Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone

In this week's discussion, we will focus on education.

I've found two articles related to this topic in Times website. You can read the first one for this week's discussion. If you have more time, you can read the second one as well.

links are provided below:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094427,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1644924,00.html

After reading the article about Korea’s Hagwon phenomenon, it reminds me of my old times when I prepared my university entrance exam. In terms of crammed schools, Taiwan and other Asian countries (Japan, China, Korea) are quite alike. We went to after-school institution to cram a lot of information that is barely used in daily life. And my teacher also told us that “if you don’t study now, you will regret for the rest of your life.” I figured that she’s trying to say “Receiving admission from top universities promises you a better treatment or life in the future.” However, this “one size fits all” education is not suitable for all kinds of students. Our education officials realized this point and try to make it right by enforcing reforms in education. Today, we will discuss our experiences in old school days and your opinions about education.

Questions:

1. Have you ever been to cram schools when you were in schools? What subjects did you take in cram schools? Did you like to go to cram schools?

2. In the past few years, Taiwan ‘s ministry of education made some educational reforms. As far as I know, they stressed the importance of creativity and innovation not just memorization of knowledge alone. Do you think students now are less stressful and more creative?

3. If you have kids, will you send them to cram schools or talent schools (for example schools teaching dancing, music)? Why?

4. Do you think “a ticket to top university” is a guaranteed way for a promising life in the future?

5. If you were an educational official who has power to enforce educational reform, what aspect of education will you change or what would like students to learn in schools?

Organ Transplantation Scandal

Reading material:
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/taiwan-issues/2011/09/02/315271/Discriminating-against.htm

Five unfortunate people just survived from the risky organ transplantation surgery but now they may face another unexpected challenge in their life, HIV infection. It is because that the organs they receipt came from an HIV-infected donor who die in an accident. This incident was a result of series of mistakes. The donor’s family had no idea about his illness; the transplant team of NTU hospital failed to follow the SOP. In fact, not only the five patients but also the members of transplant team had a high risk of HIV infection. The HIV expertises claimed that people should be kept tracking until May 2012 to determine if they were infected. I think it would be a great suffering to those people. This case may be the worst medical malpractice case in Taiwan’s recent history.

Let’s discuss some questions related to this issue!

1. In our society, the politicians tend to name a few scapegoats in this kind of scandal, especially near election time. Who do you think should take the responsibility to this event? (The coordinator, the leader of organ transplant team, Department of Health or the whole system?)

2. Imagine that if you were one of the patients who received the HIV positive organ, could you deal with the cruel truth and how will you react to it?

3. One of the patients plan to get married after the risky surgery. If you were this patient’s boyfriend/girlfriend, would you still get married with her/him?

4. Do you agree that the authorities should put a person’s HIV/AIDS status on their national health insurance card to prevent the same mistake happens again?

5.Have you considered donating your organ(s) or whole body after death for transplantation or research? Why?