FONDLY remember our visit to Sihai Confucius Academy in Beijing (June 17, 2013). This academy is a private and boarding school that caters for children age 3-13 to learn - alongside the core subjects like sciences and maths - the Chinese classics, and to become experts and practitioners of Chinese culture. (“Confucianism” is the Western term for ‘ru’ or ‘ruxue’ - meaning literati or school of literati).
RELATED Times and culture beckon Confucius back (China Daily)
The student teacher ratio is 150 to 40, and 20 support staff. The curriculum heavily favors both Chinese and Western classics. Children board Monday to Friday at the academy and return home for the weekends.
The academy lies in the suburbs of Beijing on a mountain slide with forests, gardens, and beautiful mansions with clean and tidy halls, classrooms, playgrounds and student dormitories. Sihai Confucius Academy has successfully established itself as a brand, with its own farm products, a vegetarian restaurant chain, the Ertong education project, and other local projects.
Moreover, Sihai Confucius Academy receives regular media attention from home and abroad, hosts academic conferences, and publishes its own teaching materials. It has an excellent classical library, offers outdoor programs, organic farming, and arts and music classes. The academy frequently invites famous Confucian scholars such as Gu Zhengkun, Wang Caigui, Wang Dianqing, Guo Qijia, Roger Ames, He Guangrong, Ling Zi, and Tu Weiming. The list goes on.
And yes, the students here learn to recite Confucian and Taoist texts like the Lunyu and the Daodejing, for example. Sometimes at the early age of three. Really. [GO TO SIHAI CONFUCIUS ACADEMY WEBSITE (Chinese)] [More images via Baidu.com]
Note: This post was retrieved from the achieves at You’ve Heard About It blog. The original dates back to 18 July 2013.
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