Alice Ou (區桂芝), who teaches Chinese language and literature at Taipei First Girls’ High School, stirred up controversy over remarks she made at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan on Monday last week, in which she criticized the 2019 curriculum guidelines for de-emphasizing classical Chinese.
Subsequently, Ou sought to rationalize her remarks by citing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) advocacy of respect for freedom of identity.
However, Ou is responsible for teaching high-school students who are under 18 years old, in this case at the prestigious Taipei First Girls’ High School, where she is said to often spout off about her political leanings in the classroom.
This behavior is no longer a question of freedom of identity. Rather, the point is that teachers should not forcibly indoctrinate high-school students, whose ideology is not yet mature and fully formed, with their own political standpoints. To do so not only contravenes the constitutional principle of educational neutrality, but also sows divisions within the friendly and uncomplicated culture of the school campus.
Of course, teachers are entitled to have their own political ideas, but they should not bring them into the classroom, otherwise they would end up forcing their ideas and mindsets onto their students, which crosses the line between education and indoctrination.
Indoctrination is a process of forcing someone else to accept certain ideas, which is at odds with education’s emphasis on forming value judgements through independent thinking.
Ou’s pronouncements are deeply suspect, as she falsely accuses the government of destroying Chinese culture, while falsely supposing that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is protecting that culture. In reality, ever since China’s Cultural Revolution, the CCP has been the biggest offender against Chinese culture, gravely damaging its ethics and morals, and ruthlessly attacking the kindness of human nature.
Of course, anyone is free to identify however they wish, but they should not inflict it on innocent students who have not yet reached adulthood. Anyone who claims that the CCP regime preserves traditional culture is raising the banner of freedom to assert something that is patently false.
Chen Chi-nung is the principal of a junior high school.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS