Educational Relationship in the Analects of Confucius

Abstract

Jeong-Gil Woo investigates the prototypical Confucian concept of education and the educational relationship according to Confucius’ Analects. It is marked with characteristics, such as deep respect for the human being, relationship ethics, and the spirit of dialogue, ren (仁, benevolence) and junzi (君子, noble person) as a goal of education, the correspondence of words and action as a basic principle of educational practice and interaction, and xiuji (修己, self-education and self-transformation) as the ideal form of the educational relationship. In this chapter, there is a particular focus on the dialogical nature of Confucius, which is directly related to the conceptualization of original Confucian education and the relationship as a dialogical one, which may lead one to rethink that Confucian education only advocates a hierarchical and authoritative system. In reading the original text of the Analects, Confucius is found as an educator and not as a manager of an educational project, where he tries to make others into junzi with his hierarchical authority, but as a companion, motivator, or partner in dialogue as well as a role model in the process of becoming a junzi. The goal of Confucian education is not to force someone to change, but encourage him or her to pursue an educational ideal of xiuji within the educational relationship.