Ken's Visit, plus The Power of Education

Ken (王慶剛) paid me a visit this morning. He talked about the conference in Berkley he attended in early April as one of the Taiwan delegates. According to him, the mainland China delegates did regard Taiwan as part of China.

Ken also mentioned that the delegates were envious of people in Taiwan for the freedom of speech.  In mainland China, YouTube and Facebook are blocked. Instead, they have the national websites such as Todou and Ren-ren.When asked why people there don't rebel and fight for the freedom, Ken answered that it was because they have been educated to believe that it's OK not to have it. The power of education!

Here comes an interesting question from me. If students were educated to be evil, would their good human nature make them feel an urge to reform the education system or would they just be conditioned to do evil things?

Then a student in my homeroom class came to talk about his poor performance in some subjects on the 2nd mid-term. Ken encouraged him by saying his real ability was beyond the exam paper and that what was important was whether he had learned from the test. He also emphasized the importance of self-discipline. That is what I often mention in class. To most students, words from someone about their age seem to be more convincing.