This is the first step of learning -- seeing that there is more to the world than selfish thoughts, needs, and desires. Even in schools today, by inviting parents to join in the process of their own child's education, through the PTA, through parent-teacher conferences, and through other methods that open up the school to parents, and vice versa, the school affirms this principle of Confucian social connectedness, of right behavior in family and in school as being symbiotic, rather than in conflict. According to the Confucian scholar Tu Wei-ming, Confucius even has a great deal to say to persons involved in the modern debates revolving around multiculturalism. Despite Confucius' place in his own Chinese tradition as a transmitter of culture and a teacher of long-shared values, Wei-ming stresses that "to truly find one's roots, to find inspiration in one's ethnicity and cultural tradition, one must go beyond a closed ethnocentrism or a narrowly conceived culturalism," because cultivation of li, or right teaching is never mere-navel gazing. It is locating the immediate and ancestral family and tradition as part of a greater world community. (Wei-ming, 2006)

Knowing family history alone is not enough. Rather, a student must know the collective history of the nation and the world, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and to replicate the right moral teachings of his or her ancestors. This is underlined in every...

Education is not merely learning technical skills, or skills merely applicable to one's vocation. Every time a child sits in an art or music class, even if he or she is not going to grow up to become a great musician, that child participates in a great tradition of Confucian teaching that notes that critical and emotional exposure to the arts is an asset to all person's moral development. Confucius did indeed say: "poetry refines human feelings and sentiments into artistic expressions of humanity." (Wei-ming, 2006)
Yes, there are many cliches to Confucian thought, because so many of his principles are so universal. It takes a village to raise a child. Those who forget the mistakes of the past must repeat these mistakes. Music can soothe the soul of the savage beast. But when understood in light of the holistic nature of Confucian teaching, these cliches seem new and interesting once again. This ancient philosopher is reborn, again and again, as his ideals are deployed to good and practical use in the modern educational system.

Works Cited

Wei-ming, Tu. "Core Values in Confucian Thought." Lecture to Trinity College. [22 Oct 2006] http://www.trinity.edu/rnadeau/FYS/Tu%20Wei-ming.htm