Education: What Lies Between Expectation and Reality

Many developed countries nowadays are facing low birth rate phenomenon, for example are some East Asia countries, such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In Taiwan for example, based on data released by Taiwan Ministry of the Interior on 2006, Taiwan statistic for newborn baby from more than 300,000 in 1996 has been decreased to around 200,000 in 2005, which means every woman in average only give birth to 1.12 child. By definition, low birth rate is a phenomenon in which birth rate reach < 2 child/woman. Therefore, it’s maybe not a new phenomenon in some countries. In Taiwan, low birth rate phenomenon is starting in 1990 with birth rate 1.81 child/woman.

Taiwan is a country with strong withholds of its traditional culture values, among the most fundamental is filial piety values which strongly emphasize on child duty toward parents and not the opposite. These values sometimes put children in a much difficult situation since the common understanding within the society is that any conflict occurs between parents and children are child responsibility. It’s definitely the opposite mindset compared to what largely believed in western society. Yet, these values still continuously decrease after the occurrence of low birth phenomenon, causing what Taiwanese called as ‘Helicopter Parents’ and ‘Strawberry Generation’.

Helicopter Parents

Strawberry Generation

Low birth rate had cause parents to over spoil their child. These ‘Helicopter Parents’ will immediately intervene and get involved anytime their child need to make an important decision, facing problems, or make mistakes, therefore eliminate child opportunity to learn independently and create a ‘Strawberry Generation’. Who Taiwanese called as ‘Strawberry Generation’ is a generation of children that will immediately break down when facing a small problem, just like a strawberry that could easily smashed with only a small pinch. Therefore, ‘Helicopter Parents’ create ‘Strawberry Generation’, definitely not the opposite.

A very common phenomenon occurs in many aspect of child education nowadays, even though that the occurrence degree is different between countries, I’d like to call it ‘Strawberry Education’ phenomenon and simply define it as an education that creates a ‘Strawberry Generation’. Amy Chua on her book titled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother said that she able to push her children to achieve their best performance because since the beginning she believes that they have the ability to achieve it. Believe on child ability will naturally bring high expectation towards them and lead them to success. In other words, it could say that ‘Helicopter Parents’ doesn’t believe that their child has ability to success, they put a low expectation towards them, and lead them to become ‘Strawberry Generation’. Once more, ‘Helicopter Parents’ create ‘Strawberry Generation’, not the opposite.

Basically, child education is both parents and society’s responsibility, therefore the term of ‘Strawberry Education’ become interesting because it implies that actually the ‘Helicopter Parents’ phenomenon has spread its influence to educational institution and create the ‘Strawberry Education’. In our earlier generation, when a child face a problem in school, for example bad grades, and teacher consult the problem with the child’s parents, the most possible thing happen next is a condition in which a child should responsible and explain to both teacher and parents about his/her low grades. However if the same problems occurs nowadays, the most possible thing happen is a condition in which parents blame teacher because of their child’s bad grades.

‘Helicopter Parents’ phenomenon not only influences education institution, but also influences mindset of the whole society. In this era of modern technology, any information could be widely spread easily through internet, especially with the help of social media. Moreover, with the abundant amount of information received everyday, in most cases there is no time available to thoroughly read and think over what we read. Therefore, build a certain opinion into people mindset is only a matter of time, and nowadays it’s may just need a relatively short time.

Now let’s imagine what will happen when these groups of ‘Helicopter Parents’ meet and discuss about child education issues with another not yet become ‘Helicopter Parents’ group. They may enthusiastically share their opinion about their version of ideal ‘Strawberry Education’ and, since people tend to quickly agree on ideas that will make their life easier, therefore the idea will quickly spread and believed. As previously said that believe on child ability will naturally bring high expectation towards them, the same logic also applied here. When ‘Strawberry Education’ idea becomes widely believed, its common practice also becomes widely expected.

So, what’s actually the importance of expectation?

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) perform a survey and compare happiness and test score of students in 65 countries. Happiness was ranked based on the percentage of students who agreed or disagreed with the statement, “I feel happy at school,” while test score were ranked based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)’s test score result. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study also held by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nation of 15-year-old students’ performance on mathematics, science, and reading. The program starts in 2000 and repeated every three years. Since it starts, PISA top performer list from year to year are significantly dominated by Finland, Singapore, and East Asia countries such as Japan, South-Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

Undoubtedly, as reflected in the diagram above, those countries are included in the best test scores quadrant. However, how about the happiness rank? Singapore and East Asia countries except Korea are included in the happy quadrant, while Finland students, who live in a country that well known worldwide with its ideal education system, surprisingly feel unhappy. Discuss about Finland ideal education system is talk about flexible curriculum, nonexistence of rank system, small amount of homework, low frequency of exam, fewer school days/year, longer break time, etc. Compare with another group of PISA top performer countries’ education system, it’s definitely the 180 degree opposite. So, how come they still feel unhappy? The answer is because this ideal education system apparently still couldn’t meet their high expectation.

Finland students grow with expectation that school should be an exciting process of playing while in the same time gain knowledge, while in fact, no matter how flexible an education system is, school is still a place to study and we can’t expect every learning process to be forever exciting. Meanwhile, another group of PISA top performer countries’ students grow with the understanding that school is hard but they need to face it anyway since it will benefit their future, therefore they still feel happy while studying in a strict education system instead. Expectation is important, however somehow most of the time we fail to understand which influences could create a correct expectation and which couldn’t.

Many child education theories nowadays are strongly believe that children education process, whether at home or at school, should always be able to keep the children happy. Therefore, a fact of unhappy Finland students seems very disappointing. On one side, parents and society struggle to create the best child learning environment to meet their ideal version, yet the students still feel unhappy. Some theories even explain about ‘scary’ impact on child future when this ideal happy conditions are not met, to name a few are low self-esteem, increase of aggressive character, and even brain damage. Don’t scold your child when they do a wrong things or use negative words to talk to them, they will become a child with low self-esteem. Don’t push your child to do something that they don’t like or restrict them to do something that they like since it will increase their aggressiveness. Don’t’ be to early teach them reading, writing, or understand simple math because it will result to brain damage. In fact, children of my generation, include me, all experience this ‘hardship’ era of education, and yet most of us now are not a person with a low self-esteem, aggressive character, or even experiencing brain damage, and the most important is we definitely are not ‘Strawberry Generation’ type.

