The power of humankind comes from its dreams. The childhood dreams of thousands of children are the driving force behind the creation of civilization.
The holistic community-building process constructs a new kind of man, a new culture and a new society in the hope of creating sustainable improvements for the entire society through the participation of all the people. This effort has met with an enthusiastic response from many local cultural and community organizations. Most students, whatever their age, have dreams, precious passions and powerfully motivating goals, and these young people should be the most important participants in the building of communities.
Community-building should be an important part of their experience of growing up. For the sake of our children, our dreams and our future, we should all bring our young into our communities, letting them grow together with the community.
Community-building means that everyone is important and children and their dreams and inspirations in particular are the motivating powers in this pro-cess. How long since we saw children playing together in our communities! How long since we heard their noise and laughter! Children represent hope and vitality, and if community-building is not founded on the joy and laughter of children, it will lose its meaning.
We shouldn't underestimate our children. A group of junior high school students transformed the wall around their school into a sidewalk lined with trees and flowers, creating a school without walls. And one school treated each class as an individual community, teaching students community-building each and every day. The facts prove that as long as they are given a stage, children are capable of playing leading roles.
The trend toward a competency-based approach to education and the promotion of lifetime learning means the education of children must extend beyond the schoolyard. The community in itself provides a rich educational environment. Schools can no longer shoulder the entire burden of educating our children. Nor do they have to.
The nine-year national-education program emphasizes the development of curricula and flexible classes by schools themselves, thus opening up even wider educational opportunities for children. Communities should enthusiastically open their arms in preparation to receive teachers and students.
I would hope that the discovery and recognition of community resources and the participation in and practical experience gained from community affairs will cultivate in students a high degree of identification with their neighborhood and a true ability to solve problems.
Many enthusiastic cultural workers, community organizations and public-welfare organizations are beginning to operate in our communities and our children learn from them and participate in their activities -- all of which contribute to a constant learning experience. The dreams of these children could open new windows for community work.
A community with the ability to educate is necessary for the creation of a school with the ability to teach children who possess the ability to learn. We should welcome the arrival of children in our communities with an integration of resources while also calling for the participation and input of more people. Everyone should build bridges and lay roads via which the young can participate in the community. I hope to see the integration of the full power of government, industry, community and schools to jointly plant the seeds of community education, anywhere. Only such a community will be a place in which we can shoulder the responsibility of educating and training our children.
Summer vacation is upon us, and many of our young friends dream of Internet cafes or lose themselves in Ecstasy parties, motorbike racing and sex. Looking around us, we see many areas in need of assistance. The community in which we spend our days really needs the participation of the young so that, together, we can create a place that we wish to pass on to posterity.
We should all contribute to society and call for government, non-governmental organizations and schools to work together to create channels for the young to participate in our communities. We must be willing to use our work and the institutions in which we work to develop work and opportunities for the young. We must also be willing to encourage the government to set policy guidelines for youth affairs.
Lee Yuan-tseh is president of Academia Sinica and former secretary general of the Community Empowering Society.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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