www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

Schools need their own culture, or stand to lose their soul

Updated: 2013-01-31 06:03

By Ho Hon-Kuen(HK Edition)

  Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按鈕 0

Recently, I have been reading a book of Yu Qiuyu on culture. Instead of explaining different "ways of life", Yu examined a critical question: What is culture? Not only did he answer the question by defining the word "culture" theoretically, he analyzed its importance from the perspectives of our social context, history and our nature. To summarize the meaning of "culture" and add gist to this book, we may simply define "culture" as a kind of ecological community embracing different spiritual values and lifestyles. It shapes our characters through accumulation and guidance. In the end, culture is the "collative personality" of humans in groups.

Based on Yu's definition of culture, it's hardly surprising to find that if a school does not have its own culture, it loses its soul and individuality. School culture is constructed by the experiences shared inside and outside the school. It is about the "school characters" that teachers and students build through their collative memories. School culture is important because students spend most of their time in the classroom. The culture offers them the skills beyond what they can learn from books, and helps shape their values, beliefs, commitments and personalities. Researchers suggest that school culture is the most important element in improving school performance. School culture is undoubtedly essential for school development. However, educators find it extremely challenging to attain a positive school culture when schools cannot stand aloof from society at large and they are greatly influenced by the community's values. Scholars have long defined school culture as a kind of "sub-culture", which is "derived or decided" by the peripheral environment. Values that are generally accepted by society do have great impact on school culture.

The question is: How are these values developed? Most of the time, the rulers or the authorities of a community have the power to induce different values. Take Hong Kong's education system for instance. The Education Bureau has been putting significant emphasis on public examinations, imposing an "exam-oriented culture" on our society. Inevitably, academic achievement has become our parents' top priority for their kids. Schools have no choice but to follow such culture blindly. As a result, students nowadays have gradually become overly focused on exams. Achieving decent results in exams in order to qualify for admission to university has become their only motivation. Secondary schools are ranked by the number of their graduates entering university. Those with more students entering universities are considered better schools, and they can attract better students, when viewed from an academic perspective. When examinations dominate other aspects of learning, schools have less time to promote school culture.

Despite continuous effort by schools on "value" education, today's media remain powerful voices to influence student thinking. The media does have a positive impact on our education. We can learn about different parts of the world through television and the Internet. The media is an effective way to spread knowledge, information and news from one part of the world to another. Our children like to learn through the media because audio and visual programs make knowledge quite easy to understand. However, a common problem with the media is the tendency to publish news or carry programs with a sensational slant, intent on attracting the attention of people. The responsibility of educating the public is out of their purview. Values embedded in television programs will certainly be part of our social culture and, consequently, influence school culture.

"You Are The One" is a recent popular program for setting up blind dates for single men and women on the mainland. Single men joining the program will have a chance to stand in front of 24 single women and be judged by them. Each group of participants (one man and 24 women) will have some time to communicate with each other under the guidance of the host. If single women are unsatisfied with the man, they will switch off the lights in front of them to show they are "not interested" in him. Very often, the women use cruel and direct words to judge him, and the audiences are drawn to these debasements. However, is this what we want for our children? Do we agree with such values when our children come to seek love and form relationships? If the younger generation does not have critical thinking and proper guidance while watching this program, young people will be "brainwashed" by the values promoted by the media. In the 21st century, what is school culture? What roles should the media play? And how should educators develop school culture?

The author is vice-chairman of Education Convergence.

(HK Edition 01/31/2013 page9)

主站蜘蛛池模板: 国产成人精品综合久久久软件 | 欧美国产精品不卡在线观看 | 欧美亚洲日本一区二区三区浪人 | 男人躁女人躁的好爽免费视频 | 精品成人免费一区二区在线播放 | 国产乱子伦片免费观看中字 | 女人一级一级毛片 | 91看片淫黄大片.在线天堂 | 国产丝袜美女一区二区三区 | 国产高清成人mv在线观看 | 美女白浆视频 | 国产91久久精品一区二区 | 欧美成人影院 在线播放 | 特级片在线观看 | 1024香蕉国产在线视频 | 国产高清免费不卡观看 | 国产一级不卡毛片 | 狠狠做久久深爱婷婷97动漫 | 精品久久久久久影院免费 | 欧美一区二区亚洲 | 精品视频一区二区三区在线观看 | 精品视频一区二区三区 | 国产精品拍拍拍福利在线观看 | 成年人www| 国产超清在线观看 | 久久成人在线 | 日本免费三级网站 | 欧美大片一级毛片 | 日韩中文在线 | 美国的毛片免费的 | 国产做国产爱免费视频 | 午夜性爽快免费视频播放 | 精品亚洲综合久久中文字幕 | 精品国产亚洲人成在线 | 一级做a级爰片性色毛片视频 | 日本韩国一级片 | 亚洲一区二区三区高清网 | 波多野一区二区三区在线 | 99je全部都是精品视频在线 | 久热精品6 | 韩国午夜三级理论 |