Moral education cast aside when we are consumed by results and online fantasy
- By Wan Lixin
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, April 20, 2016
The two cases mentioned above suggest the failure of education at an age when it is most important. In the Internet age, it is no longer safe to view schools as a haven where values can be imparted and students can be empowered.
In the past, books, nature, caring teachers and de facto sheltering from society at large allowed school children to live in a world of their own, like budding plants in the shelter of a greenhouse.
But easy Internet access has much blurred the line between kids and adults, with the adult world at its worst just clicks away. Children today are prematurely tortured by self-doubt, disbelief and disenchantment as a cacophony of sensational media constantly compete for their attention.
Beyond 'financial potential'
Many factors that used to facilitate the inculcation of values at a tender age are gone.
Over the weekend, I overheard an intermittent exchange between two persons.
"Killing people is my hobby. I am only keen on killing ... killing spree ... cool ... he has to die if I am so inclined ... spray him with heavy machine gun! ... Do not go into striptease club again!"
Make no mistake — these were spontaneous utterances from two boys, 12 and 13 respectively, engaged in a computer game. When not reveling in virtual carnage and destruction, these two lads are seen by their parents as lacking in self-confidence and spontaneity.
Like most of their peers, they spend much of their time at home.
As a matter of fact, they were allowed to play video games in exchange for spending time outside in nature later that afternoon. Flowers and birds are now proclaiming the advent of spring with a riot of colors and music. But to many modern kids, such stimuli are too tame and dreary compared with what's possible on a tablet computer.
Educators are now being admonished to adapt to a changing world. But any indoctrination will entail a relative stable environment, just as a sapling will need time to take root in the soil.
Technology will not allow this to happen. The cyber world easily neutralizes what traditional values and principles try to effect.
It's interesting to see to what extent our children's outlooks on the world are being shaped by rapid-fire machines guns in their computer games.
And soon today's adolescents will be old enough to ogle sexy hosts broadcasting themselves over the country's live-streaming platforms.
According to a recent AP report, the success of live-streaming in China testifies to the "financial potential of social media in the country" ("China's burgeoning live-streaming industry," April 15, Shanghai Daily).
So far "financial potential" seems to be the result that justifies any means. If our policy makers fail to see beyond "financial potential," they would probably have to prepare themselves for more symptoms of social malaise.
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