Wu Xiaoli: Is the education problem in Hong Kong intentional or unintentional?
Wong Kwan Yu: The British government in Hong Kong was particularly strict during the period, but as it retreated, the British government in Hong Kong deliberately relaxed its control over education.
Wu Xiaoli: You said that the values of middle school students are actually insufficient.
Huang Junyu: The so-called values of democracy and freedom occupy the mainstream model among students. For underage students in particular, some traditional values remain a foundation.
This week's interview
President of the Federation of Hong Kong Educators
Huang Junyu
On 10 August 2021, the Hong Kong Association of Education Professionals (the "Association") announced its dissolution. It fueled the anti-state scandal in 2012. In the 2019 "Amendment Storm", teachers and students were called upon to strike on the streets, which seriously affected the normal operation of education in Hong Kong.
After the dissolution of the Association, the Hong Kong Federation of Educators (hereinafter referred to as the "Federation of Teachers") will assume more responsibilities for serving the teaching community. Huang Junyu has been the president of the Federation since 2014.
Why did the Church Association grow before disbanding?
Wu Xiaoli: The Hong Kong Association of Education Professionals was established in 1973 and the Federation of Hong Kong Educators in 1975. Why has the Association grown stronger since its establishment?
Huang Junyu: They have their own way to succeed. For example, when buying a property, they have more vision than we do. As for the government's support for the Education Association, it is also more obvious, because the government feels that the Education Association represents the entire Education community in Hong Kong.
Wu Xiaoli: Are you talking about the British government in Hong Kong or the Hong Kong SAR government?
Huang Junyu: Both.
Wu Xiaoli: After the return of the Federation of Teachers to Hong Kong, there is no way to become the mainstream?
Huang Junyu: Of course it is. Because the government's previous thinking was relatively strict with "political neutrality", the Federation was marginalized before Hong Kong's return to the motherland. After the return, the situation improved, it did not marginalize the Church Association, but it still strictly maintained neutrality to balance the two sides. That is to say, where there is a religious association, there must be a teaching association; Where there is a teaching association, the British government of Hong Kong will go to the education federation to balance.
Relaxing the management of education in Hong Kong?
The British government of Hong Kong deliberately did it
In 2019, a "storm over the amendment of the law" broke out in Hong Kong, and nearly 9,000 people were arrested. Forty percent of them are students.
Wu Xiaoli: From the "illegal Occupy Central" in 2014 to the "amendment storm" in 2019, so many students took to the streets. Some people say that especially after the handover, Hong Kong's education has gone wrong. What do you think about this?
Huang Junyu: Education is an unshirkable responsibility, but I think education cannot shoulder all the responsibilities. Because in addition to the influence of students from schools and teachers, with the rise of social media, students have been greatly affected by the outside world. For example, "Occupy Central" and "Black Riot", these will not be part of school education. Even if there are individual teachers in school who will behave out of the ordinary, we have analyzed that such teachers will not exceed 1%. During the "black riot" period, the Education Association proposed to strike classes, so we proposed that we should not strike classes and should stick to our posts. We see that most schools have not interrupted, and teachers are able to stay on top of their posts.
Of course, the shortcomings of teachers or our blind spots are that the teachers we cultivate in Hong Kong are professional, and the professionalism is reflected in the subject he teaches, but in terms of politics, it is indeed not his strength for many teachers, so teachers will be easily affected by the media and even social atmosphere.
Wu Xiaoli: Some of the details of Hong Kong education, did it happen intentionally or unintentionally?
Huang Junyu: The general direction is intentional. The British government's management of education in Hong Kong was particularly strict, so the office of the Director of Education at that time was higher than that of other Division Chiefs, which was the most important position.
Wu Xiaoli: They understand very well that education is an important part of changing people's hearts.
Huang Junyu: They attach great importance to the control of education, but with its retreat, they have deliberately relaxed the control of education, including the curriculum is not under the control of the government, there is a curriculum development council, and it was also stipulated that outsiders must be invited to do it, and civil servants should not be allowed to do it; The College of Education has now become a University of Education, which was previously managed by the government, and the teachers in it are civil servants, but now it has become a university, and education is autonomous; In terms of examinations, an examination bureau was set up, and the education bureau had no control.
