Heads up: This post is 12 years old. My thinking may have evolved since then — read it with that in mind.
“I had just turned 14. At school, I overheard one of my childhood friends talking with his teacher. “My top high school choices?! I don’t even know if I can score high enough to get in. Ah well, worst come to worst I’ll just join the gangs.” I had grown apart from this friend since we entered middle school but we used to be really close. I started to feel bad, “why hadn’t I pay more attention and remained close to him?!” I didn’t know what to say, so I just pretended I didn’t hear him. Inside my head, my mind was racing - “What went wrong? Was it family problems? A failure in education? Or is it just fate?”…
We’re shaped by our life experiences. For Adler Yang, this was one of the events that gave him a mission and put him on a course he hadn’t thought he’d travel. Adler started filming a documentary, “The Soul”, which examines how an overwhelmingly high-stake testing and tracking system deteriorates the students’ motivation in learning, and the sense of direction to pursuing life. This film was one of ten chosen documentary projects funded by the Taiwan Public Television Service(PTS) and Taiwan National Arts and Cultural Foundation in the year 2010.
Our meeting last week had been fulfilling, we talked about how the education systems have changed over the years in Taiwan and in Hong Kong, the purpose of public education (indoctrination and subordination) Vs. the ideals of an education (learning to learn, finding own direction in life), the history of education reforms in Taiwan, the problems with over-saturation of college degrees, and the really heavy issues of outdated models and policies that are governing our societies.
There were simply too much “meat” in our afternoon of conversations to extract just a few take-aways for a blog post, but if I must give a summary, it would be this: Any parent would be proud to have a child like Adler, so capable of thinking for himself, being aware of the problems in the bigger picture and choosing to act upon it to create positive change in the world.
I’m sure we’ll have lots of chances to work together to change our societies for the better in the next 10, 20 years!