Confucianism And Education In Asia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Confucianism And Education In Asia - Essay Example Additionally, the article argues that Confucian based education encourages students to be passionate about education. Kristof states that United States ought to borrow some ideas from Confucian based education systems (Kristof Web). How Confucianism Affects Education Confucian is a traditional outlook and practices followed in East Asian countries, which are based on teachings of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who lived between 551 and 479 BCE. Confucianism emphasizes on ethics as well as statecraft. Confucius believed that education was the only way that one could earn appropriate social status in addition to material success. Additionally, he claimed that education helped foster harmony and morality in the society. Due to this believe, Confucian countries lay a lot of emphasis on education in terms of the fund set aside to facilitate education. Additionally, the parents tend to pressure their children to work hard and prosper academically. This has led to higher performance in Co nfucian countries (Gove and Huang 10-13; Phuong-Mai, Cees and Albert 1-3; Kristof Web). Learning is a process influenced by interaction of many factors many factors. The world or the environment that one learns in plays a role in determining ones perceptions toward education hence the possibility of succeeding or not succeeding. Culture is one of the factors that determine the modes of learning as well as the development of education policies. Most Asian schools follow Confucian ideas in teaching. Confucianism is one of the greatest stimuli of education in most Asian countries such as Singapore, China, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. Confucianism entails a lot of strictness, demand for students to... This essay stresses that Confucian is the main difference that segregates education in the Asian countries from that in Western countries. Additionally, the notion that Confucianism encourages surface learning, which is inadequate for future performance in jobs, is not correct. This is because Students from Confucians countries have been regarded as good performance even in their jobs. It is true that students in counties such as Hong Kong considerably depend on deep memorizing to pass their exams, but the fact that they end up outdoing their western counterparts means that Confucianism is an appropriate approach worth emulating. This report makes a conclusion that Confucianism, a cultural approach that emphasizes on education as the path that enables success in life is responsible for the improved performance in Confucian countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and China. This is according to Kristof, who adds that the strict nature demanded in Confucian educations systems cultivated good attitude towards education. This argument is true and can be supported by the recent international findings that ranked student from Confucian countries as the best performing in math, science and reading. Since culture plays a role in modeling the learning environment, it is appropriate to argue that Confucian culture is responsible for this performance since the west students have been outdone by Confucians students irrespective of the believe that Confucianism is inefficient since it entails memorizing.