Walking on Nin Ming Road: Reflection on Education and Theological Education

　　By counting my fingers, I calculate that I have walked along Nin Ming Road for exactly ten years. Through sunny and rainy days, Nin Ming Road has led me to HKBTS for my three years of M.Div. studies and on to my Th.M. studies and finally to my present work with the Distance Education Program. To me, Nin Ming Road is a pathway leading to the field of education, first leading me to HKBTS to receive theological education and then enabling me to serve God on campus. The figures of teachers, staff and students weave in and out along the long and narrow Nin Ming Road. Near the end of this past August, many new footprints were added to the road. This group of new students began their journey along Nin Ming Road after committing themselves to full time ministry. They set out full of vigor and vitality, creating a whole new atmosphere at HKBTS on Nin Ming Road. This triggers my thoughts about both the current direction of education in Hong Kong and our own theological education.

The Issue of Education

　　As students step into September, Nin Ming Road has once again begun to bustle with noise and excitement. Then, on September 9, at the request of Registration and Electoral Office, the Seminary allowed John Murray Memorial Hall to be designated as a polling station for the New Territories East District in the 2012 Legislative Council Election. This is a special election year as it marks the fifteenth anniversary of Hong Kong’s reunification with China. This is also the election year to select the new SAR Chief Executive and is the first Legislative Council election after the passage of the political reform package in 2010. In the past, when a government’s term of office ended, the newly formed SAR government officials or the candidates for the Legislative Council would carry out their various political activities. In earlier days, their discussion centered more on external policies or on the participation in the existing organizational structures of the establishment. They would seldom touch upon the promotion of the spirit of humanity or the need for a national identity. In sharp contrast, soon after the new HKSAR government took office, they immediately took up the thorny and troublesome job by beginning to implement the moral and national education program with exceptional vigor. Plans were announced to begin teaching national education this September in primary schools. Not surprisingly, this rushed plan set off tremendous reverberation and controversy among teachers, parents, students, and the public in general. Opponents quickly joined hands to form the Civil Alliance Against National Education. The strong organized opposition produced a major educational crisis. The crisis heated up as the candidates for the Legislative Council election did not want to be left out of the controversy. The Pro-Democracy and the Pro-Establishment factions were diametrically opposed as they debated the issue in election forums.

Before and After the Handover

　　This incident reflects Hong Kong people’s distrust of the government as they worry that the regime will exert its power to control the course outline, making education a weapon to remold thought. Many fear the new government will use moral and national education as a tool for propaganda and “brain-washing.” In fact, Hong Kong people remember that in the main stream education system before the handover, national education had not been taught as a specialized subject. In the British colonial era, Hong Kong people had never “been” taught to love their country. For the general Hong Kong public, the concept of “nation” or “national” remains vague, and identifying oneself as a Chinese national would even be embarrassing. On the eve of the handover, Hong Kong people mostly called out, “I love my family, I love Hong Kong.” After the handover, according to the “one country, two systems” policy, mainland China and Hong Kong were intended to be two places where people would be allowed to live under two distinct and independent systems and in separate contexts. It should come as no surprise that there are many misgivings after the SAR government has so quickly and forcefully introduced the national education subject. For one thing, what the basic orientation of the national education subject is remains unclear. Will students be taught to trace their national identity back to a single ethnic standard? What is its content? Does it try to indoctrinate students in a kind of national education through a single state model? What are its measuring and assessment standards? Are these standards based on the learners’ ability to give a model-answer type response or adopt a unified attitude to some specific values? How will national education be implemented? Will it adopt a centralized regulation plan? Will the subject repeat some of the content found in other subjects? If so, are those repeated parts indispensable to basic knowledge? What is the theoretical basis for introducing national education as a single subject instead of integrating its content into an inter-disciplinary curriculum? Some have cast doubt on the idea of “national education” while others accept the idea in theory but worry about the subject content, the mode of implementation, the standard of assessment, and the timetable for its implementation. Overall, these questions have to do with the aim and values of education.

