Voices

A shameful act from a high school

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-11 07:57

At the graduation ceremony of Chunyang high school in Chongqing, 900 students knelt to show gratitude to their teachers.

It reminded me of pictures showing high school graduates at a carnival in Ukraine. To them, graduation day is like independence day, with boys and girls jumping, singing and dancing.

While students of the same age in other places are displaying their youth and vigor, our children are paying gratitude on their knees. It is such a tragedy.

Zhang Hongquan, a school official, said the students chose to do this by themselves, but that's really doubtful. Reports say it is not the first time students have knelt to pay respect to their teachers, and the school has long been inserting such a concept to their students.

The school may just resort to such a practice to be famous and get a good reputation; it has, but it's a bad one. It may not know their students' self-respect and self-esteem may be deeply hurt when they are forced to kneel.

The school has obviously taken their responsibility to students as a kind of bestowing. Teachers should win respect and gratitude from students with their devotion to career and their wisdom. But the nature of the profession is that teachers should never demand gratitude from students, let alone make their students kneel.

The government is shamed when disadvantaged groups of people kneel before them. When 900 students were forced to kneel before their teachers, it's a shame on our education system. If such a practice is tolerated, it will be a shame of the society.

Excerpts from a comment in Beijing News, June 8