Therefore, the curriculum, the examination and the teachers, the Education Bureau all ignored it, and all let go. In fact, the Education Bureau can manage fewer and fewer aspects, and the "representative politics" and "returning the government to the people" that it encourages have slowly bred populist tendencies, so this general direction is intentional.
The main issues of education in Hong Kong:
Generalization, examinations, teachers
Wu Xiaoli: You also mentioned that if it is a problem in education, it is usually general education, examinations, and teachers. General education has no teaching materials, no textbooks, all from newspapers, the media, this situation may cause fragmentation of students' learning, but also caused students' political precocious puberty.
Huang Junyu: There are many drawbacks in the general studies department, because he only says positive and negative, not right or wrong, and this situation also occurs in the history department, only saying pros and cons, no right and wrong... The younger the student, the greater the impact. Because in education, we say that the establishment of values is actually cultivated from an early age, and the concept of so-called "general education" in the general education department has spread to junior high schools, to primary schools, and even to kindergartens.
Wu Xiaoli: Why does it spread to such a young age?
Huang Junyu: General education has become a trend, and it has spread to all subjects. As for "fragmentation", it's not just a matter of general studies, I think it's a major drawback in the Hong Kong curriculum. Because we will have some content that the teacher finds difficult to teach, we will remove it; Students find it difficult or uninteresting, and then remove it.
Wu Xiaoli: If physics, chemistry, and mathematics are difficult to teach and do not teach, then the foundation of students is very poor.
Huang Junyu: In addition to the poor foundation, in each subject, if the student does not have a very systematic training in logical thinking, his way to distinguish between right and wrong is to see that there are few people and many people. Why do so many people take to the streets? For many people are right, and many people are the truth.
Coupled with the fact that our current social media, electronic media, etc. are fragmented, with a title to decide, now no one reads the article, slowly an eye-catching slogan is easy to provoke some emotions, so there will be some social events. Why are more and more young people getting involved? Because he can't tell right from wrong, he thinks that more people do is the right thing.
Wu Xiaoli: I don't quite understand that the exam has also caused some problems, is it because of the way the exam is written?
Wong Kwan Yu: The examination has always been a baton, and the Steering Committee of the Basic Law is to promote all government departments and the whole of Hong Kong to abide by the Basic Law. I made a suggestion at that time, and I said that no matter how many activities you organize, it is not as good as to come up with a question related to the Basic Law in the examination.
Wu Xiaoli: In this way, all students must read, and they must read the Basic Law thoroughly.
Huang Junyu: If you don't ask him to see it, he will go to see and study the Basic Law, and the teacher will do the same. I made this suggestion, and at that time the Examination Bureau agreed, it said that it would take a little time, and it promised that there would be a Basic Law topic within three years, and now in three years and three years, three years, the people in those Examination Bureaus have changed, and we have not yet had a topic on the Basic Law. So, how to use the baton of exams well? Of course, the General Studies Department did a negative demonstration, which contained a lot of political topics, directing our students to go in a different direction.
Wu Xiaoli: You mentioned that the values of middle school students are actually insufficient, especially in terms of responsibility, perseverance and respect for others. Why is there such an experience?
Huang Junyu: With the changes in society, traditional values have begun to decline. In addition, some so-called ideological values began to occupy an increasingly important position, including some so-called democracy and freedom, which occupied the mainstream model among our students. But I've always felt that, especially for underage students, some of the traditional basic values are still important, and that's a foundation.
Wu Xiaoli: For example?
Wong: I also criticize the Top Ten Values of the Hong Kong Education Bureau, which are now listed without filial piety. We say that filial piety comes first, respect the elders, he can stand in the future, rather than teaching him to be free, equal, fair, and change this society from an early age.
We should help him lay a good foundation, whether in parents or in schools, we must insist, do not let some social atmosphere or social trend of thought be distorted. First of all, only by doing a good job can we change others, change this society, and pursue grander ideals.
