Clarity on sex education
Representatives of parents’ associations early this month urged the National Academy for Education Research to impose more rigorous standards to review textbooks prior to their publication (“Parents’ alliances demand say on sex education methods,” June 9, page 3).
I strongly believe that the authority concerned should give a clear explanation on the so-called inappropriate content brought up by parents.
As they had not received a satisfactory explanation for materials in some sex education textbooks, anxious parents restated their doubts about some problematic content like “sexual spectrum.” This scale, proposed by Alfred Kinsey, describes people’s sexual orientation as a continuum ranging from “exclusively heterosexual” to “equally heterosexual and homosexual” to “exclusively homosexual.”
However, parents are worried whether guiding students to identify their sexuality on the scale is helpful or will encourage them to identify themselves as homosexual before they are mature enough.
A study by researchers at Washington State University states that there are indeed complex individual differences within homosexual and heterosexual groups, but unlike a continuous spectrum, “there are fairly clean dividing lines between adults who are straight and those who aren’t.”
If the authorities concerned can instill the correct concept to society and request publishers to modify the content, the anxiety can be relieved more easily.
The Constitution states that parents have the right to raise their children before they reach the age of maturity. One of the main objectives of sex education is to take the responsibility to teach what is important, and what parents might feel embarrassed to teach, and if there is no trust in education authorities, students will be confused and parents will worry.
Parents’ concern about their children’s sex education should be respected. The government should make its points clear as soon as possible.
Tsai I-chien
Taipei
Getting ‘dual recognition’
I cannot help but think that Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee’s (李大維) last man standing battle cry against Beijing is a ruse to camouflage a covert diplomatic operation aiming for nonexclusive recognition (“Diplomats to battle Beijing ‘head-on,’” June 18, page 1).
Why else would President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party retain a foreign minister who cut his teeth during the decades under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? Why on earth should she compete with China as the successor to the Qing Empire, rather than govern as the elected leader of a medium-sized democratic state?
Despite what Lee announced, Tsai must have secretly ordered her diplomatic corps to get Taiwan recognized by countries that also recognize China at the same time — or in outdated parlance, “dual recognition.” This should be achievable by a nimble diplomatic service receiving clear orders — as Finnish diplomats performed the feat of organizing the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (1975) during the Cold War.
The Holy See can set a good example, as Jerome Keating pointed out (“Unique relations with the Holy See,” April 18, page 8). How about the US next?
I wish Taiwan’s diplomats every success and hope I have not jinxed their plan.
Te Khai-su
Helsingfors, Finland
While the nation grapples with its falling birthrate, it is also imperative to address how parents are raising their children. The phenomenon of “dinosaur parents” — who lash out at teachers, store staff or people on the street when confronted about their children misbehaving — has been an issue for a while, but there seems to be an uncomfortably high number of incidents making the news lately. On Saturday, a preschool teacher on an online forum wrote about a mother who often visited the school and screamed at the staff for various reasons — including her child being late to school
Americans tend to think of Vietnam as a war that split the US rather than as a country in today’s world. Vietnamese are of course way past that. The country does not have any US Electoral College votes, but if it did, they would be cast enthusiastically for US President Donald Trump. When I told a group of university students at a park in Ho Chi Minh City that I was from the US, they asked: “Do you know why we love Trump?” “Uhhh, is it because he hates China?” I asked back. “Yeah,” the group responded in unison. With a 1,000-year history of
Beijing’s media mouthpieces in Hong Kong last week reported that China is planning to create a list naming “die-hard Taiwan independence activists,” and that those on the list would be “severely punished” and “held accountable for as long as they live.” On Wednesday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) said that “they and their financiers” and other supporters would be “cracked down on in accordance with the law,” although “the legal rights and interests of the wider population of Taiwanese compatriots” would be fully protected. With threats and division, in addition to military pressure, Beijing has now added this trick to its
According to newspaper reports, the Ministry of Education has responded to a teacher-student romance — between a 34-year-old female professor, surnamed Lin (林), and a male graduate student — that occurred several years ago while Lin was still an associate professor serving as the student’s master’s thesis adviser at National Taipei University of Technology. The ministry said the university’s lecturer evaluation committee has passed a resolution to issue a written warning to Lin for breaching her contract, and suspend subsidies for the department at which she teaches for one year. The ministry also said that the case fell under the
RSS