The Aim and Values of Education

　　At best, if the aim and values of an educational system are made clear to the public and people understand and affirm them, then they can be implemented in the educational system, and the aim can specifically be converted into effective results. This can be shown in the curriculum and assessment policies. After the handover, there has been a revolutionary transformation in Hong Kong’s civic society so that the public has an ever-increasing consciousness toward education as the public has become more conscious of its social responsibility and as its horizons have become more international. There has been an increasing desire among Hong Kong people to safeguard Hong Kong’s basic values: democracy, freedom and equality, social justice, the rule of law, and human rights. Groups have formed to vigilantly monitor the implementation of policies and their mode of practice. This trend has constituted increasing pressure on the government for an educational reform. Yet, we see no response of the government in the formulation and enforcement of educational policies in this direction. The government does not take the public’s heightened self-consciousness into sufficient consideration.

　　Another key element to consider is the relationship between education and culture. Education cannot exist in isolation since by its nature it is an integral part of culture. An education system in fact grows out of a cultural system while culture is intimately at work as individuals seek to create meaning for their lives. To create meaning is based on an understanding of the world according to a particular cultural background through which realities and meaning are constructed. At the same time, culture is made up of different systems which concretely prescribe the roles people play within the society, their corresponding status and their way of life. It is never wise to blindly transfer the educational aims and system of one culture to another culture with an entirely different environment in order to consolidate or sustain this system and its modes of practice. Such a transfer can only produce contradictions and distortions. This explains the criticism against the educational materials and teaching kits published and subsidized by the Education Bureau. The public criticizes them as biased in content and incompatible within Hong Kong SAR’s context.

　　When it comes to the issue of subject adding to or withdrawing from a curriculum subject, we must consider how we look at the nature of learning and knowledge. Each mature subject of study, for example, mathematics, literature, and philosophy, has its own distinct mode of thinking, approach to truth, methods to separate truth from falsehood, and standard for review. This is to say, each subject has its own logic and set of presuppositions behind its basic definition. Therefore, subject design and curriculum definition are crucial. Any new subject must be developed with careful consideration. They must be designed with a careful consideration of how knowledge is classified, defined and taught. Those responsible for designing a subject must examine both the relationship and boundaries among subjects to ensure the content’s completeness and coherence of the new subject. Another often neglected point which is worth noting is that a learner’s quality time for learning is limited. That means that when any new subject is added, a student’s time for other subjects is automatically reduced. Whenever any new subject is developed, the curriculum as a whole must be examined and considered as the new subject is developed. We must be careful to point out that the decision to add or remove content from the curriculum reflects the hidden education values of the stakeholders in the educational system.

　　It is also important to consider the way the subject is taught. In the Reform Proposals for the Education System in Hong Kong submitted to the SAR government by The Education Commission in September 2000, the principle of “student-focused learning” was put forward. The clear direction of student-focused education is to create a learning environment favorable to nurturing the spirit of exploration and to stimulating critical thinking and creativity. The commission’s aim is to expand students’ capacity to work together cooperatively and to develop their communication skills, their creativity and their critical thinking skills. If our educational policy is to seriously follow this path, then we need to allow the learner time to reflect and comment on the “necessary truth.” To follow this path, we will choose to adopt the “dialogue” mode of teaching rather than follow those educational theories that promote the stimulus-response or teaching modes that support indoctrination. Neither will we stress the gaining of factual knowledge through the “repetitive drilling” teaching method.

