all the functions of reporting officials, is a part of the source of Confucianism, and even a part of Confucianism that Confucius had before. Since' teacher's morality' is a person who teaches rural children, this profession.
Confucius said that "I was interested in learning at the age of fifteen" (The Analects of Confucius was the government), and he also claimed that "I was very cheap when I was young" (The Analects of Confucius was Chinese). Since Confucius, who was cheap when he was young, can get a good education, it is hard to say that "education without class" (The Analects of Wei Linggong) started with Confucius.
Confucius said: "The three must learn from each other's strengths" (The Analects of Confucius) and "Don't be ashamed to ask questions" (The Analects of Gongye Chang), which shows that Confucius is willing and good at learning from others. Zhuangzi, Book of Rites and Historical Records all contain Confucius' greetings to Laozi. In Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals, Confucius learned from Yan Jing, an uncle and nephew. So, do Laozi and others belong to the official school or the private school?
Confucius has many disciples, which is really outstanding. However, no phenomenon will suddenly appear and exist in isolation. If it is not true that Shao Zhengmao recruited his disciples to give lectures and competed with Confucius for disciples, then Deng of the State of Zheng is a real person, only a few years younger than Confucius, who wrote Bamboo Punishment to help people with lawsuits. According to Lv Chunqiu, "there are countless people who donate clothes to learn litigation."
Therefore, we can say that before Confucius, the boundary between "official learning" and "private learning" may not be obvious. We can even assume that for "China people", there may be no difference between official study and private study, because in theory, everyone in China has the right to education. Of course, more evidence is needed to prove whether this hypothesis can be established.
Let's talk about some personal views on the advantages and disadvantages of Confucius' educational thought.
The deficiency of Confucius' educational thought;
1. Ignore science
Ignoring science is a criticism of Confucius by many people at home and abroad. More and more evidence shows that in the era of Confucius, China's natural science has made amazing development and accumulation, mainly including:
In astronomy, as Mr. Needham said, "China was the most systematic and accurate country in all civilizations before the Renaissance." Moreover, China astronomy used equatorial coordinate system from the beginning, which is different from the ecliptic coordinate system and Arabian horizon coordinate system in ancient Greece, while modern astronomy used China equatorial coordinate system. The earliest solar eclipse in the world was recorded in Shang Zheng Shuyin. Occurred before 1970 BC or 20 19 BC. The world's first nova explosion record is also the "conflagration of new and big stars" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions of Shang Dynasty in China, which is about 1300 BC.
In mathematics, decimal notation has been widely used in Shang Dynasty. "Zhou Li Situ Bao" said: "Bao Zhang admonished the king's evil, raised the son of the country with Tao, and taught six arts: one is five rituals, the other is six music, the third is five shots, the fourth is five rituals, the fifth is six books, and the sixth is nine numbers." Zheng Xuan in the Eastern Han Dynasty quoted Zheng Zhong as saying. Today, there are heavy differences, ignorance and Pythagoras. "This is almost not as good as the later nine chapters of arithmetic. Judging from the time process of accumulation and development required by any knowledge, the teaching content of nine chapters of arithmetic in the Western Zhou Dynasty is reasonable. Of course, it may not be as profound as the content in Nine Chapters of Arithmetic. But as long as you have these concepts and the most superficial operation skills, you are obviously in a leading position in the world at that time.