Our view of education
The aim of education is not to remake people as tools fitted to society, but to help them regain what they originally are and awaken their innate wisdom. For Chinese characters, that means giving back the rationale the script always had and modern teaching lost. Axiom
Three questions: whom, what, how
We put “whom” first. A person is a unity of body, mind and spirit: education should care for a healthy body, build a healthy mind and nurture the spirit. The three cannot be separated, nor reduced to skills training. Axiom
Passing on the Way, teaching the craft, resolving doubts
Han Yu wrote that a teacher passes on the Way, teaches the craft and resolves doubts. In teaching characters: passing on the Way means explaining the rationale behind each character and the principles of conduct it carries; teaching the craft means the method and practice of strokes, components and families; resolving doubts means answering questions along the way — the AI study assistant is only a helper here, and marks the review status of what it says.
Three levels of success in education
If a person keeps personal morality and social ethics after being educated, that is a small success; if they also lead others toward goodness, a middle success; if they enter cultivation through their education, a great success. For a child, one observable sign is judging right and wrong by truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, and counting how far they live by them as their own achievement. Axiom
Classics and an integrated curriculum
The Three Character Classic and Thousand Character Classic are models of an integrated curriculum: while learning the language, a child also learned about heaven, earth and humanity. Teaching characters works the same way — each character's rationale connects with principles about the world and life.
What we will not do
We will not train people like machines. Our courses and app use no streaks, leaderboards or random rewards to drive engagement, and time-on-app is not a goal; understanding, a sense of meaning and the ability to go on learning matter more than a few more minutes. Method