　　Finally, another point that deserves our attention is that the foundation of a school’s curriculum is never confined to “subject content.” From a cultural perspective, a school’s most important theme content is built on the values and mission of that particular school. The school itself has established its particular curriculum that its learners follow, and it is this curriculum that largely determines the kind of meaning its learners build for themselves. Throughout the school, there is a certain learning milieu. The school’s curriculum and its classroom atmosphere reflect its hidden cultural values while the school’s organizational structure and overall teaching style, needless to say, transmit these values to the students. The thinking mode adopted by teachers and other members of the school community largely determines how high students place their school on their priority list in their lives and culture. To safeguard its lofty ideals of freedom of thought and freedom of teaching, the school and its sponsoring body need to establish a formal buffer to fortify itself against the impact of various political pressures. Such a buffer is important to protect and maintain those educational ideals and values which its members consider their heritage ¹.

　　Jerome Bruner, an American educationist, ² points out, “… ‘reality’ is represented by a symbolism shared by members of a cultural community in which a technical-social way of life is both organized and construed in terms of that symbolism. This symbolic mode is not only shared by a community, but conserved, elaborated, and passed on to succeeding generations who, by virtue of this transmission, continues to maintain the culture’s identity and way of life.” ³ Looking from another angle, if we seek to nurture the modern civil personality that embraces a global perspective rather than a narrow national personality that is geo-focused, blood-focused and ethnic-focused, then we must join the formation and rearing of a cultural system so that the significance of ideal and value structure can be established and enable it to be socialized and internalized in a person’s life. School education is the first institution a person meets in his life besides the family. The school shoulders heavy responsibilities in cultivating a virtuous personality in a citizen who is able to “do justice, love kindness, be faithful and without iniquity, know right from wrong, and walk one’s talk” and acquire the moral imperatives and the knowledge and skills needed for communal living. From the above discussion, we should not regard this education crisis created by proposing the national education to be an independent subject simply as “the general public’s protest against local education.”

Reflection of Theological Education

　　We can regard theological education as “the other kind” of national education (the education of God’s kingdom) curriculum. What then are the differences of its educational aim and values? What is theological education’s perspective toward knowledge and learning? Even though the form and content of theological education differ from general education, as a form of education it has the similar characteristic of “social contextualization.” Theological education also faces the real needs of the social contextualization (the church) and the challenge of the culture in which the church finds herself. How does theological education designed to equip workers for God’s kingdom set its own orientation? Is theological education a purely intellectual and scientific study, or is it rather a kind of vocational education or professional training? These questions point to the role and function of a seminary. Does a seminary see itself more as an intellectual and scientific organization for teaching and research studies, or does it seek to be the training ground of clergies or ministers for churches? There are those who stand outside the church who criticize theological education for focusing more on training students in the skills of intellectual pursuit while neglecting training in the practical skills needed in the congregation. These critics claim that theological education does not take seriously the real needs of people in the churches. Standing on the high ground of an academy, others insist intellectual training is the primary purpose of theological education. These academics train students to comprehend concepts. This group does not value the practical. Neither do they regard highly the mastery of subject content. What is important to them is to broaden students’ horizon as thinkers and to train them to think critically. Still there are some others who hold that theological education should focus on spiritual formation and personal discipline within a disciple community. For them, all else is secondary.

　　These different opinions as to the direction of theological education reflect different views of knowledge and values. To probe further below the surface of the issue leads us to conclude that the crux of all these problems can be reduced to a simple question: Which is more important, knowledge gained from “practice” or that gained from “meditation”? The dichotomy between theory and practice and between thought and action can be traced to the epistemology of the ancient Greeks. Plato insists that one can get to pure truth through reasoning while what can be obtained in the physical realm is no more than an image or mirage. Therefore, disciples of Plato would agree that only those devoted to “vision, speculation, and meditation” can acquire “true knowledge” or “recognized knowledge.” According to Plato, the purpose of education is character training, making moral judgment and the appreciation of beauty. Plato did not regard practical skills as sublime or uplifting and he could only judge them to be inferior. ⁴ Based on Plato’s epistemology, the British educational system of the past tended to marginalize practical arts and crafts subjects, vocational education and the apprenticeship system. In the elite educational system of traditional British universities, practical knowledge continues to be secondary and is assigned a lower status than traditional subjects. ⁵ Hong Kong’s educational system during British rule reflected this view of education.