In Taiwan, basically both home and school education still uses relatively strict method even though if the ‘Helicopter Parents’ phenomenon start to appears. However, phenomenon of child’s low self-esteem, aggressiveness, and brain damage seems to be rarely seen here and Taiwan students still feel happy instead. Once again, it’s all about managing the expectation. As an illustration, when parents and society start to believe that children should never hear negative words from parents or other person, this believes gradually will becomes a widely accepted norm. When it becomes a norm, not only more and more parents or older generation will receive this influence, but also the children. This condition will then become children’s basic expectation on how they should be treated by their parents, teachers, etc. Furthermore, when there is a parent in a family or a teacher in a school that fails to treat children according to this norm, the child will feel that he/she is not treated well and unhappy, maybe also leads to low self-esteem, aggressiveness, etc. Don’t forget the fact that not only parents will interact with each other, but children also interact with each other and this interaction will worsen those negative feeling once they find out that the other children receive the different treatment from their parents or teachers.

Furthermore, when this phenomenon gradually transforms the whole society as a system, any effort of research performed will definitely prove the cause and effect hypothesis, for example use negative words to a child will leads them to become a low self-esteem child. It may be proven because it’s true that those child having a low self-esteem problem. The question is, “Does it really simply because parents’ usage of negative words that creates their self-esteem problem? Does children of current generation really born with such mentally weak character? Or parents whose gradually lost confidence toward children that create those children with weak character instead?” 

Filial Piety as the Fundamental Value of Chinese Society: Impact to Children’s Future Achievement

There are a lot of deeply rooted cultural values we could see in Chinese society nowadays. Those cultural values undoubtedly strong enough to maintain its existence even in modern societies which is actually very vulnerable to modernity values attack. I believe some societies in this world really proven couldn’t defend their local wisdom against massive attack from modernity impact. On the other hand, some societies are successfully maintain their cultural values heritage, continuously pass it down to the younger generation over centuries, harmoniously co-exist with the new and modern values. The process is definitely not easy since those societies must have wisdom to enable them to flexibly adapt to society development, pride so that they will never willing to forget their cultural root, and the strong humanistic reason of culture creation itself. One example of ancient culture which is in most societies already perished but still found in Chinese society is ancestor worship. This ancient culture in most societies perished because they don’t provide strong humanistic reason behind the practice. They practice the worship because they somewhat believe that ancestor is like or become a God since they are no longer exist in human world. They worship them with certain expectation that could benefit their life. The worship is like a prayer and it somewhat becomes more like an ancient religion. When a various new religions founded in the earth, the old religion is no longer believed and finally replaced with a new religion.

However, the ancestor worship background in Chinese society is different. The fundamental thinking is that Chinese society believes in superiority of older generation because of various humanistic reasons. Elder has been live longer in the world, therefore undoubtedly they have more experience which result to more wisdom. In order to gain success, younger generation must learn towards the elder, and the good learning process will always begin with respect. The other example of humanistic reason can be found back inside the society smallest unit, Chinese family. Inside the family, the older generation is parents while the younger generation is children. Children will never exist if not because of their parents. Parents grant them a life, take care of emotional and material needs until they grown up, educate them, etc. A child is undoubtedly owes so much things to their parents, therefore they must respect, obey, and treat them well. All of these obligations are based on a reason founded inside human heart, feeling of love and gratitude towards parents. These various reasons together create one most fundamental aspect in Chinese culture, the importance of respect the elder, which to its extent also includes the deceased elder, therefore creates practice of ancestor worship. Since it’s come from the heart, not enforced by any illogical reasons, this value will never perish as long as human heart is still exists. They worship the ancestor not because they treat the ancestor as God that could grant their wish, but to show their ultimate respect to ancestor even after their death.

Though respect the elder could be shown in many ways, but the most virtuous respect are shown back at home. As Confucius (551-479 B.C.) said, “The strength of a nation is derived from the integrity of its homes.” Respect shown in the most fundamental human relationship between children and parents is what we called filial piety.

Based on Confucian philosophy, filial piety is defined as a virtue of respect for one parents and ancestors. Confucius emphasizes how to set up a good society using filial piety principle, therefore its practice not only limited at home, but also in larger society. Therefore, in wider terms, filial piety can be defined as to be good to one’s parents; to engage in good conduct not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one’s parents and ancestors; to perform the duty of one’s job well so as t o obtain the material means to support parents as well as carry out sacrifices to the ancestors; ensure male heirs; not be rebellious; show love, respect, and support; display courtesy; uphold fraternity among brothers; wisely advise one’s parents, including dissuading them from moral unrighteousness; display sorrow for their sickness and death; and carry out sacrifices after their death. Once someone successfully performs filial duties at home, they definitely will also become a good person outside their home, a good society member, a good citizen.

We could see from this very traditional definition that the filial piety concept put children in a much difficult situation. Filial piety duties have become their lifetime never ending burden. This condition has also well depicted in Chinese character of filial piety. Filial piety in Chinese is called ‘xiao’ with Chinese character written as 孝. This character consists of two parts, the upper part and the lower part. The upper part of the character is also a part of character ‘lao’ written as 老which means old, in this context refer to parents or older generations. The lower part of character itself is ‘zi’ written as 子which means children. The overall meaning could be translated into children (young generations) carry out responsibility towards parents (older generations).

One quote that could help understand how high is Chinese society appreciation towards parent roles is ‘天下無不是的父母 (tian xia wu bu shi de fu mu)’ which literally means ‘there is no wrong parents in the world’. This quote extremely put parents in a very superior position who will never ever make any mistake. Implicitly, it also means that if there is a relationship problem between parents and children, it’s definitely children’s fault, there is no slight possibility of parents’ fault at all. This mindset is somewhat still truly believed by some very conventional elder in Chinese society nowadays. When a child caught up couldn’t maintain harmonious relationship with their parents, instead of look at the root cause that maybe the problem also lies in parents side, the society will tend to blame the child for being not filial. It’s the extreme opposite of people mindset in a western society. Once there is a parent children relationship problem in a western society, the whole society, other family member, neighbours, even the government, will tend to look closely at what possibly wrong with the parents. It’s possible because they think that children are never choose to be born, it’s always parents who really hope to have children at the first place, therefore it’s become parents responsibility to provide their children with the best possible environment, education, etc for their children’s future.

