VOLUME II, SEMESTER 2, CHAPTER 15, SECTION 2
The Operation of Teaching, and the Path of the Great Learning
The last section gave a name to a thing that never had one. Steeping. If steeping goes this deep and is this strong, what do we still need teaching for? This lesson lays out teaching too, and sets it clearly in place. Then it calls in the Great Learning, to see how the ancestors strung the two together into one whole path.
One. What teaching is
Teaching is the exact opposite of steeping.
Steeping is unintended; teaching is deliberate. The teacher knows he is teaching, the student knows he is learning, and both sides know what is going on. Steeping comes from every direction; teaching is focused. It happens at a set hour, in a set place, on a set occasion. One lesson, forty-five minutes. The bell rings, it starts. The bell rings again, it ends. Steeping is wordless; teaching has to speak. Explain, ask, answer, do it once for you to see, then have you do it once. Teaching rests entirely on the thread of language, pulling a thing from one person over to another. Steeping is not split into subjects; teaching is. This one is called arithmetic, that one is called music. Split them apart, and only then can they be taught clearly. Steeping has no aim; teaching has an aim. After this lesson, you must be able to solve this problem. After this year, you must be able to write this essay. Where there is an aim, there is a check.
Take the smallest picture. A father crouches down, undoes his child's shoelace, and ties it again for him, step by step, so he can see. Loop it round like this, pass it through like this, pull like this. The child watches three times, tries it himself, and ties a hard knot. The father undoes it, and goes again. That is teaching. Short, clear, with a start and an end. The child has it that same day.
And on that same afternoon, what else did the child steep in? He steeped in this. When this man crouched down, he was patient. When he undid it the third time, he did not scold. Tying a shoelace, the child learned at five. That patience, he will only find at forty, when he crouches down himself to tie his own son's shoelace, and finds it was in him all along. One thing, two operations, running at the same time.
Two. The fire of teaching: the three lines of the old book on learning
So where does the craft of teaching lie? The last chapter already said half of it. Learning high enough to teach: you yourself must have the real thing. Conduct upright enough to be a model: you yourself must stand firm. Teach each according to his material: you must see clearly the material of the person in front of you. Nurture the strengths and remedy the failings: you must help what is good in him grow, and bring back what has gone crooked. But these four are about the teacher as a person. Down in an actual lesson, where does the hand go in? How is the strength used? The old book on learning has three lines that say this fire to perfection.
Lead him but do not drag him, brace him but do not press him down, open the way but do not walk it for him. — the Book of Rites, Record of Learning
Three lines, three layers of fire. Take them one line at a time. The first line, lead him but do not drag him. To lead is to show the way. To drag is to haul with a rope. Leading means you walk in front, let him see where the road is, and then he walks over by himself. Dragging means you put a noose around his neck and haul him over by force. The result looks the same: the person has arrived. But one walked there himself, and one was dragged there. The one who walked there himself can still walk next time, when you are not around. The one who was dragged, the moment the rope goes slack, stands still and does not know which way to step. Think how many lessons today are taught by dragging.
The second line, brace him but do not press him down. To brace is to give him strength, to give him a push forward. To press is to push down. A child is stuck. You give him a push from behind and say, think again, you can do it. That is bracing. You say, you can't even do something this simple, how can you be so stupid. That is pressing down. One lifts a person's spirit up, the other presses it down. Pressing down is the easiest move there is. One pressing word, and the child goes quiet at once, and the classroom goes quiet at once. But once that spirit has been pressed down, it is hard to lift it up again. Some people never lift it up for the rest of their lives.
The third line, open the way but do not walk it for him. To open is to open the door a crack. To walk it is to say the thing all the way to the end, leaving nothing. The teacher comes to the most important layer, stops, and lets the student take that last step across by himself. Only when he has taken that step himself is the thing truly his. If you take it for him, say it beautifully, not a drop leaking, the whole class applauding, then when the bell rings, the thing stays with you, not with him.
Put the three lines together. Lead him but do not drag him leaves him a road to walk. Brace him but do not press him down leaves him a spirit to lift. Open the way but do not walk it for him leaves him a step to take. Three lines, one thing. In teaching, the hardest part is not the giving. It is the leaving. Leave that space, and in that space the student grows by himself. And this move is exactly the posture this set of books holds from beginning to end. Lay out positions, and pass no verdict. A teacher who says it all has passed a verdict, and the student has no position left. Over two thousand years ago, the old book on learning had already set this measure down.
Three. The order of teaching: the five steps of the Doctrine of the Mean
That is the fire. Now the order. For a thing to truly get into a person, how many steps does it take? The Doctrine of the Mean says five.
Study it widely, question it closely, think it over carefully, sift it clearly, practice it earnestly. — the Book of Rites, the Doctrine of the Mean
The first step, study it widely. Learn broadly, and take the material in first. The second step, question it closely. Having learned, ask. Where you do not understand, keep asking. Where you do understand, ask once more: is it really so? The third step, think it over carefully. Take what you have taken in and go over it in your own mind. No one can do this step for you. The fourth step, sift it clearly. Having thought, separate right from wrong, true from false, deep from shallow. The fifth step, practice it earnestly. Do it.
Notice the order of the five steps. The first four all happen in the head. At the fifth, it suddenly drops into the body. And the Doctrine of the Mean calls it "earnest" practice. Earnest means honest and solid, one footprint to each step. When these five steps are walked, the thing is no longer something you "know". It has become something you "do". And once you are doing it every day, for ten years, the child beside you starts to steep in it. Do you see? The road of teaching, once it reaches the fifth step, earnest practice, joins on to steeping by itself. The ancestors never spoke of teaching and steeping as two things. What they spoke of was one road.
