With the ongoing impact of Taiwan’s #MeToo movement, the nation has recently seen an increase in the number of people who say they were sexually harassed or assaulted by doctors during consultations or treatment. Even at National Taiwan University Hospital, which is affiliated with Taiwan’s top university, an obstetrician and a gynecologist were accused of sexual assault.
The misbehavior, which undermines trust between doctors and patients, and damages medical ethics, are rooted in elementary and junior-high school education, where academic performance usually prevails, while moral education and character cultivation are neglected.
Education is supposed to be about cultivating talents who are responsible and social-minded, rather than a shallow utilitarianism that focuses only on students’ academic performance.
Schools should create a warm and harmonious learning environment, value students’ care and respect for one another, and cultivate their most precious sentiments in the glory of human nature. Schools should not just be about making people “well-trained,” focused only on academic rankings. Otherwise, they would only produce “money-making machines” who are selfish and have no respect for gender sensitivities, and lack a sense of social responsibility.
The most frightening thing is that if parents and schools define “good students” exclusively as getting good grades in exams, this toxic attitude would become their philosophy. By the time they finish medical school and become doctors, some ideas and attitudes can no longer be corrected. The more knowledgeable people who do not have sound values are, the more harm they would cause to society through inappropriate behavior.
For all professions, having talent and virtue is not just an ideal or empty promise, it should be actualized in practice. This is especially true for doctors.
I hope that teachers in elementary and junior-high schools can patiently guide and instruct students so that they can learn by osmosis. Schools should not be cram schools that treat students as machines for exams; they should have a holistic education approach, patiently guiding students in character education as well.
Only by educating students as people who have full personalities and making them feel respected and loved would they treat others with love and respect in the future.
Chen Chi-nung is principal of Shuili Junior High School in Nantou County.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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