To compare both values and discuss which one is better will result to an endless debate. In my opinion, to combine both values and exercise them in the most appropriate condition is still the best choice. It seems to be just a normative opinion, not to be too extreme and just play safe in the middle. However, in some case it’s truly works and isn’t Taoism also always encourages the importance of a flexible mind? “Good and bad, black and white, everything depends on human definition. They don’t have objective standard. If everyone said that white is black, isn’t you who believe the opposite will be considered crazy?” (Lie Zi)

It’s actually what already been practiced in Chinese society nowadays. There is no more traditional filial piety value as defined in Confucianism. It slowly evolves and adapts with the modern values but without leaving the essence of the value itself, the importance to respect the elder. Therefore, Chinese children no longer believe that parents are never wrong, but they will struggle to find the most courteous way to remind parents of their wrongdoings. Parents begin to consciously take responsibility for their own old age, at least for material needs, instead of fully depends on their children to support them. As for emotional needs, there is still high demand for children to personally take care of their parents in their old age, which I believe is a very great value to be hold upon. After all, it’s our parents who tirelessly take care of us until we’ve been grown up, right? It’s maybe also one reason why in dominantly Chinese countries we couldn’t as easy as in western countries to find any nursing home as they still think that send one’s parents to a nursing home is an appropriate conduct. Other than that, modern Chinese family doesn’t spend three years of mourning period for the deceased older. They also no longer see produce male heirs as the highest virtue of filial piety. However, in the Chinese dominant countries such as China, Taiwan, and Singapore, we could still see the celebration of filial piety awards, which proven that this value practice is still highly appreciated until now.

Due to traditional value of filial piety, even if it already becomes more and more flexible, parents-child conflict will still occurs. One example of research by Kuang-Hui Yeh (Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taiwan) and Olwen Bedford (National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan) in 2004 International Journal of Psychology said that the most  frequently occurs conflict between parents and child in Taiwan is caused by parents demands that is unmatched with child desires. Based on traditional filial piety practice in the scope of children’ career choice, if parents want their children to become a doctor, their children will definitely never become a lawyer or anything else other than a doctor. Some may have a presumption that children faced with this condition and end up with follow parents desired career path will be unable to achieve great in their career. But in my opinion, actually it’s never become an absolute result. Some children may finally find that parents’ choice is actually good, start to enjoy his career, and achieve great. Some children may fall into a condition that they forced to do their career good since there is no other option left. In this condition, they also still have a great chance of success. Some others are starts to rebel, choose their own career path, and yet still achieve success. What could be possibly enables children to achieve great in such condition? It’s not easy to explain since everyone motivation to achieve may come from various aspects, impact of their family life, school education, society values, etc. However, in my opinion, one factor that could impact most is family education because it’s the first and the basic of the whole lifetime education. Therefore, the modern filial piety value will still hold an important role.

When I talk about modern, not traditional, filial piety value, I refer to combination of traditional filial piety value and western (related to child-parents relationship) value and exercise them in the most appropriate condition without forget the essence of the value itself, the importance of respect the parents. In modern filial piety, parents have and must use without hesitant the right to exert the control over children until certain age at which children considered mature to make and responsible for their own decision. The maturity age may different for each child, but 18 until 20 years old seems reasonable enough. Before reach that age, parents need to properly educate their children so that they understand and believe the importance of hard work and responsibility for their future. Once they understand and believe the importance of hard work to success, no matter what choice they made, they will do it with their best effort ever and finally achieve great. If they understand and believe the importance of responsibility, no matter what decision they make, they have nobody other than themselves to blame or to praise, and therefore they will fight hard to make their decision worth a value.

Back to the previous three possible results of parents-child conflict because of parents demands that is unmatched with child desires, for some children that finally find that parents’ choice is actually good and achieve great, this problem is no longer exist. Instead, they will feel more gratitude towards their parents and respect them more. Some children that falls into a condition in which they still feels forced to do their career, still have a great chance of success since they believe that they must responsible for their own decision. With modern filial piety concept, children are not supposed to be under absolute control of their parents after certain age, therefore they should be able to make their own career decision even if their parents always tend to direct them to certain career path before. If finally children still end up follow career path as their parents told them, it becomes their own decision and responsibility. It’s their own choice to fully obey parents’ instruction. It’s also their own fault for unable to find their own desired path which left them no other option except to follow parents’ desire. Some other children really couldn’t stand for being forced to a certain career path. This condition may encourage them to deeply think and evaluate what they actually desire most for their future, embrace their own dream, and also achieve great.

Based on a book titled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua successfully brings her two daughters to become successful person even though they both react with different response towards their mother’s parenting method. Amy forced her older daughter to become a professional pianist and the younger one to become a professional violist, since they are at very young age. She forced them to practice very hard everyday which actually really exercise them to understand what hard work and responsibility really means. Her older daughter end up become a real successful pianist and finally truly love playing piano, while her younger daughter rebels and start to choose her own desired path, to play tennis. Even though the younger daughter seems a little late to start play tennis, unexpectedly she progressed so fast and become excel in tennis in a relatively short time because she is already pass a lifetime training of hard work and responsibility values.

Chinese Greatest Philosophy (Part 1-Taoism & Nature)

Chinese society had been long known as one great source of philosophy thinking since B.C. era. The two most popular teaching which are still continuously studied and cultivated until now indeed come from the two greatest Chinese teachers born in B.C. era. Lao Zi (571 BC–unknown) with his Taoism teaching encourage people to consistently seek for peace of mind by understand everything as nature force which should not be opposed. Each person peace of mind will bring greatest harmony of life without additional needs of human-created tools of life, such as morality concept, courtesy rules, country law, etc. The other widespread teaching comes from Confucius (551-479 BC) with his Confucianism philosophy which mainly consists of life wisdom concept manifested in a set of moral values and conducts as a guideline for those who eager to contribute for a better living society. The two philosophers may seems extremely different in their basic principle as Lao Zi emphasizes on nature point of view to obtain life harmony while Confucius underlined the importance of moral values and conducts (which Lao Zi consider as too humanly made) to gain life wisdom. However, both teaching actually are aim for one same purpose of a better life quality. Therefore, we certainly will be able to gain great benefit by study them and understand to flexibly implement each teaching in the most appropriate situation.

Since the original literature of Taoism and Confucianism teaching is somewhat hard to find here (I’m not quite sure have the capability to read if it’s available anyway since I supposed it will be written in Chinese), I study them based on various resources available. My main resources are based on comic books series written by Tsai Chih Chung, Taiwan cartoonist who considered as pioneer in popular literature visualization into comic books. It becomes easier to understand and entertain at once.

