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for Beginners


One argument is that we educate children so that they can find themselves a decent job once they are older. The better the education, the better the job. While this argument has merit, it does run the risk of turning childhood into an extended training programme, where the right to be a child is subsumed by the need to learn how to be an adult.


Another argument is that we educate children about the world so they can go and make their way in that world. The broader the education, the broader their world view. Again, this has merit but it does beg the question, are we sending young people into the world as it is or with a view of how it could be?


It is here that we enter a very interesting area. And one not without its controversies. Do we design schooling in such a way that it teaches children to maintain the status quo once they are adults or do we engender in them a spirit of dissent


In recent years, aſter over two decades working with young people across the world, I am increasingly convinced that we need angry, opinionated, rebellious children, young people who won’t simply do what they’re told and blindly accept the views of adults. Notice I’m not advocating rude children. Or unschooled ones. Notice the use of words such as ‘opinionated’ and ‘blindly’ too. I firmly believe that one of education’s most important purposes is to help children, to paraphrase the words of the great Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire, ‘to read and write the word so they can reread and rewrite the world.’ That is to say, we educate them to see the world not only for what it is but also for what it could be. And to educate them to not only consider what can be done but also to take personal responsibility for actually doing it.


This last element is important. Speaking to many young people, there is a sense that they know the world is in a mess but that they feel nothing can be done about it. This is a dangerous combination and breeds despair, fear and hopelessness. An education without optimism is like learning to drive in a world without roads. Or cars. All teaching should be imbued with a sense of hope, something best defined as an unfailing belief that a) things can be better and b) I can do something about it.


and rebellion so that, once they pick up the reins of our world, they can see what is wrong with it and do something tangible about it, steering it in a direction different from the perilous one we are currently taking?


Like I say, it is a controversial issue. For example, you might nod in agreement with a quote that suggests, ‘The point is not merely to understand the world, but to change it’ but maybe you feel less happy about it if I say it is by Karl Marx?


It is clear why the eyes of the rest of the world are so oſten trained on what is happening in schools in Hong Kong. Some of the world’s best education is on offer in a society that is changing and growing at a time where so many of the old economies are stagnating, or worse. Hong Kong Academy, with its wonderful new building and sense of what is possible, is placed to be at the forefront of global educational innovation and endeavor. But it is a school community with a choice to make. Does it teach children about how things are and leave it there? Or does it educate children about the way the world is in such a way that they will learn to consider how it could be, how it should be and how they can — and must — do something about it? Your answer to that question will silence the loudest elephant.


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