Practically, while students in Shanghai-China, Singapore and Hong Kong perform well in reading, mathematics, and science in the PISA test, they are yet comparatively weak in collaborative problem solving and higher-order thinking abilities. However, the European and North American students and teachers normally excel in the aforementioned aspects.

– A prism of the Educational Utopia: EAEM, reference society, and reciprocal learning

The junzi works on the root – once the root is planted, the dao is born. Filiality and respect for elders, are these not the roots of ren?

– The Analects, Book 1, Chapter 2

Non quis sed quid – not who but what is not how things are done in Asia. In Asia the who matters more than the what. In several cultures in Asia, there exists the concept of the ‘Big Man’ and (I cannot get away without adding) ‘Woman’ – an elder whose words carry weight and more pertinently which should not be challenged. Respect for elders is a fundamental tenet of Confucianism which has been identified as the cultural context for high performing education systems in this region.

East Asian countries and at least one South East Asian country have been consistent in scoring above peers in international large-scale assessments (ILSA) such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). This has spurred interest from non-Asian education systems.

For instance, the UK “Department for Education, which is also keen to learn from successes elsewhere, introduced Singapore-style textbooks to 72 schools in England” (Singaporean teaching methods improve UK maths skills, Financial Times, 2015). Since 2014, the UK and Shanghai have participated in a mutual exchange learning programme for teachers to study each other’s math pedagogy (Wang, China Global Daily, 2019).

Educational policy makers around the world have for sometime been engaging in adopting best practices elsewhere. Sometimes, these wholesale adoptions do not work as assumed. In 2019, educators in UK conceded that factors other than pedagogy contributed to high scores and that one such factor could be that in Shanghai, “attention from parents and grandparents could also help their development” (Wang, China Global Daily, 2019).

This highlighted the effect of culture in educational outcomes. Gang Chu (2020) writing for an authoritative journal – Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education says both western and eastern systems have their strengths and that there is much scope for reciprocal learning. For example, “the Anglo-American societies admire or even envy the desirable elements within the East Asian educational system, such as self-perfection, industriousness, and high-respect for educational attainment” and the West has always been held up as a model for innovation albeit through discomforting means such as creative destruction (Schumpeter, 1942).

Gang Chu was reviewing a book by Charlene Tan, a professor in Singapore’s National Institute of Education, titled, Comparing High-performing Education systems (HPES): Understanding Singapore, Shanghai and Hongkong.

Charlene Tan noted the overarching role of Confucian philosophy in HPES. Confucianism aims to achieve harmony in society through making aware its members of the role they play and its attendant duties. Avoidance of conflict is a key priority. Confucian roles are conceptualised in terms of relationships such as, parent-child, elder-younger and ruler-subordinate. Filiality is owed vertically and trustworthiness is owed horizontally.

Current thinking in organisational management calls for a flat structure in teams so there is no concept of verticality. For example, this Mckinsey article explains why a flat structure is necessary for agile organisations. In problem solving methodologies such as Design Thinking, there are no vertical relationships in a team; the leader is coordinator, aggregator and facilitator.

There is an apparent tension between Confucianism and what is required for agility and innovation. This has been the observation of many like Kroeber (2016) who points out that there has been no technology leader in China or Taiwan and that technology companies in these places have been caught at the bottom of the smile curve. He wonders aloud if some measure of irreverence is a prerequisite for innovation.

That East Asian systems though high performing seem not to produce collaborative problem solvers and higher-order thinkers may be borne out by current statistics. It will however be premature and indeed counter-intuitive to suggest that Asians are unable to collaborate to solve problems.

How is it that an argumentative culture like Israel’s with its concept of Chutzpah or Western systems which are individualistic do better in collaborative problem solving than Confucian systems which value harmony above all?

This is how it works in the east. As a child, younger or subordinate, one knows his place and especially when he feels the parent, elder or superior is wrong, he does not press his point. He expects no apologies or concessions. The duties are not one way. In exchange for filiality, the parent, elder and superior deals with one with benevolence. A similar Christian concept is that of grace where the believer does not merit or earn but gets good things based on his relationship with the divine.

