Wee Shu Min could have been my student

If Shu Min were in JC1 this year, I might be teaching her in 2007. What would I do right now if I were in her form teacher's shoes? (It's quite likely that her form teacher taught me as well.)

Probably not much in the way of moralising. (Right, that's all the evidence you need to lump me in the category of elitist insensitive government scholar types!) The principal and assorted counsellors will already have done the moralising, and I'm not very good at it. I don't agree with what she wrote, of course, either in form or content, but she doesn't need me to tell her why she's offended a lot of people. Instead, as per what I said earlier, I'd encourage her to continue blogging -- with capital letters this time, and perhaps after her A-Levels. Illegitimi non carborundum and all that.

Nor do I even believe that teachers are in the business of teaching ethics. They're responsible for teaching History, Literature, Physics, Mathematics, and other subjects which can be taught; the inculcation of virtues, however praiseworthy they may be, can only be done indirectly, through these subjects. Ethics must be seen to be believed, as Jacques Barzun once wrote.

Update (2 November 2006): Shu Min's Civics Tutor did in fact teach me, as I found out on Saturday night.
Posted by kungfuzi at 2:43 am |