it should not be called "education" at all.

2010.3.28

Dear William,

Thanks for your ideas. And you had reminded me of a long forgotten ideal of
Labrary, which is a mixture of library and laboratory.

You said that:"Confucians believe that education should be available to all, and education content should be made to fit into everyone need, not into any model we have developed on the basis of any abstract ideas..... " are not correct.

"Education should be available to all" is a lie. Since the teaching materials and exam concents are determined by the ruling elite, then there was no freedom in education. The total aim of Confucius was not to promote knowledge, but to setup the mind for a better ruling, with this special way of treating people, it should not be called "education" at all.



with regards,

Leechard.


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Leechard,

Your article on the education of Chinese and Western culture in Hong kong, and your fan article on that topic is very interesting. I think you are quite right to point out that the centre of gravity of our modern education follows the Western one, that we emphasised more on Western ideas, and less on Chinese one( or you may have it, the other culture one, when we are talking in different countries culture other than Western one.) The Western idea dominance in education, of course, has been criticised by many, including Gandhi, and 林語堂, our famous Chinese writer. They both argue that ignoring the local culture system in education could greatly restrict, and even close, the access of local culture to local students. Consequently, these local students lost 6 most precarious year in their life in learning the Western system and not the local one, and the human material of these students could be wasted. A hundred year has passed since these great gentleman has pointed out these problem, and yet the progress of solving it has not advanced a single step, in my judgement. I wish that more people could pay attention to this problem, which, as you have pointe out, is the core of all problems in our society.

I here wish to make my suggestion to solve this problem. The 9-year secondary schooling, which you are now supporting, is a good idea. We can learn deeper and broader in every fields which are interesting, and very useful to us. Medicine( not the do operation of course), Cookery, Chinese poems, Astronomy. But i am doubtful whether it can solve all problems in education. Some of you may complain that the length of education is too long, and that they should complete education earlier. Some of you, however, have found that there are too much to be learned, and they need more time, more than the proposed 9 year, to have a basic understanding of Chinese and Western culture. Therefore, to suit these party needs, i propose that the education term should be made flexible, subject to the students ability to learn. This is very important, even Confucians believe that education should be available to all, and education content should be made to fit into everyone need, not into any model we have developed on the basis of any abstract ideas. We should allow the abolition of boundary between primary, secondary and tertiary education. This could greatly enhance the flow of ideas throughout the three layer of students in existing system by teaching, discussion and other means. We should allow also a liberation of students curriculum. The existing one has writted away the tree of creativity and tree of good taste, and planted the tree of bad tastes in the society. We must allow them to have more choices of courses, based on their desire, not on availability of places. We should let them to see the highest in the mountain, and deepest in the sea, to train them to be best citizen of our places.

Only when our education is flexible can we begin our project of labrary, your proposal of merging laboratory and library. I am a full supporter of this proposal, and i really wish to see this idea to be carried out by the society. It is the idea that inspire me, and i think, to many people in this blog.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,
William