When asked what filiality was by a disciple, Confucius replied, “Never disobey”. On another occasion, he praised a disciple because, “he will never contradict me”. When someone asked him how to get “a salaried appointment” his advice was, “If you observe much, put aside what seems dangerous, and act upon the remainder with care, your regrets will be few. Few mistakes in speech, few regrets in action – a salary lies therein”.

In the Analects, disagreement is associated with rebellion: “And never has there been one who does not like opposing his ruler who has raised a rebellion”.

It could be for this reason that the image of the quintessential good student in Asia is the one who is above all quiet and always agreeable and adoring of the teacher.

According to Uljens, a Finnish doctor of education, there are various purposes of schooling. A student has to be prepared to be a member of society and if hers is a democratic society, to participate in the political process in a sustainable way. She also has to be prepared to participate in the economy.

The politics of a country will turn on its geography, resources and shared history among other things. Economic participation in today’s context on the other hand while determined to some extent by the same factors also depends on the prevailing global conditions.

While continuity and stability are necessary in a democracy for obvious reasons, in the economic landscape, the relevant concept is disruption.

It will be counter-productive to have an outrightly irreverent attitude towards a teacher – it is humanly difficult to give selflessly to someone who disregards the heart and hard work which goes into such giving. Such an attitude would be rightly perceived as a lack of appreciation. Confucianism is intuitive in this respect.

At the same time, imagine being in a group participating in a competition, where everyone is afraid to disagree with one another or the leader. Such a group would lose very harmoniously and perhaps very graciously. The market place is exactly that – competition.

While the Asian child, student and subordinate have fully internalised their Confucian roles, there could be more benevolence on the part of the counterparts in these relationships. Or perhaps, that they would be benevolent should be made more explicit to those at the lower end of a vertical relationship.

There is yet another Confucian relationship which is not vertical but horizontal, that between friends. Here, loyalty and trustworthiness are valued. A parent, teacher, and superior is in reality vertically above their counterpart but there is nothing in Confucianism that explicitly says these cannot also be friends.

Risseeuw and Raalte (2017) reference the remarks of a Ming Dynasty writer who wrote,

Friendship is like spring water moving amongst the flowers or wind and thunder moving within the primal breath. Unless there are friendships, the other … relationships cannot be fixed.

There is a wealth of evidence that peer-learning is efficacious; that children learn deeply when they learn in a horizontal structure. There was a recent article, (Teaching and Learning with children: Impact of reciprocal peer learning with a social robot on children’s learning and emotive engagement, 2020) which investigated how well children learnt from a robot and it was found that when the robot exhibited child-like facial expressions, children could relate and learn better. The operative word here is with and not from.

In a vertical relationship, instructions flow one way based on an assumption of superior knowledge, wisdom and ability. This assumption is not without basis except, we could do away with the label ‘superior’. Taoist philosophy explains the emptiness of labels. Mr William Grosse, a Master Teacher in Singapore, from the English Language Institute of Singapore says proudly and often how he learns from and with his pupils. This is social constructivism where the teacher is a peer in a horizontal relationship.

While a flat structure is conducive for certain types of tasks, it is not practicable to be flat in all things; this would lead to anarchy. There cannot be coordinated effort and resource sharing, or collective will and steady forward momentum without hierarchy.

Japan is a collectivist society and is hierarchical; it values harmony. It is also leading the world in robotics. This is a developing field which would certainly require collaborative problem solving and higher-order thinking skills – analysing, evaluating and creating (Bloom’s Taxonomy).

It could be that the Japanese have mastered the art of disagreeing in a friendly way. They probably use the right tone and facial expression. They generally agree first before adding their piece almost as if it is an afterthought. This saves face and preserves relationships while allowing the best ideas to take root.

Perhaps in other Confucian education systems which are already high performing, nothing radical and noisy is necessary to also do well like Japan. Both students and teachers have to step into the role of friends. In the context of discussions, a teacher is a participant just like the students so students cannot come expecting a one-way top-down flow of information. This will give the appearance of obedience and studiousness but will undermine self-confidence and potential for insight from cross-fertilization of life experiences. When students treat teachers as peers, they may be less defensive and less likely to come across disrespectful. When teachers play the role of peers, there is less conflict between contradictions and respect.

There is nothing wrong in the herd mentality. Only herds can become hordes.

The Brain Dojo