TAOISM & NATURE

There are three popular teachers of Taoism. Lao Zi (571 BC-unknown) as the Tao founder with his book ‘dao de jing’, Zhuang Zi (369-286 BC) who inherits Lao Zi teaching through his book and latter write the longest Tao book titled ‘nan hua zhen jing’, and Lie Zi who sometimes considered as fairytale figure since no one clearly knows his living period.

Lao Zi (571 BC-unknown) real name is Li Er. He was born in the end of West Zhou dynasty and lives his life modestly in Luoyang as an administrator in palace archives room. He likes to read various history books while at work and that enables him to gain deeper understanding of humanity. In the 23^rd year of King Zhao government, Lao Zi left Luoyang and head to the Han Gu border gate in the west since he feels that the government is about to collapse. In the border gate, a Tao seeking gate keeper named Lin Yinxi asks Lao Zi to write about Taoism before leave. Upon this request, Lao Zi writes Taoism book which divided into two parts, one titled ‘dao’ which literally means ‘way’ and the other titled ‘de’ which literally means ‘virtue’. He left the borderline after finish the book and no one knows his whereabouts after that. His ‘dao de jing’ becomes one of the most important Tao books until nowadays.

Lao Zi is the Taoism founder from whom we could, or maybe couldn’t, understand what Tao actually is. I said that we could, or maybe couldn’t, understand since Lao Zi himself always said that no one can truly understand Tao. One who declares understands Tao is actually doesn’t understand and one who admits that he/she doesn’t understand Tao maybe is actually the most Tao person. The complexity of this concept can be truly understand since, in my opinion, Lao Zi concept of Tao actually is a near attempt to explain about God. It is said in the ‘dao de jing’:

“Something exist,

Before universe created,

Silent and empty,

One and eternal,

And always moving,

Worth to be universal mother,

I don’t know what its name, so I called it Tao.”

Above phrase clearly shows an almost God definition. Even though I will not talk about religion matters here, I couldn’t resist for being dazzled while read those phrase above. Not because of the concept that God creates universe since it does almost a common beliefs, but because of the concept of one God which is still uncommon in many religion nowadays. In my religion, we indeed believe that God is definitely only one, but not many other religions are share those same believe. Instead, I found this concept in Taoism, and that fact is fascinated me. Lao Zi also realize mind limitation and human tendency to conceptualized things will be a great barrier to understand Tao, therefore he makes a clear warning sentences in the first part of ‘dao de jing’:

“Anything that declared as Tao is definitely not the real Tao.

The name that could be given is not the real name.”

Based of this definition of Tao, Lao Zi strongly believes that everything created and exists in the universe is a natural cause which should never be opposed. A nature creation never serves any harmful purposes unless human try to against it according to their selfishness to achieve personal benefit. When everything in the universe being left as the way it should be, the greatest harmony of life will be achieved and benefits many instead of only certain selfish person. Therefore, Lao Zi strongly denied human made values, rules, laws, etc which blindly created based on human limited knowledge. Instead, he builds his teaching values based on observation of nature phenomenon.  Taoism explains how sun and moon alternately shines, how sky and ground kept in its place, and how cloud makes rain or vice versa, which all silently controlled by nature. Therefore in the governmental area, Tao believes that government should follow nature silent control to lead the country. They should not interfere people’s personal matters, imposed many prohibitions, or enforced hard punishment, in order to get the country in harmony states.

Taoism favors natural approach for everything as it believes that it is the most correct way, approved by the universe creator, to do things. Two persons maybe gain the same achievement in their life, but a person with Tao would maintain his/her pure inner soul, while a person without Tao may wouldn’t. Not only maintain one’s soul, Taoism also cares for human body. Since it’s created at its best shape by nature, human should never sacrifice their own body in order to pursue personal ambition. Work or study too hard until the body get sick is against Tao.

Depart from the good believe of nature and denial of human created things, Taoism also strongly opposed the concept of duality. Duality concept is only a human creation occurs during comparison process. Nature doesn’t recognize duality concept since everything created with specific benefit & purpose and no need to compare between one another. Lao Zi explains the Tao essence as ‘the emptiness with unlimited benefit’ while Tao manifestation is ‘the real comes from unreal’. The universe is created in an empty space. Without empty space, there is no place for universe to be created. Therefore, the real universe comes from unreal (emptiness). This concept challenge one human duality concept of useful and useless. Empty is not always useless and full is not always useful. Sometimes the emptiness benefit is greater than the real one as Lao Zi give some examples in his ‘dao de jing’:

·          A furnace must have an empty space inside to burn a wood or coal

·          A wheel can rotate since there is an cavity to attach an axle

·          A cup can contain water because of its concave shape

·          We take benefit from window due to its hollow part

·          We can live in a house since there is empty room inside

Furthermore, Zhuang Zi in his ‘nan hua zhen jing’ also explain the relativity of usefulness and the useful of uselessness.

Zhuang Zi (369-286 BC) name is Zhuang Zhou. He lives in what now called as Henan province as a small officer in Song country during China Warring States period. Zhuang Zi’s book is given a title of ‘nan hua zhen jing’ due to the change of his birthplace name to Nanhua (only for that time) during Tang dynasty period in the year of 742. Taoism had been highly valued and protected during the Tang dynasty since the Tang dynasty founder, Li Yuan, has the same family name with Lao Zi. Therefore, Zhuang Zi had given a title of ‘Nanhua Real Man’ and his book ‘nan hua zhen jing’ which literally means ‘Nanhua True Book’.

Zhuang Zi indicates that like another kind of duality, the duality concept of useful versus useless is also very relative. A man named Hui Zi tells Zhuang Zi about a useless giant tree which its trunk is full of bulge and its branch is so twisted so it’s very difficult even just to cut down. Zhuang Zi said, “Instead of worrying about a useless giant tree, why not staying under that tree and take shelter comfortably in the sunny day?” The tree may seems useless for a carpenter, but become very useful for a traveler in the sunny day. It’s relative. Moreover, the giant tree can only be useful for the traveler since it’s useless for carpenter. If carpenter decide that the tree is useful for them, they will definitely cut it down, and there is no more place for a traveler to take a shelter from the sun. That’s called the useful of usefulness. The same logic of useful versus useless could be widely applied in another human made duality concept, such as rich and poor, high and low, long and short, etc. The near fairytale Tao figure, Lie Zi, even explains the intricacy of duality concept so that it should not ever be believed through the more abstract way, awake versus dreaming.

