VOLUME II, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 14, SECTION 2

VOLUME II, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 14, SECTION 2

Teaching Each According to His Material, and the Matter of Talent

The last section looked clearly at this yard, the school. It carries five layers of work, and teaching is only one of them. The true place of education is not in that timetable. Then where is it? This lesson is about the one most important skill in education. Confucius spoke it through two thousand five hundred years ago, in four words. Teaching each according to his material. But to speak of those four words, we first have to get over a very painful step, a line that grates on the ear, and that gets harder to argue with the more you think about it.

One. A line that is very uncomfortable to hear

These last couple of years, a line has been drifting around among people. However hard a person is willing to work, in front of talent it may count for nothing. The first time people hear this, most feel a catch in the chest. Because all we heard growing up was the reverse. Diligence makes up for dullness. Heaven rewards the diligent. Grind an iron rod long enough and it becomes a needle. As long as you are willing to put in the work, there is nothing you cannot do. These sayings are the ground color of our last few generations, sat with in classrooms, written on blackboards, carved on the stone at the school gate. Now someone tells you this ground color may not hold.

Then steel yourself, and think on for one second. A child born tone-deaf can practise till he coughs blood and still find it hard to reach a singer's stage. A person one meter sixty tall can jump till his legs break and still find it hard to hold his place on the highest basketball court. A person born with no feel for space or shape may draw plans his whole life and still never build a house that makes people gasp. A person born to freeze at the sight of a stranger, who cannot get a sentence out smoothly, if you force him into a sales position, may spend his whole life straining. Many teachers and parents understand this in their hearts, and will not admit it with their mouths.

And the ones who stand in the classroom see it most truly. The same problem, the same teacher, explained the same once. One child's eyes light up and his hand is already moving. Another child, explained to three times, copying it out five times, is still on the other side of a membrane. Do you say the second one does not work hard? He may be the hardest worker in the class. He does homework till eleven at night, while the first one is asleep by nine. This difference happens in the classroom every day, and our talk about education has walked around it for many years.

Here, please do not rush to accept it, and do not rush to argue back. This line only lifts the cover off a thing that had been covered, for one more look. Once it is lifted, you will find this is not a new line. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Confucius had already laid this out, clear as day.

Two. The same question, and Confucius gave two answers

In the Analects, in the chapter Xian Jin, there is a very strange thing on record. Zilu came and asked Confucius, when I hear a principle, should I go and do it at once? Confucius answered him, your father and elder brothers are still at home, how can you go and do it as soon as you hear it? A little later, Ranyou came and asked. He asked exactly the same thing. When I hear a principle, should I go and do it at once? Confucius answered him, when you hear it, go and do it. The same day, the same teacher, the same question. Two students, two answers flatly opposite. A student called Gongxi Hua, standing by, saw it all, and the more he thought the more confused he got, so he went up and asked. Is this not contradicting yourself? Confucius answered with one line.

Ranyou holds back, so I pushed him forward. Zilu takes on enough for two, so I held him back. — Confucius, the Analects, Xian Jin

Ranyou, this one, is retreating by nature, and when something comes up he shrinks back, so he needs a push. Zilu, this one, has the nerve of two men in one, and when something comes up he charges ahead, so he needs a pull. Do you see it? What Confucius looked at was never the question. What Confucius looked at was the person standing in front of him. The same dose of medicine, given to a weak person, builds him up, and given to a person whose fire burns too high, harms him. Teaching is the same. However right the principle you speak, if you do not look at what material this person in front of you is made of, then that principle, landing on him, may be the wrong medicine.

This is teaching each according to his material. It is not teaching different knowledge to different people. It is this. First see clearly the particular person in front of you, and then give him the one line that fits him best. Confucius also said something more direct.

To those above the middle, one may speak of the higher things. To those below the middle, one may not speak of the higher things. — Confucius, the Analects, Yong Ye

People above the middle, you can talk with them about the deep things. People below the middle, there is no need to talk with them about the deep things. Heard today, this line even grates on the ear a little. But it is honest. Confucius did not pretend everyone is the same. He admitted that people are different from people.

Now look at that crowd in Confucius's school. Yan Hui and Min Ziqian took the road of virtuous conduct. Zigong and Zai Wo took the road of speech. Ranyou and Zilu took the road of government. Ziyou and Zixia took the road of letters. Confucius never asked Yan Hui to do Zigong's work, and never asked Zigong to do Ranyou's. One person, one road, each going back to his own material. This is the answer a teacher gave, two thousand five hundred years ago.

Three. What the Record of Learning says, nurture the strengths and remedy the failings

The one in which the ancestors spoke of this even more finely is the Record of Learning.

