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Students suffer with a detached curriculum
By Chang Kuo-tsai 張國財
Every now and then, a fierce debate will arise over elementary and junior-high schools, the number of hours and their distribution, and curriculum adjustments of the different courses. When fighting over the number of hours to be distributed, “departmentalism” makes people pull out all the stops. When creating course outlines and standards, textbook depth, scope and angle become contentious points and the targets of struggles, tugs-of-war and marketing placement. The most problematic and most seriously affected courses are Chinese, geography and history.
When it comes to Chinese literature, there is a conflict between the vernacular of modern people and the classical Chinese of the past. In geography, there is the choice between pro-localization and learning about China’s main rivers. In this literary feast, there is dispute over how much time should be given to classical thinking and how much should go to modern ideas. There are also the conflicts between pure appreciation and practical applicability, and between conservatism and heritage on the one hand and reform, opening up and innovation on the other.
In addition to integrating the cultural affiliations of young students, the writing of Chinese textbooks also affects national competitiveness and direction. The teaching materials for junior-high schools are almost completely detached from current realities and run counter to US educational reformer John Dewey’s idea of “education as life, life as education.”
When it comes to geography, most ink is spent not on the land we walk on, but on “glorious China.” Young students do not know that they are seeing the Jhuoshui River (濁水溪) through the train window or how many stations there are on the Neiwan Line or the Jiji Line, but they know the train line between Shanghai and Hangzhou like the back of their hand and they know how long the Yangtze River and the Yellow River are and they can recite which Chinese provinces they flow through.
They know less about Wusanto Reservoir (烏山頭水庫) and Hatta Yoichi, the Japanese engineer who planned and supervised its construction, than they do about Li Bing (李冰), an engineer during the Warring States period, and his Dujiangyan irrigation system in what is now Sichuan Province. Likewise, they do not know where the mangoes, dates, bananas and lychees sold at local fruit stands come from, but they can recite the three northeastern ancestral treasures — ginseng, sable fur and Carex meyeriana grass — in their sleep.
If this kind of education is not detached, then what is?
When it comes to history, every country has mythology associated with its ancient history, but in regard to modern history, ideas and stories can be verified. No matter how much one wants to distort the facts, lies can be detected.
However, this is precisely what the four professors of Chinese literature and one professor each from the fields of political science, economy, geography, East Asian culture, oceanic culture and general education have been put on a task force to do. They want to make “minor adjustments” to 34.6 percent of the Taiwanese history curriculum to “put things right again.”
Letting a group of amateurs compile Taiwanese history makes it clear that they are mixing up the mythology of ancient history with their modern lies.
Alas, one is left to wonder what education in Taiwan has to do with learning facts.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Perry Svensson
source: Taipei Times
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