Lie Zi is considered as one of popular Tao teachers even when his true existence is actually doubted. No one clearly knows in what period Lie Zi was lived. Some sources mention that he lives around 600 BC, while another declare that it should be around 400 BC. The real fact is that a book which mentions Lie Zi’s name exists around the year of 300. Lie Zi believes that human mind and body can’t be apart and always affect each other. What we’re imagined or experienced during the day will be a dream in the night. Therefore, to differentiate which the real one is between awake and dreaming is actually beyond human capability to understand.

“Life is like a dream. In the reality and illusion that influence each other, how could you be so sure that you’re not dreaming now and what happens in the dream is actually closer to the reality?”

(Lie Zi)

By understand the relativity of duality concept, Taoism emphasized on the importance of internal essence instead of external factor. The fact that the giant tree physical shape (external factor) that makes it seems useless for the carpenter doesn’t prevent the traveler who able to understand the essence of those tree existence to gain the true benefit from it.

There is one story in Zhuang Zi’s book, ‘nan hua zhen jing’, from with we could understand how every human could protect the Tao inside his/her heart. The story tells about Confucius and his fellow students that meet a Tao fisherman in the black wood. The fisherman criticizes that Confucius will be slip further and further from Tao, so that Confucius chases him and eagerly ask the fisherman to explain the meaning of his words. The fisherman answered that a human will never be able to protect Tao if he/she still has one of eight weaknesses and four flaws. Eight weaknesses according to the fisherman are:

1.       Do things that should not be done

2.       Keep talking even if others don’t’ listen

3.       Use sweet words to please others

4.       Agree without deep consideration

5.       Criticize behind other’s back

6.       End a friendship

7.       Praise the bad & get rid of the people that we hate

8.       Not tell the truth about the right and wrong

Moreover, four flaws mentioned by the Tao fisherman are:

1.       Hunger for praise and fame

2.       Arrogant

3.       Defend our mistake & hate other’s advice

4.       Support one who agree & condemn one who disagree

In ‘dao de jing’, Lao Zi explains the Tao degeneration concept as a sign of society deterioration instead of advancement.

Tao --> Morality --> Kindness --> Justice --> Courtesy

If Tao neglected, morality appears; If Morality neglected, Kindness appears; If Kindness neglected, Justice appears; If Justice neglected, Courtesy appears.

“If courtesy or rules of conduct for human relationship required, hypocrisy and lies appears. That is the sign of chaos.”

(Lao Zi, 571 BC-unknown)

It doesn’t necessarily conclude that Lao Zi opposed any concept of morality, kindness, justice, or courtesy. In fact, from Taoism teaching, indeed we could obtain various moral values. Lao Zi simply wants to emphasize solely on the essence of those morality, kindness, justice, and courtesy, which is the Tao itself. Morality developed based on Tao, therefore based on natural cause, is also Tao. However, morality developed based on limited human knowledge, neglects the nature phenomenon, definitely is not Tao. That kind of morality doesn’t come from the heart and only bring hypocrisy and lies which is a sign of society chaos. One story in Zhuang Zi’s ‘nan hua zhen jing’ about a famous robber could help us to gain better understanding of this view.

Dao Zhi is a famous robber in ancient era. One day, one of his subordinates asks him a question, “Tell me, does a robber also implement Tao?” Dao Zhi answered, “Yes, of course!” He explains, “As a robber leader, I need to be able to predict where the valuables are stored. It called wisdom. I lead the robbers to break into a victim house. It called courage. When the mission complete, I’ll be the last who leave the crime scene to ensure everyone is safe. It called loyalty (to friends). I carefully consider the whole situation before take action. It called intelligence. I distribute the stolen valuables fairly between all my subordinates. It called virtue. No one capable to become a robber leader without implement these five ethics.”

From the story above, we could see that what Dao Zhi claims as Tao is actually not Tao. Nature will never do harm to the others just to fulfill personal desires. A human with Tao heart will not become a robber. What Dao Zhi practiced is just morality ethics without Tao, which is definitely not Tao. Further, Zhuang Zi said that both good and bad person could benefits from morality ethics. A good person needs morality ethics to do his/her goodness. A bad person needs morality ethics to do his/her badness. If Tao neglected in a society and bad is outnumbered good, then morality ethics will do more harm than benefit to the society.

The ten main moral values that could be obtained from inside of Tao teaching are as below:

1.   Be Grateful

Tao believes that everything provided by nature is at its best shape to serve a certain purpose for universe greatness. There is no reason for sadness or regret due to our imperfect condition. Be grateful and optimized our strengths instead of struggling with our weaknesses.

“Born with six fingers in one hand is natural. It’s not too much or too little. However, desire to have six fingers in one hand is a sign of greed and it’s not natural.”

Zhuang Zi (369-286 BC)

2.   Flexibility of Mind

Everything in the universe exists for a good reason, even if sometimes human mind capability is too limited to understand. Mind should be flexible to see beyond human made knowledge since everything created by human is not eternal, always changing, and therefore relative.

“We could point to where a moon is with a finger. To see a moon, we should see beyond a finger. A word is like a finger who pointed to the truth. However, human commonly only see the finger. They don’t see beyond the finger to find the truth.”

(Lao Zi, 571 BC-unknown)

“Good and bad, black and white, everything depends on human definition. They don’t have objective standard. If everyone said that white is black, isn’t you who believe the opposite will be considered crazy?”

(Lie Zi)

A flexible mind will enables us to think deeply before make a judgment and carefully consider before take an action. It will lead us to success as Taoism believes that the soft will defeat the hard. The hardest part of human body is teeth and it will be gone in old age, while tongue as the softest part will still remains. When a storm attacks, a giant tree fallen while a grass will still survive. A storm which destroys giant trees and big houses consists of wind that is very soft, even doesn’t have a body or shape.

3.   Courage and Confidence

By understand that follow the principal of nature is the best way to live a life, ones will have a courage and confidence to face any obstacles in his/her life. Even life and death is a natural cause that shouldn’t, and definitely couldn’t, be opposed.

“Human must face life and death in balance and live a life with courage and confidence. A human who hopes for eternal life and fear of death is like a lost traveler that couldn’t find a way back.”

(Lie Zi)

4.   Sincerity

One of water special characteristics is its ability to support life for everything. It gives a great benefit to many without requires anything in return. It’s sincere and unselfish.

5.   Kindness

Water is soft, it doesn’t fight anything that stands in its way. It will always find another way, through the rock and mountain crack, and let everything else as the way it should be. A kind heart will try any possible way to avoid confrontation and thinks for the good of many, not only ours.