Learners have four failings, and the one who teaches must know them. ... Teaching is to nurture what is good in a person and remedy where he fails. — the Book of Rites, the Record of Learning

Learners lean four ways. Some are greedy for too much, want to grab everything, and cannot hold it firmly. Some take too little, understand one spot and will not go further. Some see things as too easy, and float on the surface. Some see things as too hard, and get stuck there, not daring to move. These four leanings, the Record of Learning speaks of with great precision. This is not stupidity. This is difference of heart and nature. And teaching, what is it for? Eight words. Nurture the strengths, remedy the failings. Feed the good end of him so it grows long. Bring the leaning end of him back.

Look, this is the exact opposite of the most popular way of doing things today. Today's way is to take one uniform ruler and measure every child. What measures short is called the weak spot. And then all the strength goes into patching that weak spot. And the end the child is good at? Left alone. It is good enough already, it does not hurt the total score.

And so you see it. A child who is superb at math and middling at language has all his time outside class taken up with extra language. That little flame he has for math, no one adds wood to it. By the time he grows up, his language has been patched up to middling, and his math has faded to middling too. This child has been ground into a neat and even person, all right at everything, outstanding at nothing. The Record of Learning speaks of nurturing the strengths and remedying the failings. What is done today is patching the weak spots and leveling everything even. A difference of a word, and a person's whole life.

Four. And yet, why can it not be done

At this point, some student will surely ask. If Confucius made it clear two thousand five hundred years ago, why is it that two thousand five hundred years later we cannot do it? No verdict here. Only a few layers of position laid out, and you look for yourself. The first layer, numbers. Under Confucius were three thousand students, seventy two of them worthies, and he could remember each one's temperament. A teacher today has a class of forty or fifty, teaches three classes a day, more than a hundred faces. It takes him a month just to learn the names. Ask him to teach each according to his material, and where is the material? He cannot see them all.

The second layer, that ruler. The last section said the school carries one layer of work called sifting. Sifting has to have one uniform ruler. If every child were judged by his own talent, then how would you rank? How would you hand out diplomas? How would you decide who goes to which school? Sifting by its nature demands uniformity. And uniformity by its nature runs against teaching each according to his material. This is not any teacher's fault. That ruler simply grew this way.

The third layer, the fear at home. A mother knows quite well in her heart that her child is good with his hands, cannot sit still, loves to take things apart. She half knows, too, that this child should go down that road. But she does not dare. Because that road has no end in sight, and no one will give her a guarantee, while the other road, exams, rankings, diplomas, hard as it is, unsuited to the child as it may be, is clear, and has a landing spot you can see. She cannot afford the gamble. She has only one child.

So she presses that child who is good with his hands back down at the desk. At ten at night, the child is doing the same test paper for the third time. In the drawer, an old clock taken half apart gathers dust. This layer least deserves cursing, and is hardest to undo. It is not that she does not love the child. She is too afraid. Three layers laid out, and you see clearly. That teaching each according to his material cannot be done is not because one teacher is bad or one parent is muddled. It is because this whole set of things grew in that direction to begin with.

Then what is to be done? This book gives no plan. This book only asks you to see clearly. Once you see clearly, there are some things that need not wait for anyone to change. You see clearly what piece of material your own child is. You see clearly what he is doing in the second his eyes light up. In that second, you do not interrupt him, you do not hurry him off to his test papers, you let him stay ten more minutes. Those ten minutes, the school cannot give, and the system cannot give. Only you can give them.

Five. The position this section sets, and the bridge to the next

This section spoke of the one most important skill in education. Someone says, however hard you are willing to work, in front of talent it may count for nothing. This line grates on the ear, but Confucius, two thousand five hundred years ago, had already laid this out. The same question, Zilu asked, Ranyou asked, and Confucius gave two opposite answers, because what he looked at was never the question but the particular person in front of him. Ranyou holds back, so I pushed him forward. Zilu takes on enough for two, so I held him back. This is teaching each according to his material. The Record of Learning speaks of it more finely. Nurture the strengths and remedy the failings, feed the good end of him so it grows long, bring the leaning end of him back.

And why it cannot be done today has three layers of position. Too many people, a ruler that must be uniform, a home that cannot afford the gamble. See these three layers clearly, and you know some things need not wait for anyone to change. Once you yourself see clearly what material that child of yours is made of, it has already begun. That is the second part of the fourteenth stake of the second semester. The real skill of education is not grinding everyone into one shape. It is seeing clearly each person's material, nurturing his strengths, remedying his failings.

So who is to see clearly? Who is to nurture the strengths and remedy the failings? In the end, education needs one particular person standing there. What kind of person must this be, to be worthy of standing there? The next section is about the teacher's way. Eight words, you have heard them since you were small, but you may never have thought how heavy they are. Learning high enough to teach, conduct upright enough to be a model. See you there.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.

SECTION 3  Learning high enough to teach, conduct upright enough to be a model