Chinese ‘rote-learning’ as meaningful learning: a neglected legacy for song (recitation) in traditional Chinese education

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Rethinking Education with A Reflexive ‘Double-Negation’ of Western-centrism and Nationalism: China and Beyond

Proposal

For long, a so-called ‘paradox of Chinese learner’ has attracted attention of a group of scholars. They problematize the phenomena that Chinese students, deemed to be ‘rote learners’ adopting surface learning approach, have displayed good subject-matter understanding and performed higher than their Western counterparts in international large-scale assessments favoring deep learning approach (e.g., Chan & Rao, 2009). Literature aiming to explain the paradox either argues that memorizing and understanding are not necessarily dichotomous, exclusive, and opposite (e.g., Marton et al., 2005), or re-articulates that Confucian tradition of learning, far from memorization, also emphasizes understanding (e.g., Lee, 1996; Tan, 2015).

These provoking studies have well illustrated alternative ways of understanding learning which intermediates surface and deep approaches. What has been primarily shared in the literature is the linkage between memorization and understanding. It seems that memorization can only be justified if it prepares for, stimulates, or leads to, understanding. But as can be seen in memoirs and travelling notes (e.g., Jiang, 2016; Smith, 2004), there seemed to have a learning stage at which no explanation was offered and no understanding was invoked. Why was this type of learning perceived necessary and meaningful in ancient China? And, can we simply equate it with rote-learning as defined in the modern sense?

To answer these questions, we revisit the Chinese notion of ‘Song’ (诵), literally translated into reciting, chanting, or reading loudly. Through etymological investigation, we clarify its original and extended connotations, then we support the core arguments by a careful textual analysis of representative Confucian classics.

By doing so, we argue that modern scholarships often dispraise traditional way of learning that is characterized by memorization and recitation as obsolete ‘rote learning’. While capturing the truth partly, such judgement mostly misunderstands the genuine meaning and potential efficacy of Song in traditional Chinese education. As an isolating language written with a hieroglyphic system, Chinese raises special requirement for reading texts aloud to capture the pronunciation of characters. It is by reading aloud that the cadence, rhythm, and tone all contribute to correctly understanding characters and texts. Chanting and recitation enable one to properly interpret the originally unpunctuated sentences. This further produces esthetic, peaceful and transcendental experiences due to the poetic and religious-like characteristics, which have positive effects on maintaining one’s ‘universe of meaning’ well.

Nevertheless, we have no intention to portray recitation as a reason for the higher performance of Chinese students in modern academic assessment, nor to advocate an unreflective return to recitation in modern education. In the era of a proliferated production of all kinds of texts, what to be recited should be carefully considered and chosen. Moreover, while Song was persistently adopted as a main approach to learning throughout life, pure recitation was only the beginning stage of learning in traditional Chinese education to pave a solid foundation for further learning which involved higher order thinking. This paper aims to enable us to go beyond an unreflective negation to recitation and enriches our understanding of learning in modern context.

Authors

• Yun You, East China Normal University

• Lin Li, East China Normal University