Preparation of Hong Kong textbooks,
Let Hong Kong education take many detours
Wu Xiaoli: In 1998, you became the founding principal of Fujian Middle School (Xiaoxiwan).
Huang Junyu: Yes, there were several traditional patriotic schools before the handover, but at that time, it was still in the Hong Kong-British era, and the Hong Kong British government marginalized it, and after the return of Fujian Middle School (Xiaoxiwan) Middle School, Mr. Dong first approved this patriotic group.
Wu Xiaoli: Because Mr. Dong hopes to have "two texts and three languages", but the Chinese part of Mandarin in this "two languages and three languages" is more difficult to find teaching materials, so you and your colleagues began to compile teaching materials.
Huang Junyu: There are two sets of more mature textbooks, one is Chinese Chinese and the other is Chinese history.
Wu Xiaoli: At that time, it was relatively rare to write my own teaching materials in school, right?
Huang Junyu: There is no systematic and mature writing of teaching materials, we should be the only ones. The teacher wrote this textbook in his spare time and spent 6 years. At that time, the reform of the language, we found that we had taken a detour, so we cancelled the textbook. Because there is no model text, everyone automatically uses local materials. We felt that local materials were not a viable and effective approach, so we wrote our own textbook that we felt was appropriate.
Wu Xiaoli: Regarding hong Kong's history education, the previous two methods were "looking at China from Hong Kong and then looking at the world" and "looking at China from the world and then looking at Hong Kong." Do you think it should be "seeing the world from China"?
Huang Junyu: For example, I met a young man who told me that he was studying Chinese history at a university in Hong Kong, and his professor said that "the War of Resistance Against Japan" was not right, and that it should be said that "Sino-Japanese War" was objective. After I listened, the fire came up, and I immediately said how is it possible, you came to my house to fight, smash, kill people, set fires, and then say that two people are fighting, how is it possible?
A university professor looks at history this way, he is withdrawn, he is an "astronaut" with no value judgments. "Sino-Japanese War" and "War of Resistance Against Japan" are terms, but they already reflect the problems behind our view of history. As educators, students need to be given a clear "you as Chinese" position to see the world from a one-China perspective. So we do the school-based curriculum, which is also a process for teachers to learn.
patriotic education,
Now it's time to straighten it out
Wu Xiaoli: Before Hong Kong's return to the motherland, patriotism did not seem to be the mainstream, and even for some time after the reversion, you had to be particularly careful when talking about patriotism.
Huang Junyu: There must be this situation. Because in Hong Kong, we can love anything, love cats, dogs, and love the earth, but patriotism is not enough, and even become a taboo, this phenomenon is not normal. So, when I was looking for a principal, I had a feeling of "patriotism, who am I to give up", and we would try to hold the flag-raising ceremony as a patriotic sign.
Wu Xiaoli: When did you start to feel that you have adhered to the responsibility of patriotism and Hong Kong education and serving teachers for so many years, and finally got more support and recognition?
Huang Junyu: After the "patriots govern Hong Kong" were proposed, especially after improving the election system and establishing the need for "patriots governing Hong Kong," the atmosphere in Hong Kong as a whole has changed, and it is now possible to do it with courage and courage.
Huang Junyu wrote in the commemorative book, "Moisturizing things silently"
Wu Xiaoli: As a teacher, education administrator and president of the Education Association, what are your greatest expectations for the future education in Hong Kong?
Huang Junyu: "One country, two systems" is a very unique system, how to establish an education system that is compatible with "one country, two systems"? This one takes some skill. For example, under "one country, two systems", we will not ask Hong Kong's schools, or Hong Kong's education to be on par with the mainland, we have Hong Kong's advantages, but we also do not want to completely separate from the country and engage in a set of education. How to achieve a balance between the two? This should be something that all government departments engaged in education, especially those with public power, should think about and practice in the future.
Choreographer: Mei Yuan
Producer: Han Yan
Editor: Ma Jin, Zhang Tianfang