A humble sharing from an ELED student

(This slideshow puts no blame on any particular people)

It’s just a humble sharing from an education-major student from CUHK.

Seeing my peers’ candid opinions over their experience with ELED.

I, also part of this program, feel obligated to speak up, too.

I’m not here to spark any argument,

but to gently share my thoughts over education in Hong Kong and

how education-major students are trained in my school.

If you care about our education, our university, our city and our future,

please stay and read.

I want to begin with my humble thoughts over education in Hong Kong,

as an education-major.

Maybe you know as much as I do.

Or, maybe some of my points can bring you a little new

insight about our education.

Before showing you anything, I want to give you a short briefing.

To sound more objective, instead of using my own mouth,

I will use quotes

Also, I want to give a little task for you, when reading.

Try to recall your personal experiences with education in Hong Kong, and

deeply relate them with each quote.

You should find most of them make so much sense (at least, to me).

Okay. Here’re my 18 thoughts over

education in Hong Kong.

Education is too vocationally driven

‘Education is to nurture global CITZENS, not global workers.’

-Adam Falk

It still remains in the mindset of Industrial Revolution

‘Mass Education was the product Industrial Revolution, to produce

standardized workforce for industrial economy. It is a linear process. Sadly,

we can still see this model today.’

-Sir Ken Robinson

‘School’s industrial, scaled-up, measurable structure means that fear must be used to keep the masses in

line. There’s no other way to get hundreds or thousands of kids to comply, to process that many bodies, en

masse, without simultaneous coordination.’

-Seth Godin

It only values uncritically instant model answers

‘It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought

without accepting it.’

-Aristotle

‘The important thing is not to stop asking questions.

Curiosity and Imagination are more important than

knowledge.’

-Albert Einstein

It is still dominated by teacher-centered chalk and talk

‘Tell me and I forget.

Show me and I remember.

Involve me and I learn.’

-Confucius

It doesn’t care much about individuality

‘Nowadays, what people call learning is forced on you, and everyone is forced to learn the same thing on the same day at the same speed in class, and everyone is different.’

-Isaac Asimov

It narrowly defines what success is

‘You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way,

and the only way, it does not exist.’

-Friedrich Nietzsche

It never encourages failures

‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.’

-Albert Einstein

‘It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.’

-Bill Gates

Its syllabus is so distant from meaningful reality

‘Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.’

-Leonardo da Vinci

It is not just spoon-feeding, but also bubble-liked

‘Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.’

-E.M. Forster

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

-Albert Einstein

It does not have faith in students

‘If we believe in how amazing our students can be, they will show how amazing they are, very often,

beyond our imaginations.’

-The author

It cares about what to learn, but not how to learn.

‘The only person who is educated is the one

who has learned how to learn and change.’

-Carl Rogers

It enslaves students’ freedom.

‘Education is the key to unlock the golden door of

freedom.’

-George Washington Carver

It is all about theories, but not applications

‘Knowing is not enough, we must apply.

Willing is not enough, we must do.’

-Bruce Lee

‘An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.’

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education in Hong Kong can simply by summarized as

‘One-off Fate-Defining Examination’

‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life

believing that it is stupid.’

-Albert Einstein

It uses students to as the chesses for international competitions

‘Parents, principals, the authorities treat students to be the chesses to win the game of examinations.

If they lose, they are failures.

Even if they win in that game, they can’t escape

from being abandoned after schooling.’

-The author

‘Students are the slaves of examinations while examinations are the cards of politics.’

-The author

One more…

It produces a factory of unconfident and future-hopeless

educational products, us.

Education should breed confidence. Confidence breeds hope.

Hope breeds peace.

-Confucius

Yes, this is the last one.

You might be thinking…

Yeah. It looks like a fancy analysis,

but it has changed nothing, at all.

You are right.

But who should be responsible for changing all these shits?

Teachers…? Future teachers.

It makes sense.

