I was very touched reading Stanley Yen’s “Education Should Be Different,” because my principles of rearing my children are exactly the same as his concept of education.  Reading this book gave me the excitement of an unknown scientist having his new theory confirmed by Albert Einstein.

However, I felt sad after reading the book, because the conventional values measure success and failure by fame and accomplishment.  Even Stanley Yen, with his vision and wisdom, is not likely to make school authorities and parents understand and implement his concept of education.

On the other hand, it is not totally hopeless, because good ideas always attract supporters, and the key is how to implement good ideas and persist all the way.  A good idea doesn’t necessarily grow into a forest right away; it is a seed and it is up to us to plant it and cultivate it.

Eastern education and western education each has its strength and weakness.  Eastern education emphasizes discipline while western education encourages creativity.  They seem contradictory but, when used in combination, result in the best education.  Over the last dozen or so years, I saw that the American educators were so astonished by Asian students’ ability to master tests that they started focusing on test scores, resulting in undesirable changes in the American education reform.

Imagine you are a passionate high school teacher in a low-income district, where many students frequently skip classes to babysit their young siblings or work to supplement the meager family income.  You tirelessly teach your students reading, math, history, and science, but, no matter how hard you try, even sacrificing your personal time to tutor them after school, most of the students drop out of school or end up unable to graduate.  Based on the standards of NCLB or President Obama, this school is fit to be shut down.

Ten miles away, there is another high school, where most students are from middle-class families with parents having steady jobs and income, and the students having their own bedrooms and computers.  At this school, the teachers only need to work half as hard as the aforementioned school to make their students advance in their studies.  Ninety percent of the students graduate and most of the graduates can afford college tuition.  This is without a doubt a top quality school in the education reform.

The Central Falls High School of Rhode Island is the first school mentioned above.  The county government dismissed 93 administrative staff and school board members, and laid off 74 teachers, as punishment for the unsatisfactory performance of the school.  Obama obviously liked the way the local government made these sweeping changes because he praised the move in a speech he made, but the students of this school went on strike and staged group protests to show support for their teachers.  One needs to understand that this high school is located in the poorest corner of Rhode Island and is the only high school in the county.  Laying off a group of existing teachers was not going to bring more and better teachers, and the students were the ones that suffered.  If Mr. Obama, as the President of this country, failed to see the suffering of his people, how did he expect to launch an effective education reform?  Many educators commented sadly that, because the authorities were unable to fire irresponsible parents, nor to erase poverty, they had to lay off teachers as their only available gesture of appearing responsible.

With this example, I posing the question:  What is the meaning and goal of education?

Not everyone can become a scientist, a lawyer, a doctor, or a shrewd banker.  The elite is only a specific sector of our society, of this the ordinary everyday hard-working people are the central pillar.  Using test scores and grades to measure the success of education is like putting the cart before the horse.

To answer my own question, I believe that the goal of education is to develop the five abilities stated by Stanley Yen:

1. The ability to listen to your heart.  To converse deeply with yourself, and to understand your capabilities.

2. The ability to make judgment.  Very often, life’s right and wrong are not as clear as black and white.   The foundation of good judgments is built on clearly defined values.

3. The ability to form your own opinion and stand your ground.  When your opinion is different from that of many others, you need to be able to stand your ground and prove that you are correct.  However, be careful that it is often a thin line between opinion and prejudice.

4. The ability to learn and practice.  Schools give you knowledge, but there is much more to life than books.

5. The ability to be curious about the world.  This ability gives you the vision to see the big picture.

The building of a person’s character is not as simple as one plus one equals two, nor to be understood within seconds.  It takes time and perseverance.  It is my earnest hope that those who share Stanley Yen’s vision will commit themselves to the long-term cultivation of a team instead of short-term activities of a camp.

A single event is like an exciting movie that moves us and makes us cry, but all the emotions will pass and vanish.  If we inject education with love, passion and perseverance, even if we have but a tiny corner, we can plant a seed, protect it, water it, and wait for it to grow up bearing flowers and fruits.

Faith is a matter of a thought and holding on to that thought.

Stanley Yen- A Brief Biography

Hailed as the “godfather of Taiwan’s hotel industry” , Stanley Yen, 64, has one of the most recognizable and respected faces in the country’s tourism sector. He began his career as an errand boy for American Express in 1971 and quickly moved up the ranks to become its general manager in Taiwan at the age of 28. Four years later he left that position to work in Taiwan’s flourishing hospitality industry. He is now Group President of Landis Hotels and Resorts and President of the Landis Hotel, Taipei.

But he is not just a hotel manager. By his own account, Yen is a member of roughly 20 foundations — including the Taiwan Visitors Association, where he is honorary chairman, and Taiwan’s International Travel Fair — and is on the board of directors for two hospitals.