　　Circumstances must always change over time. Along with the changes of other social forms in modern society, vocational education has become respectable and practical knowledge is now recognized as a respectable form of knowledge. Vocational education has even come to be a high priority to policy makers. As such changes have come to general education, theological education has made a concerted effort to be more holistic. Today’s theological education needs to strike a balance between intellectual education versus vocational education, and between academic teaching, learning and studies versus practical training to meet the needs of the ministry field. On the one hand, thinking and theory provide knowledge that interprets the meaning of everyday practice and the knowledge that guides everyday practice. On the other hand, educators insist that even when one engages in intellectual and theoretical thinking, practical knowledge remains also a precious source of knowledge that must never be neglected.

　　We can say that theological education is another kind of “moral curriculum,” which is practiced as a special kind of virtue ethics within the disciple community. The particular distinction between theological education and general education is that theological education is Christ-centered. Theological education highlights the concrete manifestation of faith which lies not only in a “cognitive deduction” of the divine, but is also based on a confession of faith, an affective commitment and an application of faith. From the perspective of a practicing community, the acquisition of knowledge takes place not in the intellectual activity of an individual’s mind but in the process of mutual participation and life transformation within a community. Apart from a seminary, the church is another arena for the nurture of the spiritual life and a place where morality is put into practice. The seminary and the church are both training grounds for molding the believers’ daily habits and their practice of faith within God’s kingdom. Both institutions stress the molding of the believers’ lives so that they are enabled to faithfully embody their Christian heritage. Believers must be prepared to do this in many challenging environments, always living out the Christian identity and to demonstrate the Christian faith in the real world. From the perspective of a disciple community, seminary students, teachers, church pastors, preachers and general Christian believers are disciples of Jesus Christ and God’s lifelong students. In the social context of the disciple community, Christians learn altogether to know God and experience His presence. In this community of faith, seminary students come to know themselves and the world as they transform their knowledge, convictions and value structure into an ethical system to face today’s world. This is a different field of vision, which shapes a different mode of life within a disciple community. Such a mode of life testifies to the great life-transforming power of Christ’s gospel and brings to light the limited values of the world. From a cultural perspective, a disciple community is the other kind of ambassador of the gospel shouldering the mission of shaping a new cultural consciousness, forming a new moral character and establishing the other kind of value structure. The purpose is to demonstrate to the world the proper mode of life for men and women living in this world and the moral responsibility humans have within this world.

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¹ Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education (Cambridge / London: Harvard University Press, 1990), 28.
² Jerome Brunner (1915- ) is an American psychologist and educationist. In 1956, he published A Study of Thinking to challenge the main stream behaviorism and stimulus-response learning theory in 1950s with his structural development theory. This led to the “First Cognitive Revolution.” In 1960, he published The Process of Education which has since become the classic in developmental psychology and he stood as a representative figure in the camp of Jean Piaget, the structural psychologist. Thirty years later, he adopted another knowledge paradigm which is based on Lev Vygotsky’s social historical psychology, also known as “culturalism.” This theory brought about what we today refer to as the “Second Cognitive Revolution.” See Song Wen-li, translator’s introduction to The Culture of Education by Jerome Bruner, trans. Song Wen-li (Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing, 2001), 4-6.
³ Bruner, The Culture of Education, 3.
⁴ Theodore Lewis, “Valid Knowledge and the Problem of Practical Arts Curricula,” Curriculum Inquiry 23/2 (1993): 175-202, quote in Curriculum in Context, ed. Bob Moon and Patricia Murphy, trans. Y. F. Chan, Y. H. Fung and S. K. Chan (Hong Kong: O.U.H.K. Press, 2007), 210-211.
⁵ Lewis, “Valid Knowledge and the Problem of Practical Arts Curricula,” quoted in Curriculum in Context, 220-221.