6.   Modesty

Naturally, water always flows from the higher to the lower place, never the opposite. The lower its position, the higher its volume, and the greater it could benefit others. It perfectly describes an ocean. It has a lower position, a higher volume, and a greater benefit than a river. A modest person will not boast his/her ability, appreciate others’ capability, and therefore always has an opportunity to learn and improve.

“Ability to realize our ignorance or lack of knowledge is wisdom. Think that you understand what you don’t understand is a big mistake.”

(Lao Zi, 571 BC-unknown)

7.   Honesty

Before a mirror was found, we could see our reflection in clear water. Water always shows our reflection exactly the same with our real shape and condition. Water is honest.

8.   Self Introspection

Instead of criticize others, Tao strongly encourage us to do a self introspection.

“How others treat us will depends on how we treat others. Like a shadow, it will be straight if you straight. Or like an echo, it will always resonance back what you just said.”
(Lie Zi)

9.   Listen to the Heart

Many common people struggle to deal with more external than internal factors. External factors such as how to meet family expectations, how to be appreciated by the society, how to get a job that generates a lot of money, etc. Every action performed is triggered by external factors. These people are unlikely to gain the true success in their life. Even if they seem to be success, they may still unable to feel fulfillment in their heart. They trapped in an unhappy life since they attached in many external factors and neglect the most valuable Tao inside them, the heart. Once someone starts to listen to their heart, every action will greatly benefit others and self.

“If someone’s mind is full with external things, he/she will be bridled and unsettled.”

Zhuang Zi (369-286 BC)

“What comes from inside our heart will be greatly influence others. Time will never be able to erase that influence.”

(Lie Zi)

The book of Lie Zi narrate one story about a woman named Han Er whose voice able to influence many other people, either through her singing or crying. Han Er, a woman who lived in the Han Kingdom, run-out of supplies during her journey to the Qi Kingdom. She enters the capital through the Concord Gate and start singing to get a food. When she left, the voice of her singing remains and swirls back and forth in the gate for three days. People feel like Han Er is still there. When Han Er pass through in front of an inn, one of inn’s servant humiliate Han Er and she cries with deep melancholy in a long sad tone. People who listen to Han Er cries become very sad and drop their tears. They feel a great pressure and couldn’t eat anything for three days so that they chase Han Er and ask her to come back to the inn. Feels very happy, Han Er starts to sing a happy song and everyone, old and young, couldn’t resist to excitedly dance and forget about their previous sadness. They even give Han Er a precious gift before she leaves. Han Er influences not only stop there. After that, people of Concord Gate become a very expert singer because of Han Er example.

10. Passion for Improvement

Previously clear water can become dirty and muddy when it stuck in one place and unable to flow.

We could clearly see how Taoism always use nature phenomenon to explain about its teachings. Various values above maybe totally new and different or indeed the same and overlapping with Confucianism values. The key to get a harmony for both teaching is to understand and practice moral values of both Taoism and Confucianism teaching flexibly, without forget the essence of Tao. 

(To be continued)

Culture versus Education System (Part 3 - What We Can Learn from Taiwan and Finland?)

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM TAIWAN AND FINLAND?

With current high international attention towards Finland educational system, I found out that it’s also no exception in Indonesia. Many articles write about the characteristics of Finland education system which is considered as the best in the world. With very limited point of view to only about what, when, why, and how Finland, those articles seems rather excessively write about Finland and discredit the other important things around the issues. If Finland manage to draw international eyes attention due to it’s high PISA achievement, how we should explain about it’s education system compared to other seven Asian high PISA achiever countries?

To made them easy to note, I will refer Finland education system as ‘relaxed mode’ and Taiwan education system as ‘rushed mode’. Eventhough our detailed discussion will be specifically about Taiwan, in general I also consider Taiwan will widely represents other countries in East-Asia region and Singapore since they visibly share many common culture and characteristic in their education system. Therefore, Taiwan will also represents another six PISA top performer countries from Asia such as Japan, South-Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Singapore. Taking Taiwan as an example also somewhat become more interesting due to it’s special political status compared to the others.

		Taiwan (Rushed Mode)	Finland (Relaxed Mode)
1	Educational Goal	Academic excellence	Academic equality
2	National Education Budget	Based on 2010 year data: - 20.12% of total government expenditure - NTD 159,895 or around IDR 52.5 million/student Note: 1 NTD = 328 IDR	- 12.7% of total government expenditure - USD 7500 or around IDR 73.5 million/student Note: 1 USD = 9,800 IDR
3	Tuition Fee	Yes	No
4	Curriculum	National standard	Flexible
5	Priority Set-Up	Yes	Yes
6	Rank System	Exist & heavily emphasised	Not exist, even school quality could be assessed by feedback from parents & larger society (no standard accreditation)
7	National Exam	To gain access to senior high school and university	Only to gain access to university
8	School Discipline	- Very tight with school uniform and morning reveille being the norm - Disciplinary control from senior high school level and above is responsibility of military officer stationed in the campus - Corporal punishment still practiced despite of it's prohibition by law	- No school uniform - Even shoes is not mandatory to wear
9	Study Hour	- Official class hours start from 7.30 AM until 4 PM for elementary and 5 PM for junior high and above. - Optional supplementary class after school hours available until 9 PM. - Optional supplementary class on winter and summer vacation. - Despite of it's supplementary status, those class in most cases become mandatory due to high demands from parents & teachers.	- Fewer school days/year, in average only 85% of school days in other developed countries - Longer break time, 75 minutes, compare to average 30 minutes - Homework amount will not exceed 0.5 hours time to complete
10	Cram Schools	Exist & highly popular	No
11	Preschool/ Kindergarten	- Preschool start from age 3 & often already encompasses physical education, art, science, and mathematic subject - Kindergarten start from age 5	- Start from age 6 - Learn how to learn, consist of only nature and social skills
12	Elementary School	Start at age 6	Strictly start at age 7
13	Teacher Value	Highly appreciated - Teacher must hold education background & provided with comprehensive training. - Based on last available data in 2005, starting yearly salary from USD 30,000 or around IDR 294 million/year = IDR 24.5 million/month. - National Teacher Day is celebrated in the same day of Confucius birthday to show ultimate appreciation of teacher profession.	Highly appreciated - Teacher must hold master degree. - Only top 10% of university master graduate are qualified. - Based on last available data in 2008, starting yearly salary from USD 29,000 or around IDR 284.2 million/year = IDR 23.6 million/month. - Teacher profession in society are in the same proud, if not more, of those as an doctor or lawyer.
14	Moral Values	Confucian moral teaching is mandatory in school, beside it's cultivation in home and society.	There is no national grade standard to pass certain school subject, but there is definitely national moral standard must achieved by student.

