'Complaining is easy, but taking actions is not.' If you care about our university, our education, our city, and our future, you should probably stay here and read. In this super-long slideshow, I share two things: my rough thoughts on education in Hong Kong and how education-students are trained in my university. I'm nobody, but a crazy student who think I can change the world with education.

1. (This slideshow puts no blame on any
particular people)

2. It’s just a humble sharing from an
education-major student from CUHK.

3. Seeing my peers’ candid opinions over
their experience with ELED.

4. I, also part of this program, feel
obligated to speak up, too.

5. I’m not here to spark any argument,

6. but to gently share my thoughts over
education in Hong Kong and
how education-major students are trained
in my school.

7. If you care about our education, our
university, our city and our future,
please stay and read.

8. I want to begin with my humble thoughts
over education in Hong Kong,
as an education-major.

9. Maybe you know as much as I do.

10. Or, maybe
some of my points can bring you a little new
insight about our education.

11. Before showing you anything,
I want to give you a short briefing.

12. To sound more objective,
instead of using my own mouth,
I will use quotes

13. Also, I want to give a little task for you,
when reading.

14. Try to recall your personal experiences
with education in Hong Kong, and
deeply relate them with each quote.

15. You should find most of them
make so much sense (at least, to me).

16. Okay.
Here’re my 18 thoughts over
education in Hong Kong.

17. Education is too vocationally driven

18. ‘Education is to nurture global CITZENS,
not global workers.’
-Adam Falk

19. It still remains in the mindset of
Industrial Revolution

20. ‘Mass Education was the product
Industrial Revolution, to produce
standardized workforce for industrial
economy. It is a linear process. Sadly,
we can still see this model today.’
-Sir Ken Robinson

21. ‘School’s industrial, scaled-up, measurable structure
means that fear must be used to keep the masses in
line. There’s no other way to get hundreds or thousands
of kids to comply, to process that many bodies, en
masse, without simultaneous coordination.’
-Seth Godin

22. It only values uncritically instant model answers

23. ‘It is the mark of an educated mind
to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it.’
-Aristotle

24. ‘The important thing is
not to stop asking questions.
Curiosity and Imagination
are more important than
knowledge.’
-Albert Einstein

25. It is still dominated by
teacher-centered chalk and talk

26. ‘Tell me and I forget.
Show me and I remember.
Involve me and I learn.’
-Confucius

27. It doesn’t care much about individuality

28. ‘Nowadays, what people call learning
is forced on you, and everyone is
forced to learn the same thing on the
same day at the same speed in class,
and everyone is different.’
-Isaac Asimov

29. It narrowly defines what success is

30. ‘You have your way. I have my way.
As for the right way, the correct way,
and the only way, it does not exist.’
-Friedrich Nietzsche

31. It never encourages failures

32. ‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has
never tried anything new.’
-Albert Einstein

33. ‘It's fine to celebrate success but it is
more important to heed the lessons
of failure.’
-Bill Gates

34. Its syllabus is so distant from meaningful reality

35. ‘Study without desire spoils the memory,
and it retains nothing that it takes in.’
-Leonardo da Vinci

36. It is not just spoon-feeding, but also bubble-liked

37. ‘Spoon feeding in the long run teaches
us nothing but the shape of the spoon.’
-E.M. Forster

38. “Any fool can know. The point is to
understand.”
-Albert Einstein

39. It does not have faith in students

40. ‘If we believe in how amazing our students can be,
they will show how amazing they are, very often,
beyond our imaginations.’
-The author

41. It cares about what to learn, but not how to learn.

42. ‘The only person
who is educated is the one
who has learned how to learn
and change.’
-Carl Rogers

43. It enslaves students’ freedom.

44. ‘Education is the key to
unlock the golden door of
freedom.’
-George Washington Carver

45. It is all about theories, but not applications

46. ‘Knowing is not enough,
we must apply.
Willing is not enough,
we must do.’
-Bruce Lee

47. ‘An ounce of action
is worth a ton of theory.’
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. Education in Hong Kong can simply by summarized as
‘One-off Fate-Defining Examination’

49. ‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by
its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life
believing that it is stupid.’
-Albert Einstein

50. It uses students to as the chesses
for international competitions

51. ‘Parents, principals, the authorities treat students
to be the chesses to win the game of examinations.
If they lose, they are failures.
Even if they win in that game, they can’t escape
from being abandoned after schooling.’
-The author

52. ‘Students are the slaves of examinations while
examinations are the cards of politics.’
-The author

53. One more…

54. It produces a factory of
unconfident and future-hopeless
educational products, us.

55. Education should breed confidence.
Confidence breeds hope.
Hope breeds peace.
-Confucius

56. Yes, this is the last one.

57. You might be thinking…

58. Yeah. It looks like a fancy analysis,

59. but it has changed nothing, at all.

