Journal

Journal#1 CCIII Judy Chou 496200519 Eng Dept., FJU

My Opinions toward National Magong High School and Democracy at School

This June, at the end of the semester, the students at National Magong High School were suddenly informed that they have to embroider their student id number on their PE uniform start from the following semester. According to ministry of education, policies which are highly related to student rights should be fully analyzed and discussed with students before the announcement. However, the new policy in National Magong High School was not well-discussed that even the chair of the student association knew nothing about the new policy beforehand. One of the students, who is also a friend of mine, felt angry about how reckless the school officers make decisions and decided to do something to make students’ opinion be heard. He spread out leaflets around the campus, urging school officers to put more emphasis on democracy at school, and rethink about the practice of the new policy. Here the democracy at school means students, teachers and officers around the campus should have equal rights and power to decide issues at school.

However, instead of positive response, the student received hostile suppression. We all know that people have the freedom of speech, but the school officer claimed that the distribution of leaflet was illegal and the military education officer even forced the student to choose between punishment and apology. Furthermore, the military education officer gathered all the class leaders and told them to stop the students from discussing the issue. The truth is that distribute leaflets is not illegal since people are born to have the freedom of speech, the military education officer should not threaten the student to acknowledge the groundless mistake, and obviously the military education officer should not abuse his power to overwhelm students' freedom of speech.

Knowing that things might get worse, the student wrote a letter to central region office of the ministry of education, hoping that he can get some support from the authority. However, the response from the central region office of the ministry of education acknowledged what the officer at National Magong High School had done and even suggested the student to apologize! I was very upset about the news. The ministry of education is the leading one of our education but obviously there is no critical thinking and justice in our educational environment. Why should an innocent student apologize for doing something legal and right? This is ridiculous!

Hence, on August 10 my friends and I went to the ministry of education for a demonstration to protest how reckless and ridiculous our education environment is. We plead for “democracy at school” and students' freedom of speech and we asked the ministry of education to reconsider what they had said. A month after, the only response we had received was the secretary called the student at Penghu and simply said sorry for using “improper words” in the letter. By how the Ministry replies to our requests, we can tell that the authority doesn't really want to face the music. In addition, the officer at National Magong High School asked us not to help the student goes against the school. This kind of irresponsible behavior fully shows how eager they are to make concessions to avoid any more trouble.

At last, National Magong High School mildly modified the punishment and made it sound okay by calling it “volunteering service.” However, the officer of National Magong High School and of ministry of education didn't admit that they treated the issue recklessly and still they didn’t fully consider about the democracy at school. I am very surprise that since education as the most important construction of a nation, our ministry of education and school officers should be open to opinions and comments, but they choose to suppress students' opinions which make me very upset.

Related links:
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/ccs93406/26155091
http://cattachou.blogspot.com/2009/08/0810.html
http://crowtopia.blogspot.com/2009/08/blog-post_30.html
http://www.peopo.org/civilmedia/post/42077
http://blackditch.pixnet.net/blog/post/24097494