SYTEMIC PROBLEM:Taiwanese educational practices directly contradict modern principles by consolidating authority through unreasonable discipline, a critic said

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 26, 2016
By: Lin Hsiao-yun and Jonathan Chin
Students who dressed as Nazis at a campus cosplay event demonstrated the failure of the nation’s education system and national ignorance about history, Academics and education groups yesterday said.

Over the weekend, images shared on social media of students marching in Nazi costumes at a school function held by the Hsinchu Kuang Fu High School on Friday sparked a public outcry, and a statement from the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei described the incident as “deplorable and shocking.”

“We feel that we have not worked hard enough, and have allowed this absurd, ignorant and indifferent attitude toward the universal value of human rights to spread and become an international joke,” said a joint statement issued by Our Story Alliance of History Teachers and Action Coalition of Civics Teacher.

“The students’ lack of empathy to the historical trauma suffered by others shows that Taiwanese history and civic education is in crisis,” said National Taiwan University history professor Hua Yih-fen (花亦芬), who recently published a book entitled Rebirth from the Wounds of History: Germany’s Path to Transitional Justice.    [FULL  STORY]