Spelling+Tuesday+Jane+and+Youjin

=SPELLING TUESDAY TAO OF POOH WIKI =

//Summary//
====In Spelling Tuesday chapter, the author explains about the difference between Taoist and Confucianist scholars. In the story, Pooh represents Taoist and the Owl represents Confucianist. At the beginning, the author describes how the Owl is far from Taoist ideals of Whole Man, the True Man, and the S pirit Man. The Owl does not reflect wholeness and independences that Taoists value. Owl also learns from indirect sources such as books and information, instead of learning from Taoist teachers and from direct experiences. The writing of Confucianist scholars does not manifest any of the spirits of Taoism; it is “lifeless” and “humorless” (Hoff 26). Confucianist scholars or Owl is portrayed as pompous and pretentious. He also contrast Knowledge vs. Experiences. He emphasizes that knowledge earned through experience is much more valuable than knowledge alone. Scholars can be very useful and necessary and provide a lot of information, but Taoists believe that there is something more about life than just a bunch of information. Lastly, this section of the book explains that the Confucianist scholars blames problems of the world on the mind of the Uncarved Block or Ignorance. ====

//Analysis//
Experience VS. Knowledge The Question of "Ignorance" and learning Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge



 EXPERIENCE vs. KNOWLEDGE - WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? WHAT IS BETTER? What is the difference between experience and knowledge? Wouldn't they be the same thing? Let's consider this. Everyone is aware about about poverty in Africa. You hear it on the news, you read it about it in magazines. You see the face of a starving child on an awareness poster, much like this one: 

 You have knowledge in the fact that you know these people are starving. You learned that these people live off of less than one dollar a day, sometimes a week. You realize that these people can't even afford basic housing or medical care. But do you really KNOW how they feel? Have you experienced the same hunger, pain, and desperation these people pull through everyday? If you were to write a book, would you be able to write a highly accurate, descriptive account of every emotion you felt while experiencing true starvation? Would an African man in poverty read your book and be able to say "That's exactly how I feel?" No, you would not. You, as a KIS student (or perhaps teacher) living in an high-income society in a first-world country, would never truly know what these African men and women go through because you have not experienced it. Hoff says that Knowledge does not always equate to experience. He also says that knowledge gained from experience is more valuable than just knowledge, because with knowledge from experience you actually know what you’re talking about. The poet on page 29 says that the poems by scholar Wang were like a “blind man describing the sun”. This blind man may have learned about the sun from other people, but he has never actually seen the sun and therefore cannot describe it with true, sincere feeling and experience. He will be describing what other people say about the sun, not what the actual sun is like, just as how you would only be able to say how the African people in poverty felt, not actually know it. Therefore, just knowledge is useless if you do not truly understand what you are talking about. And you can only truly know what you are talking about with experience. Hoff seems to emphasize the importance of experience in Taoism for that very reason.

 The QUESTION OF "IGNORANCE" and learning KNOWLEDGE FOR THE SAKE OF KNOWLEDGE

Most scholars blame “ignorance” and the “ignorant man” for the problems of the world, because scholars believe that the “ignorant man” is narrow-minded and limited. They believe that education is the only path to Enlightenment, and all those who are uneducated are Unenlightened and thus refuse to look upon the world with "brighter" and more "intelligent" eyes. But how educational is education? Hoff brings up the idea of learning Knowledge of the sake of Knowledge. Pompous scholars who only learn in order to feel smart and superior to those who are less learned, not in order to actually get something out of it and help society. That kind of scholar is selfish, like people who help others not because they really want to help someone but because they want to feel better and self-righteous about themselves. These kind of people are the truly narrow-minded men, the ones who turn their noses away from anything that does not match what their studies. Their education has "carved" their Uncarved Block nature, and since their block has now been imprinted upon those men will always view things with a certain bias. Whereas Uncarved, supposedly "uneducated" man will quietly observe and go along with the ideas and facts presented without letting them obstruct his view in other areas, the Educated Scholar will become blind to everything but his studies. In Europe, the great Greek Aristotle propose that the world was geocentric (earth-centered).



 For centuries thereafter, every scholar who studied under him believed the same thing and refused to accept any other ideas. It took Copernicus, a man from the Netherlands with very little ties with Aristotle to finally break the mold and declare the world was heliocentric (sun-centered). The scholars under Aristotled were supposedly educated, yes, but their education also made them blindfolded to other possibilities. Therefore, the Uneducated Man in Taoism is not Ignorant, but wise. The Heavenly Laws and The Way cannot be followed when there is Educated Bias in the minds of men.

//Discussion Questions//
====1. In what ways does Owl differ from Taoist ideals? Does he represent a Taoist monk or a Confucian scholar and why? ====

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);">2. Provide textual evidence of how the author describes the Confucianist scholars.
====<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);">3. What <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);">does author says the Confusionist, Desiccated Scholar is? Why do you think the author purposefully mixed up the words "Confucianist" and "Confusionist"? ====

[[image:http://www.northstarmarketing.com/winnie_the_pooh/winnie_the_pooh_2.jpg align="left" caption="Pooh just is."]]
====<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);">4. Why is Knowledge a bit hard to understand sometimes? What does Hoff mean by learning "Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge"? ====

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);">7. Do you think that the Uncarved Block, Ignorance is the main cause of problems in the world? Why or why not?
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);"> 8. How might education actually disturb the "Uncarved Block" ideal?

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace; color: rgb(255, 109, 107);">9. Eeyore talks about three sticks and an A. What does it reveal about Eeyore?
<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;"> =<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(207, 48, 48);">//Picture sources// = <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;"> http://images.43things.com/entry/133703pw150.jpg http://www.kneehighs.com/pooh_tao_of.gif http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2003_Piglet%27s_Big_Movie/2003_piglet%27s_big_movie_008.jpghttp://www.livinggallery.cc/starving%20child.jpg [|http://www.astro.umass.edu/~myun/teaching/a100/images/geocentric.jpg] http://speakingofthat.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/pooh-owl-gardening.jpg http://www.northstarmarketing.com/winnie_the_pooh/winnie_the_pooh_2.jpg

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