Based on comparation table above, we can see that the educational goal for both countries already different, one is to achieve academic excellence while the other is aim for academic equality. The main purpose of academic equality was highly supported by free tuition fees for students which means there is no restriction for students in all economic status to gain access to educational institution. Therefore, it’s reasonable for Finland to invest more budget per student than Taiwan and it’s not necessarily make significant differences in the education quality for both countries. I’d not conclude that free tuition fee is better or vice versa. Before excessively demand your government to make the free tuition fee, try imagine a student in a developing country asked a question by a teacher regarding his/her low test score and shockingly replies, “The school fee is free. I can always re-take the class without faced with the risk of losing money, then why should I study hard to pass the test?” It’s not a probably could happen case, but it’s actually already happen somewhere in my country since I personally know a teacher with those experience. Free tuition fee policy must be carefully considered before it’s implementation. It works well in a highly education aware & morally responsible society who will not take it for granted. On the contrary, student’s obligation to pay tuition fee is not necessarily consider as a drawback in the system. As long as the citizen is economically capable to pay, it will increase student’s appreciation of their knowledge and skill as a result of their access to formal education. Further, it will increase competitiveness in real life to ensure their education investment is not wasted. As for the economically incapable to pay, I’d say that the scholarship is still the best solution to ensure the education fund is invested in the most appropriate way.

Different goals indeed create different characteristics for both countries. After carefully compare point 4 until 12 in table above, hopefully we can better understand why I use terms of ‘rushed’ and ‘relaxed’ here. There is no single point in which Taiwan and Finland seems mutually agree about how to run their schools. They almost always do extremely the opposite of each other method. Therefore, I’d strongly suggest for a fun fact lover (I freely use this term to describe they who immediately embrace and demand a fun fact to happen without consider that a hard and uneasy part is somewhat still also necessary) to think carefully before claim. We cursed rank system, criticise national exam, discredit school discipline, disagree with long school hours & abundant home work as the main cause of our education system failure. Then, how could we explain a success achieved by a system with even tighter rank system, national exam, school discipline, and longer school hours?

If we are looking thoroughly into the list, there are actually three main characteristics that both countries commonly share. Those characteristics which could also considered as foundation of successful education in top of everything else are:

1.   Clear Priority Set-Up

We can see from point 3 that Taiwan curriculum is nationally standardised, while Finland is more flexible. So, how could those help with priority set-up?

For Taiwan government, of course it’s more convenience to set-up a priority since they hold the power to develop national curriculum. Taiwan’s priority on technology achievement could be clearly seen since it’s junior high school curriculum. Instead of struggling with pure science subjects, junior high school students has been given more study proportion in technology subject to introduce some basic technology in daily life. While each science subject only studied for one year (biology in 1^st year, chemistry in 2^nd year, physics and earth science in 3^rd year), Taiwan junior high school students studied technology subject for the whole three years.

Finland government only set a broad outline of curriculum that could flexibly adjusted by schools or even teachers depends of each school needs. In this way, they precisely encourage each schools to think and set-up priority for their own curriculum. It’s common for each schools in Finland to have a different curriculum that strongly based on local virtue. To make an easy example of local virtue, school in Kalimantan island may teach more about forestry while school in Bali island emphasise tourism subject in their curriculum. The other benefit of this method, especially for a large diversed country, is to reduce economic gap between different region by enable them to independently explore their own resources to improve their economy.

2.   Highly Appreciated Teacher

Teacher is a highly appreciated profession both in Taiwan and Finland. As we can see in above table, teacher qualification, welfare, and social acknowledgement successfully made teacher profession as something that one can be highly proud of. Teacher become highly committed to their job and undoubtedly increase the overall education quality.

3.   High Moral Conduct

What most amazes me about Finland education system since the first time is that there is moral standard as a substitution of grade standard. After disagree with common theory that Finland ‘lazy’ education such as shown in the absence of rank system, fewer school days, little homework, etc as the most important things that leads to high achievement, I can’t resist to try to look further on this moral matters. If not because of those ‘lazy’ arrangement, then probably high moral conduct is what really makes Finland enable to achieve it’s current prestigious position among education society. The logic seems true if we look at our previous example of how a free tuition fee policy could leads to a very different situation and result if implemented in different society. High moral people will deeply appreciate the generous government and take the opportunity to give the best to the society, while the opposite will happily take it for granted, low of appreciation, and the result is just like throwing the money out to the burning fire. it’s just lost.

Let’s take a look back to our Taiwan with it’s strong chinese cultural inheritance taken since the BC era. It’s been widely known that chinese society has become one of the oldest civilisation in the world. Many famous philosopher with their brilliant thinking still strongly maintain their position in people’s heart until today. To name the one that most famous with deeply rooted teaching implemented until now of course is Confucius (551-479 BC). His philosophy emphasised on both personal and government morality, correctness of social relationship, justice, and sincerity. Confucian classic textbook is a mandatory learning material in Taiwan schools until nowadays. Besides of school, cultivation of Confucianism moral values also happens in daily life, enforce at home, and assessed by society. One example of the most fundamental and widely respected value, filial piety, indeed assessed not only by society, but also by Taiwan government. A well-practiced filial piety could significantly increase one’s value in a society since country annual filial piety award, along with cash bonus, will be handed-over directly by president to the winner. Abandoned parents may sue their child since their rights to be taken-care by children in their old age is protected by law.

If Finland enforce student morality to meet certain standard in school, Taiwan does it through many life aspects. Therefore, parents role becomes critical. While student receive certain amount of moral teaching and abundant load of tests and quizzes in school, parents should complement them with more daily moral teaching at home. Those synergy between teacher and parents will enable student to achieve high academic result accompanied by high moral conduct. Only in this way, an academic achievement can be properly manifestated for the society, and of course country, well-being. Imagine how enormous a country will grow if each of it’s citizen is highly eager to contribute his knowledge and skill for community development.

One thing that we can learn here is whether the hard way like Taiwan method or the soft way as Finland does that we choose, we can achieve the same as long as we’re not abandon the most fundamental values. The target is always there to achieve, however the strategy to achieve is optional. It will also depends on current situation and condition. In some case, the hard way may be more suitable than the soft way, and vice versa. One question to consider, if national exam in Indonesian school really is eliminated as most people currently expect, would every schools and teachers out there consciously take responsibility to continuously improve their education quality despite of the absence of standard national assessment?

