Blog #4 Hong Kong Divided over Plans for Patriotic Lessons in Schools

This article is primarily about a National educational plan that has been set up to be taught in the schools in Beijing. This plan is supposed to teach the students about the history in China, as well as, China’s culture so that they can be closer to their country and come to understand the things that occurred in the past. The school system began teaching this educational plan to elementary school students currently and become a mandatory plan in 2015 for all elementary schools and 2016 for all high schools.  This national education plan is being protested against by students and parents because people don’t think that the educational plan is appropriate because they don’t believe that it is necessary for the government to try to teach their children to exhibit national pride; they also believe that it shouldn’t be mandatory. Although the government has heard the protest they still haven’t changed their decision to change the national education plan because they still feel that the students need to have a good understanding of their country. The real fear in Beijing is that the government is beginning to go back to their old communist ways like the government in the “mainland” was in the past. The parents have a sense of fear that the government is trying to brainwash their children by teaching them this new curriculum. One of the students in the article backs up his protest by saying that he doesn’t believe that it is the schools or governments place to try to produce a sense of pride for the country and that the things taught in school should have no link to information that deals with emotions.  

I agree that educating students about their country is a good thing because it is always good to know the history of the country so that you can have a good idea of what your ancestors went through.  The only problem I see with this new educational plan is that the main goal is to persuade children to feel proud of their country when that should be something that the children should be able to do without a push. Teachers might not be able to teach the children this national education plan without inserting their own opinions in the material which isn’t good because school is a place that is supposed to teach mainly facts. Maybe if they decide to change the main purpose of the educational plan to just making sure that the children know the history of their country for the sole purpose of teaching them to appreciate what they have now then some parents wouldn’t be as outraged as they are.

http://world.time.com/2012/07/30/hong-kong-divided-over-plans-for-patriotic-lessons-in-schools/