The student/teacher relationship is of utmost importance for the accurate transmission of knowledge and in the Chinese classics, where much information is given on how to teach and how to learn. This information resonates deeply throughout Chinese culture and is quite different from modern Western ideas of learning.
The below saying about learning is very famous in China – how are we to understand it from our Western viewpoint?
The Master said about his students: “I give them one corner of the square. If they are not able to find the other three corners by themselves, they were not worth teaching in the first place.”
In the West, we tend to think that the responsibility for the student’s progress lies with the teacher. It is the teacher’s role to make the subject matter as accessible as possible, breaking it down and explaining every slightest detail, as well as coming up with ways of making it interesting and fun to learn. If a student fails to make the required progress, it is often put down as being the fault of the teacher – they were not sufficiently entertaining to generate interest, or did not explain things clearly enough.
Chinese thought starts from a different point of view: if a student wants to learn about something, it is up to them to make the effort to learn. Only by memorising, practising, examining and analysing the given exercises can they develop a genuine understanding of the given material. A teacher may not give all the necessary details of an exercise; it is up to the student to find these out by developing their understanding of the subject. A teacher may not explain explicitly all the links between various exercises; again it is up to the student to understand these by finding similarities and differences with other exercises.
Only when the student makes this kind of effort to learn does true learning occur. Of course, it is understood in Chinese thought that all good teachers will do their best to inspire and inform their students – however the teacher/student relationship in Chinese philosophy is not one where the student is spoon-fed knowledge. A teacher can only open the door; it is the student who must walk through it.