As parents, unless we’re capable to send our kid to study to Finland, it will be better if we focus on what we can do than on what we can ask. Embrace what we currently have, let our kid study with whatever curriculum they have in school, and nurture them with proper moral education at home. As Confucius said, “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”

“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”

(Confucius)

I try to list down what are the most significant moral values as it visible in Chinese and Finnish culture characteristics:

·     Modesty & Respect

Finnish people embrace extreme modesty so that they will never boast their achievement, or even they will never mention it at all. In Confucianism, modesty is one teaching element called ‘rang’. Literally, ‘rang’ means let (go) which could be understood as to let alone and not to show-up our glory.

“He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.”

(Confucius)

“A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”

(Confucius)

“The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue”

(Confucius)

By being modest, we also learn how to give more respect to the others. Being modest motivates us to seek more and more valuable knowledges. Respect others enables us to be open-mind, listen to others, appreciate new ideas, and honors a sincere teaching. Nothing can be better in preparing a student to successfully learn from their teacher compared to being modest and respectful to teacher.

           

“Without feeling of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?”

(Confucius)

Taiwanese learn respect start from home based on Confucianism xiao (filial piety) values. Respect and obedience to one’s parents is unquestionable. They bring this values from home to school and exercise the same filial piety to their teachers. As chinese popular saying, “One day as a teacher, one life as a father,” means once a person becomes our teacher, we must respect him/her not less than we respect our parents. In chinese language, ‘teacher’ frequently (mostly in informal situation) translated into ‘shi fu’ in which ‘fu’ literally means ‘father’. In more formal education institution, teacher called ‘lao shi’ in which ‘lao’ literally means ‘old’ and used in many language terms to show considerable level of respect, such as ‘lao ban’ (boss) or ‘lao gong’ (husband). In Taiwan school classes, even until senior high school level, students expected to stand up when teacher enter the class and say in unison, “lao shi hao” to greet teacher before the class started and, “xie xie lao shi” after the class ended to say thank you for the lesson. Not only limited to formal education institution, Taiwanese will unhesitatingly refer anyone that they consider already receive some skill or knowledge from as their ‘shi fu’ or ‘lao shi’ to show a great gratitude and respect.

“If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.”

(Confucius)

·     Integrity & Accountability

As a community that always carefully select their words and avoid small unnecessary talk, Finnish clearly shows how they value integrity and accountability of their words, and of course also in their action. They will not say a promise that they can’t keep not even for the courtesy purpose. It’s better to be silent than carelessly speak unresponsible words. In Confucianism, integrity and accountability is one teaching element called ‘xin’. Literally, xin means trust or believe, so it’s a matter of how to be trusted or believed.

“The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.”

(Confucius)

One more question to consider, have we ever blame an excessive load of exams as the main cause of disrespectful behaviour of our students, such as cheating? How many parents or teachers even silently support those actions? Then, why in another country with more excessive load of exams, the students still manage to achieve without cheating?

A heart with full integrity will avoid students from taking a dishonored short-cut to achieve certain target. Therefore, further it will help them to honestly assess their real capability and continuously improve it in order to achieve their goals. In schools, a little lack of integrity seems will not harm many since the purpose is only to gain higher score and rank. However, try imagine how much it will impact if those lack of integrity students become real society members, country citizens, and profesionally work at influential government or private institutions.

“If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?”

(Confucius)

Accountability guides us to always carefully think before act since we need to take personal responsibility of our every actions. Taiwan young generation sometimes need to learn this value in a very challenging way. Due to traditional value of filial piety, parents-child conflict is likely to occurs. A research by Kuang-Hui Yeh (Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taiwan) and Olwen Bedford (National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan) in 2004 International Journal of Psychology said that the most frequently occurs conflict between parents and child in Taiwan is caused by parents demands that is unmatch with child desires. Some child manage to sacrifice their egos and follow their parents will and yet still become success in their life since they make those choice and still must be fully responsible for it. Blame parents as a reason for their weaknesses is not an option in a parents-oriented society. The others manage to compromisingly or extremely escape from their parents influence in an even higher cost. They may faced with some period of unpleasant relationship with their parents. With all the pressures, however, they still able to gain ultimate success in their life since there is no failure option available. They need to prove that they make the right decision in order to fix relationship with their parents. That’s where accountability or personal responsibility greatly needed for someone to success.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

(Confucius)

During my Taiwan visa interview, I strongly feels an enormous amount of pressure put on my engineer background. I’ve been asked two questions which are somewhat annoys me a little. The first question is why I’m as an engineer must work in a bank? It doesn’t seems engineer enough. The second one is why I plan to continue master study in social subject while my education background is engineer? Maybe it’s really Taiwanese norm to carefully choose their future path and be responsible to it. Once you become an engineer, of course it’s better, if not a must, to contribute your engineer knowledge and skill in related field.

·     Strong National Identity

Being realist, Finnish doesn't expect foreigners to  know a lot about their country. They will be pleased if a visitor is familiar with at least some of the milestones of Finnish history, culture, sports achievement, etc. Special political status of Taiwan which is frequently misunderstood as China province holds them together and make them even stronger. Both countries feels an urge and highly passionate to be known worldwide. Despite on how little they are internationally acknowledged, they manage to maintain strong national identity inside. In Confucianism, one teaching element called ‘zhong’ (loyalti) represents this value.

“He who exercise government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

(Confucius)

One thing that Taiwan and Finland commonly share is that both countries imposed a compulsory military service for their male citizens. At first, Taiwan compulsory military service period is two years, eventhough it’s keep reducing over time. Even before the lifting of martial law in 1987, female citizens also mandatory to perform the military duty, such as in nursing job, red cross training, etc. In Finland, the compulsory military service is shorter, only six months. Besides of create larger military capable society for national defense purpose, military service undoubtedly will also increase nationalism. If every citizen have a high nationalism and feel proud of their country, they will eager to do their best to contribute and imagine what will happen. I wouldn’t say that we must also enforce the same compulsory military service policy. We may simply start by teaching our kid how to use a proper national language and make them proud of it.

- THE END -

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Taiwan

http://english.moe.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=14504&CtNode=11430&mp=11

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/huangk.356/teacher_efficacy

http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/?lang=en

http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-school-2011-12?op=1

http://www.greatschools.org/students/2453-finland-education.gs

http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/fi-finland/edu-education&all=1

http://gelarriksa.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/pendidikan-terbaik-di-dunia-finlandia/