SCMP Letters | Children learn to rest by watching adults
已更新：2天前
I refer to the Legislative Council education panel meeting on October 2. In the first six days of this school year, at least eight students died by suicide or attempted it, according to a figure cited in Legco.
Yet the two-hour meeting largely dwelled on the Northern Metropolis and artificial intelligence, with about four minutes going to student mental health. Education Secretary Christine Choi Yuk-lin rightly said that the key is teachers and parents showing children they care more about growth than grades.
Last month, the city worried about falling Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) subject scores, not about the same report placing Hong Kong students below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average in areas such as curiosity, perseverance and sense of belonging at school.
Choi also said the bureau would review whether school arrangements, such as rushed lunch breaks, add to students’ stress.
As a partner organisation of the bureau’s 4Rs Mental Health Charter, we help teachers and parents tend their relationships with children. Our partner schools survey students on relationships and school life and we review the results with each school.
At one school, Primary Five and Six students rated recess poorly. We wondered whether the playground was too far away, leaving little time to play. A nearer space was made available and recess ratings rose.
But rushed lunches are not only a student problem. Nearly eight in 10 Hong Kong teachers work more than 51 hours a week, a union survey found.
We cannot give children what we don’t have, or ask them to do what we can’t do ourselves.
So the work begins with us learning to look after ourselves first. Children don’t learn to rest from a circular. They learn it by watching us.
Raymond Yang Sze-ngai, co-founder and executive director, Just Feel
留言