But now I want to show you how an education student is trained to be a future

education leader.

Perhaps, you might have a different answer.

To just to clarify again, my limited claims might not be relevant or fair to

anyone who is reading this.

I just humbly share with my candidness.

I would like to begin with sharing what brought me to education.

These two great men.

‘Son, education is about life influencing lives.’

I am one of his influenced lives.

-My Father, A Twenty-Year Teacher

‘Education is the most powerful

weapon to change the world.’ -Nelson Mandela

Like other education students, I was always excited with

how I could be trained to be a future education contributor.

However, after four years of immersing myself into

education (and my department), I have some dream-breaking realizations…

The following disclosures might inevitably offend some, but my candidness prevails.

So, here are my nine thoughts over what education-major students are ‘really’ facing.

The faculty is a place of status quo

‘Changing the educational problems is not your duties. Yours is just to teach well

in schools, and get a good stable pay.’

-One of My Teachers

‘Who are we? Just teachers. Don’t sacrifice your stability for

any uncertain risk.’

-One of My Peers

However…

‘If the problems should not be solved by education students, then who should?’

‘Given university students are (supposedly) the future of our city, if we do not take the responsibility to solve

the big problems, who will?’

We care how well we teach more than how well students grow

‘Who are we actually serving? Professors? Principals? Panels? Parents? (4Ps) Marks? Salary?

Or…someone we forget, students?’

We are rarely exposed to the latest education development

‘…adaptive learning?’

‘Google has an education apps?’

‘We can use Pinterest for teaching? Sorry, I don’t have any account.’

‘Knewton is now free for everyone? Wait…what, not who, is Knewton?’

We rarely are invited to educational events

‘We know our education-professors always attend different conferences, but these

chances just do not belong to us.’

‘We saw a lot of innovative schools from the news, but we are never mentioned about

them.’

‘Even an individual student is interested in a paid, but meaningful, education workshop, the faculty isn’t

willing to sponsor him.’

We have no unique edge

‘We don’t feel any progression from our old high-school teachers. The examinations-training machines.’

‘We don’t have a very confidence-boosting skill, technique

or pedagogy.’

We, indeed, know so little about education.

‘Who is John Dewey? Oh. He is one of the greatest educators in our generation.’

‘Don’t ask me the purpose of education all the time. I have no clue, but

preparing students for examinations.’

We only have locally educational minds.

‘Finland’s education is good. We know. But we just know nothing about it.’

‘Taiwan has experimental schools? Are there only laboratories?’

‘Why has Malala done for education?’

We, education students, are fragmentarily connected

‘We are not encouraged to discuss about education with our counterparts

in different universities.’

‘No similarly passionate educators could serve as our mentors to guide us

into a desired path in education.’

We always doubt our educational values

‘Who are we?

Just a speck of dust within the galaxy?

Woe is me,

if we're not careful turns into reality’

(Lost Stars)

-Adam Levine

‘Even if we know the system is flawed, we still have no choice but to fall into this trap, again.

Maybe those who care about education in Hong Kong can only be the soulless cogs in a

flawed machine. ’

‘Despite my any aspirations in education, I don’t know how to

make them real.’

To conclude

“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for

themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the

institutions.”

-Noam Chomsky

You do not have to agree with these.

But, I just said what I have experienced.

And, on behalf of other students who share a similar passion in education.

(If you allow)

But, as a typical Hongkonger, Complaining without acting is our habit.

I know. Why not we try to break this habit?

‘The best way to complain

is to make things’

-James Murphy

Also,

‘Be the Changes

you wish to see in the world’

-Mahatma Gandhi

I think

I should stop polishing this slideshow now.

I have to continue my work on making some real changes to better our education.

By the way, if you are still reading. Let me tell you a secret.

You are crazy.

‘The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world

are the ones who do.’

-Steve Jobs

Remember. You are never alone.

Thank for being crazy with me. You have read 113-pages slides.