The Dilemma of Being a Teacher in China Today

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) Teaching is a respected profession, and it is a teacher's responsibility to impart knowledge and truth. Teachers help shape the character and ideology of the next generation. One of the most important aspects of a teacher's character is honesty. Speaking the truth should be a teacher's most important virtue. In other words, even under pressure, a teacher still needs to tell the truth.

What is happening to teachers under China's current educational system? Three teachers in the city of Liupanshui in Guizhou Province have been driven from the lecture podium and sent to a brainwashing center for telling the truth. In the brainwashing center, these teachers were forced to write the "Three Statements": a "Guarantee Statement" to stop practicing Falun Gong, a "Repentance Statement" for telling the truth, and a "Disclosure Statement" to denounce the "crimes" of Falun Gong.

These three teachers were responsible professionals and had a positive effect on the educational system and their students. Their students respected them. They were forced to leave their jobs because they believed in Truth, Compassion and Tolerance and thought highly of Falun Gong.

Ms. Wang once told her students that people today often commit crimes because of their morality. She said, "Any student has the right to question authority, including the teachers, and students should not give up this right casually. One's opinions should be based on the truth, not someone else's opinion, and one should draw conclusions based on one's own thinking and analysis. The truth about Falun Gong should only be told by those who have read the Falun Gong books, practice Falun Gong, or know people who practice Falun Gong." At the end of class, Ms. Wang wrote a poem called "Weight" on the chalkboard: "She put her life on the line in the scale of life, making everyone else seem weightless." Ms. Wang asked her students, "If it was time for you to put yourself on the line on the scale of life, would you do it?"

That was Ms. Wang's last class. She has not yet been allowed to return to the podium, where she had been lecturing for 10 years.

Under political pressure, there are many teachers in China who have told countless lies, perpetrating misinformation and poisoning the minds of their students. How many of them have read the Falun Gong books? Not many. What they know are only sound bites and government-sanctioned propaganda about Falun Gong they get from TV. Some of them have taught the students that Falun Gong gets involved in politics. Some teachers, in order to keep their jobs, say they had no choice but to tell lies that they knew to be false. According to them, "I am only a teaching tool."

Teachers are also in the difficult position of defending indefensible claims in textbooks. The textbooks have accusations against Falun Gong that are totally unreasonable, and the students have doubts. In China, no matter how the teachers deal with this issue, there are only two potential outcomes. Those who say that Falun Gong is good may lose their teaching qualifications and their jobs. These teachers may be sentenced to labor camps and might not come out alive. The alternative is to slander Falun Gong as required, and their jobs are safe and sound.

When I walked into the Liupanshui City First Middle School, the words written on the first chalkboard I came across were by Mr. Tao Xingzhi, a well-known Chinese educator: "In everything you teach, you teach people to be truthful; among everything you learn, you learn how to be a good person." Ms. Wang, who had just been removed from her teaching position, was sitting in the library on the third floor. It was June, time for potential teachers to take their qualifying exams. Each new teacher is faced with a difficult choice -- follow the basic requirements for being a good teacher, or succumb to the pressure of slandering good people?
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/10/21/87142.html

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