I attended one of Hong Kong’s “best” international high schools. Every pamphlet, every brochure, every bit of blurb on our polished website screamed out that we were an institution of worldly, intelligent kids who were getting the best education money could buy. The students were a diverse bunch; almost ten percent of them were of mixed races, and the glossy photos in our yearbook showed off how they hailed from all over the globe. We had excellent, modern facilities, people said. We had a world-renowned teaching staff. We followed an intense, rigorous International Baccalaureate program that not only pushed us academically, but also encouraged our appreciation of the ever-changing world around us. To crown it all, the parents of these lucky kids proudly paid for one of the highest tuition fees in the city.
See, a large portion of families in our school community weren’t made up of typical soccer moms or insurance salesmen. Instead, our school attracted the cream of the crop. I never met more sons and daughters of CEOs and tycoons as I did in history class at school. I never saw as many Mercedes and BMWs in one spot as I did around our campus after school let out. The amount of money that flowed into our famous, prestigious, and rather exclusive institution yearly was enormous. This leads one to wonder what sorts of kids get such an opportunity, and how such an education benefits them.
Around a year ago, I had a casual talk with my friends over lunch in the cafeteria. The topic of conversation turned to current nuke magnets, and America’s involvement in the Middle East; to my surprise, only one of my friends (in a group of five present) knew who Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was, or had even heard of the name. I tried to explain how important he was in world politics today, but was met with blank stares. Curious (and worried), I asked them if they knew anything at all about Iran’s relationship with the United States and the rest of the world, and why people around the globe are currently concerned with the president’s military and ideological stance. After giving me no sign of knowledge on the subject whatsoever, they told me irritably: “Look – that stuff doesn’t really matter here. You don’t need to know it. Who cares?”
This isn’t an isolated incident, but rather a common example of how I’ve found students in the school I attended to be incredibly ignorant and apathetic towards what goes on in our world today. I don’t religiously pore over newspapers myself; I read the news online for about ten minutes each day. I don’t find it important for high school students to be able to recite the names of everyone in the British Parliament, or list the current number of soldiers in each Somalian faction. I am annoyed at, however, the girl in my class who thought that SARS was spread by birds (living in Hong Kong, no less). I am annoyed at the guy who proudly yells out in the hallway that he “doesn’t like Bush; that’s why [he] is a member of the Democratic Party.” I am annoyed by the people I overheard in class claiming that Osama bin Laden was the president of Iraq, I am annoyed by my classmates who had never heard of the World Trade Organization, when a massive anti-WTO riot occurred right in the streets of Hong Kong in December 2005.
A line needs to be drawn. How can students in a world-class school, with every available opportunity to learn, be so uncaring of current affairs? Surely, a school community of such social repute should not tolerate this kind of ignorance? Shouldn’t this school, a place of (expensive) education make some sort of effort to open its students’ eyes to what world-changing events go on today?
I’m not blaming the school itself, because it is hard to pinpoint blame on any specific factor for a student’s ignorance. In all honesty, even worse than the widespread ignorance I’ve seen is the widespread apathy. Many students seem to believe in the myth that it is best continue living life in a shell, and therefore simply do not care about what goes on around them.
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