Chinese Philosophy

[clay dube]

Let's use this area of our forum to discuss the philosophical ideas put forward by early Chinese thinkers. How can we bring these home to our students? Which passages seem most important? Which web sites and print materials have you found most helpful?

[Anonymous]

I posted throughts about Confucius and Lao Tzu in the I didn't know section.

=:O I definitely feel that in order for my students at the middle school level to understand the philosophies, We would frst have to take notes in a graphic organizer about different topics. I could make a worksheet like the following:

education
family
politics

Then we could take notes on each philosophy and students can make comparisons on a Venn Diagram of sorts.

Students should be most interested in education given their current stage in life as well as family values. They definitely come to class with ideas of what they like and they can construct knowledge based upon their previous ideas.

[Anonymous]

100% of my students are hispanic, and I definitely feel that they would love learning about Confucius philosophy. I believe in some ways, Confucian philosophy correlates with the hispanic culture and their wonderful family values. My students would love debating the different schools of thought; I would probably like to focus on significant details of each philosophy, rather than generic illustrations of each philosophy. Having the 9th grade be one philosophy, the 10th grade another, and so forth, could create a school debate team, which would be cool!

[Anonymous]

(6)
Mo sister, soul sister. Hmm. Love your fellow man like a brother but leave out the singing and dancing. Did the quakers receive inspiration from them? I wonder if they even knew about Master Mo.

Certainly the students would find this to be an amazing concept considering their ipods/cd players are attached at their hips. Always helps to point out cultural similarites/differences.
Would make a good quickwrite topic- life without music/dancing.

[Anonymous]

I went to Mr. Donn's website at the following place:

http://members.aol.com/donnclass/3Teachings.html#Top

On this page, there is a comparison between Winnie the Pooh and Taoism. Of course you can read the direct source of this by reading the book The Tao of Pooh.

I think that this similarity should be investigated when discussing the Tao. I did not understand the point of Taoism and the uncarved block at first. After reading about Winnie the Pooh and seeing how he is in fact a representation (albeit perhaps not qite) of the uncarved block. Even thouh rabbit is smart, he runs around, completely busy and stressed out, and telling other people what to do. Thus rabbit does not reflect harmony in society.

Owl, on the other hand may be wise, but he hoots and gives advice which no one is interested in.

Tiggers do not no their place in society. They are fun, but they have limitations and need to find out what their limitations are.

Anyway, please check out the website to see how Pooh represents the uncarved block. I think a comparison with students can help them to understand Taoism in a modern sense.
" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://home.swipnet.se/~w-42275/images/pooh.gif

[Anonymous]

This might be a document to incorporate in a Government class when discussing leaders/rulers from philosophy standpoint and could be tied to current times. I have re-read Professor Yang Ye’s section and find the piece titled An Enquiry Into Slander by Yuan hui very interesting because it seems like a reflection of how great the past was and how the current generation is a mess, often like the modern complaint, “the kids of today have no...” At first he draws examples from the past of great men and how the demands on these two individuals was very “heavy and comprehensive” and what they expected of others was “light and simple.” Men would declare that they all were men, “But what he could do, I cannot do.” However ordinary men would “put aside what in themselves was unlike Chou Kung, and pursued what was like…” This is a very Confusionist and Mohist point of view. The sages, rulers, or leaders were not lazy, but wise and good and with that, the rest of society would try and model themselves after them.
Later we learn that the great men of today are different, they make unreasonable demands of others but do not hold themselves to such high accord, with the author going on to say, “they fail to apply even ordinary standards to themselves.” So people are left to model themselves after these slothful hypocritical leaders. He goes on to prove his argument comparing praise and slander and who might agree and disagree with him. He is left with the question of, “does good work provoke slander and high character attract calumny?” In case you are curious calumny means false and malicious statements (I had to look that one up). The writer is in fear that the land is not well governed and asks the people in power to abide by his words.
It’s interesting because the essay states problems that we currently face with government. Politicians and people in power behave in ways with their friends rallying around them and enemies slandering them. Are the best people, or the wisest people in power? Are politicians held to higher standards now, as they were say eighty years ago?

[Anonymous]

just a possible idea for the english nerds out there. it might be interesting to attempt some sort of critical analysis using the tenets of the philosophies covered in class. there are a million approaches/schools to literary analysis, including marxist, feminist, deconstructionist, new critic, psychoanalytic, postmodernist, poststructuralist, historical, queer, race, and i think you get the point. so if you are a teacher that discusses these (clearly higher level) it might be a fun excercise to formulate and apply daoist, confucianist, moist, and legalist approaches to a text.

[Anonymous]

I found the debate among the four groups quite interesting and want to find a topic (maybe one that originates from this seminar's contents) to set up a similar activity with my students. I would like to do it with the four different philosophical strands, but it might be a bit too hard for them to understand. Some of them might have a similar problem to the one I had by being a member of the Confucius group. I understand there is the sense of loyalty to the elders above everything else, but I couldn't help thinking about ethics, and how people who disagreed would have been perceived. Could you even voice an opinion? I was raised by middle class parents in a Latin American country and was encouraged to voice my opinion, as long as I respected the point of view of others. Were opinions allowed or was everyone just expected to follow without reservations?

[Anonymous]

I think you are on to something here. My class is divided between African Americans and Latinos. My students are genuinely interested in East Asia because it is something foriegn to their immediate world and they are curious. Teaching different philosophies in different school years is a good idea. I will mention this at the next history meeting at my school and see if I can sell the idea to the other teachers. Having debates such as the one we did in our UTLA Spring Seminar class in our highschool classrooms will be exciting. Thanks.

Frank

[Anonymous]

You know, I was just thinking about it and I didn't learn anything about philosophy untill I got to college, especially Chinese Philosophy. With your enthusiasm, I am excited for our students.... 😀 [Edit by="bklank on Aug 4, 12:22:06 PM"][/Edit]

[Author]

Posts