When it comes to emigration, many Hong Kong people are doing it for their children. Once upon a Time, they wanted their children to receive a Western-style Education; before the handover, immigrants were worried about the Communist Party; today, immigrants are no longer worried, they are afraid.
Hong Kong’s education system has always been criticized by educated people, Hong Kong’s duck-fill education, focusing on instilling knowledge, rather than focus on developing the ability of children to pursue knowledge. Coupled with the prestigious school effect, which pushes children to take tuition outside of school and after-school interests, a normal child does not have a normal childhood and is hailed by schools and teachers at the starting line 365 days a year.
What is the purpose of school education? In ancient times, it was to preach, teach, and solve problems. In modern terms, it is to build character, impart knowledge, and relieve doubts. In my opinion, the purpose of education is, firstly, to shape the child’s positive personality, secondly, to explore the child’s personal potential, and thirdly, to develop the child’s ability to pursue knowledge. The education system in Hong Kong can only be said to have accomplished a small part of this.
The teacher instills knowledge, the child memorizes the textbook, then it is homework and mimeographs, tests and exams, punishments and detentions with Parents, and finally the score determines the outcome. The scores determine the class, the school’s merits and demerits, the chances of going on to college, and the future of the individual. As for personality building and potential exploration, it depends on the creation of each person.
Some children can barely adapt to this system, their childhood is not happy to say, competitive mentality from childhood, the starting line of Life constantly pushed forward, cramming endlessly, homework pressure, and then also for this and that interest classes and people compete for high and low, in short, a child enrolled in school, the whole Family did not have peace of mind days.
It can’t be said that such a system is completely unable to cultivate talent, the problem is what kind of talent is cultivated. Growing up in a childhood where there is no joy to speak of, their nature is suppressed, their potential is not explored, and there are obstacles to the growth of their personality. This is not a unique educational environment in Hong Kong, but also in Taiwan, and even more so on the mainland, where many secondary schools are militarized and children are trained to become reading machines, which is a dehumanizing system.
Imagine what it would be like to use such an educational approach in brainwashing education. The teachers could not make mistakes in politics, the children could not act or speak out of line, and the Food provided by the Party was fed daily and absorbed the nourishment of the revolution. Such children are very satisfied with the party, and over time parents do not know. After reading out, a patriotic and party-loving young people, and parents of the world’s understanding of life everywhere inconsistent, daily struggle, no peace at Home, that is the poison to the child’s personality, a lifetime of people may not be able to find themselves.
The author’s daughter attended a prestigious church school in Hong Kong in elementary school, because she did not adapt to the school’s educational approach, she became a “problem child” from childhood, failing to pay homework, failing silent books, exams, the author and his wife were summoned by the teacher twice a day to reprimand. My daughter also had to be rushed to Valley tutoring, learning piano failed, and dance also failed, painful.
Until one time, the author was ordered to meet the teacher at school, the teacher met with a complaint, your daughter this and that problem a lot, you parents have to think of a way, this will definitely miss her life. I listened to the lecture silently at first, then felt unable to stand it, on the impulse to that teacher said: we do not want to give the child too much pressure. The teacher listened to these words and froze in the classroom, pausing for a moment to announce the end of the meeting, from then on there was no more summoning parents to sing this song.
This statement of course gives the teacher a great stimulus, parents do not want to force their children, such as the school to force too much, the child has any shortcomings, is the responsibility of the school. Since the parents do not care, the school need not worry about you, let your child to their own fate, not to get into college is your family’s business.
This is reasonable speculation, if I were the teacher, my mentality is the same. But from then on, the teacher stopped calling, the child stopped suffering, and the grades, of course, still went down.
I told my child, “We live in Hong Kong, you are educated here, you adapt to the system, not the system to adapt to you. We don’t ask you to be in the top three, I just ask you to do your homework and pass the exam. If you go on like this, you won’t have a chance to go to university in the future, and you will have to bear the consequences.
The child was not intimidated by my threats and remained the same. It is her nature to hate copying books. She wrote a word twenty times, recited it over and over again, and if she made a mistake in writing silently, she was punished by copying it twenty times, and if she failed a test, she had to write a handbook to meet her parents. After graduating from elementary school, my children were assigned to the Ho Tung Girls’ Industrial School, and my wife was dismayed that it was an “industrial” school! I said it did not matter, this school also produced a female Writer Yishu (I heard so, did not check), can produce Yishu school, should not be too bad.
When my daughter reached the second grade of secondary school, we immigrated to Vancouver, and that was a complete liberation for her.
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