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Epistemological flashpoint in China's classroom reform: (How) can a 'Confucian do-after-me pedagogy' cultivate critical thinking?
- Source :
-
Journal of Curriculum Studies . Feb2020, Vol. 52 Issue 1, p101-117. 17p. 2 Black and White Photographs, 1 Diagram. - Publication Year :
- 2020
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Abstract
- China's 2017 'classroom revolution' call intends to transform current teacher-centered pedagogies with brand-new philosophies and technologies. As a new entry point for classroom research, I problematize a naturalized (mis)belief—teacher-centered (Confucian) didactic pedagogies are not conducive to critical thinking cultivation—that has enthralled Chinese teachers in an epistemological-moral-pedagogical dilemma. My problematization, philosophically informed and practice-research grounded, unfolds in four steps. First, I explicate the presumed clash between the claimed Confucian pedagogies and critical thinking. Second, I historicize the Confucian pedagogical philosophy to implode the naturalized (mis)belief and some stereotypical (mis)understandings of Confucian teaching and learning, demonstrating instead an epistemological compatibility therebetween. Third, I unpack how my phenomenological case study discerns an unrecognized yet educative 'repair moment' in a Chinese math classroom, generating a possible re-conjoining between teachers' self-despised yet habitually implemented 'Confucian do-after-me pedagogy' and critical mathematical reasoning. Through observations and interviews, I illustrate how this 'repair moment' can become pedagogically significant, overturning teachers' naturalized (mis)belief, redeeming them from the moral-practical dilemma, and cultivating their critical pedagogical consciousness. Finally, I argue that this paper not only provides a philosophical-plus-empirical paradigm for teaching invention in China and beyond but also sheds new light on cross-cultural learning in transnational curriculum studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00220272
- Volume :
- 52
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Curriculum Studies
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 141357582
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2019.1641844