Things We Are Writing and Editing

For about several weeks, I haven't gone out to eat with colleagues as often as I did before. Half the time I brought something from home for lunch and the other time I would be busy with something during lunch. Sometimes I just don't have much personal time and lunch time became my errand time.

But I ate with my fellow history/liberal studies section colleagues and we started talking about what we are doing at our job. We started talking about what "liberal studies" is and discussed about our world history book that we are editing. I personally find "liberal studies" to be very vague and broad to the point that it somewhat dictates how students should approach a range of topics from citizenship, globalization to moral values. 

We agree that it's weird how we are writing our world history textbook. I said that government and political development of PRC and Hong Kong should be another class, in another textbook. Another editor said that she found find it strange how we are told by the Education Department that to have history under the concept of modernization and etc. And it caught me by surprise and reminded me how I found it so ridiculous on how "modernization" became the answer for everything in our textbook. We agreed that these "concepts" distort readers' perspective on history. Even our reviewer told us that it's problematic. 

Well, then I asked who actually wrote the curriculum which we (teachers, schools, textbook publishers) have to follow. I really want to know the  background of those people who planned this curriculum. It isn't the right way for kids to read history. Compare to the liberal studies curriculum, which is very relaxed with a lot of freedom for educators and textbook publishers, the world history curriculum actually dictates how students should look at history, especially contemporary Chinese history and Asian history (including Hong Kong) to a certain extent. 

I don't know but I think the teacher union should protest about this. And if there is a textbook editor union that want to protest about this, I would totally join. The world history textbook is bias and blind. It will channel's students perspective of history. The teachers will have to be the gatekeeper to pass the right and correct history to students. I am not sure if they can do that. 

Furthermore, the Education Department (EDB) set the curriculum and probably going to set the exam questions too so, students are going to be forced to study it and teachers forced to teach it. 

Beijing is certainly tightening the grip over Hong Kong and the younger generation's world view and perspective will be compromised and limited. 

Hong Kong students will lose that advantage of being more "internationalized" from their mainland counterparts. 

Things are not looking well for Hong Kong.