Four. The road of the Great Learning: teaching is the entrance, steeping is the extension
The whole shape of this road is in the Great Learning.
Things investigated, then knowledge reaches its end. Knowledge at its end, then the intention is sincere. The intention sincere, then the heart is set right. The heart set right, then the person is cultivated. The person cultivated, then the family is ordered. The family ordered, then the state is governed. The state governed, then all under heaven is at peace. — the Book of Rites, the Great Learning
Eight steps. Investigate things, extend knowledge, make the intention sincere, set the heart right, cultivate the person, order the family, govern the state, bring peace to all under heaven. Do not recite them as eight slogans. Walk them as one road. The first two, investigate things and extend knowledge. Go and meet the things of the world, and go and get their principle clear. This is teaching, the entrance to the road. The middle two, make the intention sincere and set the heart right. What you learned starts to sink into the heart. It is no longer a line you memorized. It has become a direction in your heart. This is the stretch of passage from teaching toward steeping.
The fifth, cultivate the person. With a direction in the heart, the person starts to change. The way he walks changes, the tone he speaks in changes, his first reaction to things changes. By here, you no longer "know" this principle. You "are" this principle. The sixth, order the family. This one matters most. A man who has set himself firm goes home, and he does not need to call the whole family to a meeting and announce a set of house rules. He only lives that way. His wife watches him, his children watch him. And the family is set right. That line of Confucius means just this.
If he himself is upright, things are done without his giving orders. If he himself is not upright, even when he gives orders they are not followed. — Confucius, the Analects, Zilu
If you yourself stand firm, you give no orders and things get done on their own. If you yourself do not stand firm, you give orders every day and no one truly listens. That is steeping. Ordering the family is steeping's first stop. The last two, govern the state and bring peace to all under heaven. One person's steeping goes out from the home, out to wider places. Walk all eight, and you see it clearly. The front part is teaching, the back part is steeping. Teaching is the entrance, steeping is the extension. They are not two things. They are the front stretch and the back stretch of one road. Over two thousand years ago, the ancestors had already laid this road.
Five. Without either one, it does not work
Now look at two cases from the other side. The first, steeping with no teaching. In one family the parents are both good people. Honest, steady, kind, generous to others. The child soaks in it and grows into an honest, generous child too. But no one ever taught this child how to think a matter through, how to tell right from wrong, how to take a complicated matter in front of him and pull the principle inside it apart. Of the five steps of the Doctrine of the Mean, he walked only the last, earnest practice. The four before it, study widely, question closely, think carefully, sift clearly, he did not walk one.
He is kind, but he is muddled. All his life he is cheated, taken advantage of, led around by the nose, and to the day he dies he does not understand where he went wrong. Only steeping, no teaching. The person is good, but he cannot stand up. The second, teaching with no steeping. In one family the walls are covered with family maxims. From the age of three the child recites the Disciple's Rules, and at five he can explain "Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself" with perfect clarity. But this father curses the waiter at the dinner table, cheats a client on the phone, and then turns to the child and says, be honest.
What will this child steep in? Not honesty. What he steeps in is this: those words are said for other people to hear. And a harsher layer still. What he steeps in is this: a person can speak fine words while doing ugly things, and feel entirely in the right. That layer is worse than dishonesty. The question from the first chapter of the first semester has gone round fifteen chapters and come back again. A man who can hold forth on the Tang poems and the Song lyrics with the best of them, why is it that, seated behind that window, he can just as well pen a stranger into a corner with no way out?
Now you have the answer. Because the poems he read were taught in, and that reflex of his, seated behind the window, was steeped in. Teaching is in the mouth. Steeping is in the body. The mouth and the body are two different things.
Six. The position this section sets, a bridge to the next section
This section has laid out teaching too, and set it clearly in place. Teaching is deliberate, focused, spoken, split into subjects, aimed. Its fire, the old book on learning put perfectly in three lines. Lead him but do not drag him, leave him a road to walk. Brace him but do not press him down, leave him a spirit to lift. Open the way but do not walk it for him, leave him a step to take. In teaching, the hardest part is not the giving. It is the leaving. Its order is the five steps of the Doctrine of the Mean. Study widely, question closely, think carefully, sift clearly, practice earnestly. Once it reaches the fifth step, earnest practice, the road of teaching joins on to steeping by itself.
The eight steps of the Great Learning lay the whole road to its end. Investigate things and extend knowledge are teaching, the entrance. Make the intention sincere and set the heart right are the passage. Cultivate the person and order the family are steeping, the extension. Confucius said, if he himself is upright, things are done without his giving orders. Ordering the family is steeping's first stop. And without either one, it does not work. Steeping with no teaching, the person is good, but he is muddled and cannot stand up. Teaching with no steeping, what the child steeps in is not those fine words but "those words are said for other people to hear". The question from the first chapter of the first semester has its answer here. The poems he read were taught in. That reflex of his, seated behind the window, was steeped in. Teaching is in the mouth. Steeping is in the body.
This is the second part of the fifteenth stake. Teaching is the entrance, steeping is the extension. Only with the two together is a culture handed down. Missing either one, what gets handed down is broken. So what about today? Are these two still running together like this today? The next section looks at a thing that is quietly happening. Teaching has grown heavier than ever before, and steeping is draining out of our days, little by little. See you there.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.