A Facebook campaign launched by teachers concerned about a Ministry of Education decision to make study of the Confucian classics mandatory in high schools asks an interesting question — is there an ulterior political motive to forcing students to study the “Four Books”? The ministry’s stated goal in making the ancient textbooks required reading is to combat widespread bullying, drug use and gang problems among high school students. However, academics and teachers question whether studying the books would solve these problems, and point out that it would take time away from the study of elective courses.
What is the real reason for railroading through mandatory study of four books that were chosen as the most important Confucian texts by a Song Dynasty scholar about 900 years ago? Written more than 2,000 years ago, the books are unlikely to touch on modern themes such as peer pressure, gang dynamics, drug use, teenage pregnancies, broken families, pollution, the declining birthrate and other issues facing young people today.
The ministry summed up its stance on the issue when it described The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸), The Great Learning (大學), The Analects of Confucius (論語) and Mencius (孟子) as the “basic materials of Chinese culture.” But as Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) has pointed out, classical Chinese texts have come to comprise 65 percent of the books read by high school students since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, compared with making up 45 percent of required reading before his administration. If the Four Books were to graduate from being the topic of elective courses to mandatory subjects, that percentage would increase even further.
The Ma administration has apparently packed the ministry’s Curriculum Committee with loyal members whose goal is to push through an emphasis on reading Chinese classics. Curriculum Committee member Lin Lih-yun (林麗雲) said the committee submitted a curriculum that heavily emphasized Chinese classics in September last year shortly after several committee members were replaced, culminating five years of study on what high school students should be reading. The committee then overruled its own curriculum early this year to make the Four Books mandatory, starting next year. These sudden revisions seem overly hasty considering how much time had been put into planning the curriculum.
The Ma administration’s decision to emphasize Chinese classics did not start overnight, and it certainly is not a response to bullying in schools, which was only really elevated to the national agenda when Taoyuan’s former Bade Junior High School principal Wu Chia-ku (於家穀) was fired in late December for turning a blind eye to brutal bullying and gangsterism on campus. After that, the issue of bullying in schools polarized the media, but Ma’s campaign to force students to study ancient Chinese texts has been going on for at least the past three years.
In what looked like a kneejerk reaction at the time, but is more than likely a well thought out plan to capitalize on public indignation, education officials revised the required reading list at the beginning of this year, saying the Four Books would build character, instill morals and stop high school students from bullying each other, taking drugs and joining gangs. However, the ministry’s actions and its words don’t match up, which begs the question: Is requiring study of the Fours Books really meant to combat bullying, or is it meant to make Taiwan’s high school students more Chinese?
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
RSS