60. You are right.

61. But who should be responsible for
changing all these shits?

62. Teachers…? Future teachers.

63. It makes sense.

64. But now I want to show you how an
education student is trained to be a future
education leader.

65. Perhaps, you might have a different answer.

66. To just to clarify again, my limited
claims might not be relevant or fair to
anyone who is reading this.

67. I just humbly share with my candidness.

68. I would like to begin with sharing what
brought me to education.

69. These two great men.

70. ‘Son, education is about life
influencing lives.’
I am one of his influenced lives.
-My Father, A Twenty-Year Teacher

71. ‘Education is the most powerful
weapon to change the world.’
-Nelson Mandela

72. Like other education students,
I was always excited with
how I could be trained to be
a future education contributor.

73. However,
after four years of immersing myself into
education (and my department),
I have some dream-breaking realizations…

74. The following disclosures might inevitably
offend some, but my candidness prevails.

75. So, here are my nine thoughts over what
education-major students are ‘really’ facing.

76. The faculty is a place of status quo

77. ‘Changing the educational problems is
not your duties. Yours is just to teach well
in schools, and get a good stable pay.’
-One of My Teachers
‘Who are we? Just teachers.
Don’t sacrifice your stability for
any uncertain risk.’
-One of My Peers

78. However…

79. ‘If the problems should not be solved by
education students, then who should?’
‘Given university students are
(supposedly) the future of our city, if we
do not take the responsibility to solve
the big problems, who will?’

80. We care how well we teach more than
how well students grow

81. ‘Who are we actually serving?
Professors? Principals? Panels?
Parents? (4Ps) Marks? Salary?
Or…someone we forget,
students?’

82. We are rarely exposed to the latest
education development

83. ‘…adaptive learning?’
‘Google has an education apps?’
‘We can use Pinterest for teaching?
Sorry, I don’t have any account.’
‘Knewton is now free for everyone?
Wait…what, not who, is Knewton?’

84. We rarely are invited to educational events

85. ‘We know our education-professors always
attend different conferences, but these
chances just do not belong to us.’
‘We saw a lot of innovative schools from the
news, but we are never mentioned about
them.’
‘Even an individual student is interested in a paid,
but meaningful, education workshop, the faculty isn’t
willing to sponsor him.’

86. We have no unique edge

87. ‘We don’t feel any progression from
our old high-school teachers. The
examinations-training machines.’
‘We don’t have a very confidence-
boosting skill, technique
or pedagogy.’

88. We, indeed, know so little about education.

89. ‘Who is John Dewey? Oh. He is one of the
greatest educators in our generation.’
‘Don’t ask me the purpose of education
all the time. I have no clue, but
preparing students for examinations.’

90. We only have locally educational minds.

91. ‘Finland’s education is good. We know.
But we just know nothing about it.’
‘Taiwan has experimental schools? Are
there only laboratories?’
‘Why has Malala done for education?’

92. We, education students, are
fragmentarily connected

93. ‘We are not encouraged to discuss
about education with our counterparts
in different universities.’
‘No similarly passionate educators
could serve as our mentors to guide us
into a desired path in education.’

94. We always doubt our educational values
‘Who are we?
Just a speck of dust within the galaxy?
Woe is me,
if we're not careful turns into reality’
(Lost Stars)
-Adam Levine

95. ‘Even if we know the system is flawed, we still
have no choice but to fall into this trap, again.
Maybe those who care about education in
Hong Kong can only be the soulless cogs in a
flawed machine. ’
‘Despite my any aspirations in
education, I don’t know how to
make them real.’

96. To conclude

97. “The whole educational and professional training
system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out
people who are too independent, and who think for
themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive,
and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the
institutions.”
-Noam Chomsky

98. You do not have to agree with these.

99. But, I just said what I have experienced.

100. And, on behalf of other students
who share a similar passion in education.
(If you allow)

101. But, as a typical Hongkonger,
Complaining without acting is our habit.

102. I know. Why not we try to break this habit?

103. ‘The best way to complain
is to make things’
-James Murphy

104. Also,

105. ‘Be the Changes
you wish to see in the world’
-Mahatma Gandhi

106. I think

107. I should stop polishing this slideshow now.

108. I have to continue my work on making some real
changes to better our education.

109. By the way, if you are still reading.
Let me tell you a secret.

110. You are crazy.

111. ‘The people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world
are the ones who do.’
-Steve Jobs

112. Remember. You are never alone.

113. Thank for being crazy with me.
You have read 113-pages slides.