Analyses of Confucius’s Educational Thoughts and Its Values to Contemporary Education from the Perspectives of African Students in China

摘要

Confucius (551 - 479 BC) was the first great Chinese educator in the history of China. Confucius’s educational policy, teaching contents, teaching principles, and teaching methods played a significant role in enlightening contemporary teaching development today. His “teaching without social discrimination” policy laid the foundation for contemporary education fairness, while his teaching content of “writing and acting faithfully” emphasized Chinese contemporary moral education. Confucius’s heuristic teaching principle of “teaching students according to their aptitude” also reflects the contemporary personalization of education, meaning people have the right and freedom to pursue education in their area of interest with the trained teacher to help them accomplish their desired goals. These “heuristic educational theories” served modern educators in the better development and formulation of educational theories. Based on reading Confucian classics and referring to many domestic and foreign literature, this paper studies and expounds on the teaching value and significant enlightenment of Confucius’s educational thought to the development of contemporary education to combine theory with practice. In light of these, the paper mainly adopted a literature review and summary method. Furthermore, it gave a precise analysis of the connection between Confucius’s educational thought and contemporary educational reform and its significant influence on constructing and developing contemporary education policies and teachings.