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OCCUPY CENTRAL With New School Year, AMS becomes Humanities II By Jackson Hunsaker - Journalism Class
Photo by Tom Price
The streets were empty in Admiralty, allowing anyone to walk and explore them.
The Question for Hong Kong Protesters: Principle or Pragmatism By Dr. Marty Schmidt - HKIS Humanities Teacher It has now been more than a week since the Occupy Central movement has demonstrated that it could muster enough support to shut down key areas of Hong Kong. In its stand against the world’s largest nation, it has garnered widespread international attention and much global sympathy. A generation of Hong Kong young people is now highly politically engaged and has gained a sense that they can take concrete action towards creating a better future for themselves. Now the question: what’s the next step in the fight for universal suffrage? As SCMP analyst Alex Lo has argued, while similar protests in the past have yielded tangible and important results, this time is different. In July, 2003, a half-million Hong Kongers fought against the imposition of the Article 23 anti-subversion bill, which would have allowed the police to enter people’s homes without a search warrant. Hong Kong people power won; the bill was never called to a vote. In 2012 a smaller but sustained campaign against a National Education curriculum caused the proposed changes to be rescinded. This time, however, the situation is different. First, there isn’t a clear message what the protesters want besides CY Leung to resign, which would accomplish little in the long-term, and “international standard” universal suf-
frage, which means anyone can run for the chief executive position and the public can vote on these candidates. The latter demand is conflict with the specifics of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, which states that a “broadly representative committee” must vet the candidates first. The kind of universal suffrage protesters want wouldn’t hold up in Hong Kong courts; it would be deemed unconstitutional. Even Occupy Central admits that China will not even entertain passing a law that violates the Basic Law. Second, the aforementioned conflicts were primarily local affairs, but now that Chief Executive C.Y. Leung has been sidelined and mainland officials are now speaking directly to Hong Kong people for the first time, the Hong Kong situation has gained considerable national attention from Beijing. Official mouthpieces have made it clear that Xi Jinping will not be bullied into concessions that would only encourage Tibetans and Uighurs in the restive western provinces to press harder in their quest for self rule. The real question is a matter of principle vs. pragmatism. When a vote is called in Legco on Beijing’s offer, should the prodemocratic camp reject this flawed system, attempt to take the moral high road, and be on record as demanding more than Beijing is will-
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ing to give or should they approve Beijing-sanctioned candidates that Hong Kong people can then vote for? It’s an unenviable choice, and my sympathies are with the protesters who certainly are mature enough to make their own political decisions. However, my advice is for the protesters to retreat and allow Hong Kong to get back to some form of normalcy, a choice for which they would win considerable respect from the vast majority of moderates in Hong Kong. Focus instead on the question of whether to vote for some small measure of expanded political participation or remain true to a higher standard. Given this limited choice, in my view Hong Kong Institute of Education Professor Sonny Lo’s recommendations suggest the only sensible way forward: approve the bill and allow the unpredictability of even flawed elections with an expanded populace inch Hong Kong forward on the path towards universal suffrage. It’s a bitter pill to swallow and may be politically untenable for the pro-democratic camp, but approving the bill appears to be the best option. Live to fight another day.
Last year, the Administration made the decision to remove Humanities II as a required course for sophomores, and instead decided that AMS would become the required humanities credit for sophomores. This changed was deemed necessary in order to fulfill the graduation requirements for the class of 2016. The debate about Humanities II and AMS had been in action amongst the Humanities department for years, with the whole department being split evenly on the issue. Last year when the department tried work it out, they were once again split. “After the schedule sign ups, however, the administration was able to see that less and less students were signing up for AMS classes, 6 classes to 2 classes, and American History classes in general whether it be AP US History or AP US Government,” said Ms. Harvey, the Associate Principal for Academic Affairs. “Instead most students are taking Junior English alone, which originated as an elite course for those taking AP US History or AP Government. Now students are taking Junior English without an American history AP, Because of this, in order to satisfy the board and their graduation requirements, the Administration decided to make AMS a mandatory sophomore class.”
Under the new graduation requirements, instituted by the Board of Managers, students have to take at one semester of American history. The Board instituted this American history requirement because they feel “that students had to know American history because America is one of the few major powers, the other being China,” according to Ms. Harvey; the Asian Study requirement is met by Humanities I. “The rationale is that as long as we remain an American style curriculum, preparing a majority of our students for university in the U.S., there should be a deliberate focus on American Studies in the core years,” Mr. Jeremy Evans, one of the four Humanities department head, said. The reason for the split decision amongst the humanities department was the fact that the department viewed Humanities II as a fantastic class for sophomores, and AMS a great class for juniors. The “change has nothing to do with Humanities II being bad. Nothing was broken,” Ms. Harvey said. Mr. Evans said, “We are meeting graduation requirements, preparing students for the future, and teaching essential skills common to the Humanities.” Juniors this year will have to Continued on Page 2
Large amount of police meeting outside the Headquarters
Photo by Tom Price
More Occupy Central Coverage on Page 6 and Page 7 The Thing About Schoology... Irene Cho, Yash Bardoloi, and Shayla Sandoval cover data and personal opinion on the sucessor of MyDragonnet; Schoology.
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HKIStyle What’s Your Style? Megan House
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