She got me.

“You mean going to school, and learning from those textbooks are more important than actually watching a cosmic event taking place, real life? You mean our teachers can explain better what meteor shower looks like accurately if they haven’t even see it themselves?  You know what, I think the schools should all declare a holiday for this event! For goodness sake, this is a live event – a lesson delivered by the universe to the kids as it happen. Your kids can go to school for the rest of the 364 days!”

That was my outburst. My dutiful sister took the advice. The kids were smart. My eldest niece stayed up, and had an agreement with her 7-year-old brother to wake him up only if there is something spectacular! Unfortunately the universe did not quite fulfil its promise, the evening was very clouded over the skies in Kuala Lumpur, and there was nothing to see. So that settled the tempest in our household.

But I am not through yet.

As far as I knew no school was reported to have closed the day before or after the event and the entire school system in my country was silent on the subject, nor bother to really explain what happened?

In a conversation in Taipei yesterday, Professor Kai Sung and I talked about this. He shared the same frustration on the “care less” attitude of the school leadership. “Only one small school in the southern part of Taiwan (the rural part of Taiwan) closed their classrooms for the day. The whole school came out lying on their back on the field to watch the sky. The entire evening the teachers held a discussion on astronomy with the entire school out in the field, which also attracted a big turnout from the local community. But mind you, out of the thousands of schools and institutions of higher learning here, only one school, a small and unknown school did that. What does that tell us about our priorities and ourselves?”

Indeed, we can ask many questions. “Do you think the teachers are teaching because they are there at school during school hours? Do you think teachers are teaching because they have faithfully walked the schools through their textbooks? Do you think we are walking our talks – the government – the honorable Minister of Education - is carrying out the task of getting the nation focuses on science and technology? Do you think we can become a center of education excellence with this kind of learning culture?”

Yes, one can go on and be very critical. But there is really no excuse for this “unthinkingness”on the part of the ‘intellectuals” in our society – who are supposed to provide leadership. Parents, teachers, media, you and I, and of course the all important Yang Berhormat Minister of Education.

Aren’t we just too caught up with what is considered to be priorities by everyone without even thinking, or questioning them? Are people not just fitting themselves into the system; getting up in the morning, going to work, going to school, pass the baton, give that speech and rattle off those empty slogans without even thinking about how they will be carried out? Do what others expect you to do – things everyone has no clue why they are doing-- so mindlessly, so unthinkingly.

Then, there are those who could allow their minds to be just passing-through, echoing what they receive and transmit what is considered to be politically correct, never mind whether they are correct or not.  This “living in the box” phenomenon is so widespread and worrying. I tried talking to many people on this subject; they stared at me and wondered why is she interested on something so remote and distant!

By the way, like you, don’t think I know anything about comets and meteors or do I care that much about shooting stars. Maybe my occupational hazard makes me sensitive to the event because of the opportunity it gave us to understand more about the universe and generally what is going on. Maybe I thought what an opportunity, an event once in two hundred years – for the kids, a valuable experience that no money can buy.

In true Confucian fashion, dear professor Kai Sung said, “we need to stop and reflect deeply about ourselves.”
 

Taipei, November 28 1998

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