Manu people eat, drink, watch lanterns, have fun and tend to stay up late.
Early this morning, however, many people are already up and around, working, going about with their businesses.
getting married.
Many people were having family gatherings last evening.
Many were out with friends, having a good time.
But many were probably lonely, far away from their loved ones.
Some were missing their loved ones, who had passed away.
Today we are all busy again.
Over the 10 years, we have met ~48 times. Averaging about 5 times a year. Our intention was to meet once a month. At first we met on Saturday evening in our church, and later switched to Sunday afternoon.
But we often have to cancel our meetings when the venue is not available due to important events, when Rev. Yung is not available, when I am travelling, … Then we had to stop completely during the pandemic.
At our meetings, one of us (usually my wife or myself) leads a discussion on a book or a topic (based on a set of books).
The number of people who attend these meeting range from 10+ to ~70. Over the years, more than 200 people have attended these meetings. Yesterday ~35 people came.
We had quite a spirited discussion on the three stages of the evolution of consciousness and faith, according to Owen Barfield and Mark Vernon. Starting from Original participation which was primal and tribal. Which evolved into Reciprocal participation during the Axial Age with the rise of the individual and monotheism. Ending in the present Final participation with alienation from God and the question of how we can reconnect.
We had time to cover only about half of the material. So we shall continue next session which is likely to be in November.
All are welcome.
Many people mistake community service as service learning. Perhaps they feel that learning is automatic when one performs community service. Often, organisations send out students to help underprivileged children with their school work - without training, supervision, or followup. It is valuable service of benefit to the children. But it is doubtful whether the student tutors are learning something significant, and what exactly they are learning.
On the other hand, we may send our students to do a study on the difficulties faced by underprivileged children in their schooling - with prior training on the method of study, proper support throughout the study, and structured reflection in follow-up. Our student researchers certainly learn a lot from the project. But what is the benefit to the children under study?
However, when we combine the two together, it may make a balanced, challenging, impactful, and fruitful service-learning project.
The first two are not necessary bad things to do. It is just that they are not balanced. But they can be improved.
Unfortunately, many unworthy things are also done in the name of service-learning. For example, many organisations claim to organise service-learning trips to exotic foreign countries. They may spend an afternoon singing and playing games at a primary school in Sri Lanka, for example. For the rest of the one-week trip, they visit temples, beaches, watching fishermen catch their fish in their special ways, and other tourist attractions. And they call it service-learning. The students are happy because it is fun. Their parents are happy because they think their children are doing a good deed. But this is FAKE service-learning. And it is often these kinds of things that give service-learning a bad name.
This past year is the first year that we are able to resume in-person service-learning projects, as well as the first year that we can travel for service-learning.
In 2018-19, the last full year before the pandemic, we sent out ~1,000 students on non-local SL, to Mainland China and foreign countries. Fro 2019 to 2022, travel was practically impossible. We only re-started, gingerly, non-local SL in the summer of 2022.
In 2022-23, we are very happy that we were able to send out ~700 students.
This photo exhibition sends the message to the campus that service-learning is back, and we are making a big effort to provide more opportunity for students to serve away from Hong Kong.
The exhibition lets the campus know what non-local service-learning is like. Hopefully, it will encourage more students - and staff - to get involved.
In 2023-24, we hope to send ~1,500. But we are not just aiming at numbers. The photos are evidence that our projects are meaningful, challenging, and impactful. They bring real, tangible benefits to the community, while providing great learning opportunities for our students.
Service-Learning is back, bigger, and better.
Many trees were blown down. Many branches, big and small, were torn from the trees and strewn around. It will take many days to clear them from the streets and sidewalks. Some pretty big ones, 9 inches or more in diameter, were broken into 2. Such is the power of the typhoon.
Upon closer inspection, however, some of them have big, rotting holes in the middle of the tree trunk. That would certainly weaken the tree, making them easier to break in the storm.
Many trees were uprooted. Thereby exposing their root systems. In almost all cases, the root system was pitifully small, compared to the size of the tree. That is, of course, partly due to the constricted way the trees are allowed to grow.
So, in reality, was it the typhoon that killed those trees? Or it was actually the way our trees are (mis)treated? It has been commented many times, that our trees are managed by people who do not have sufficient knowledge about trees.
That should not come as a surprise. Many people say the same is true of many things in Hong Kong, such as education. How many of the people in charge of education truly know or care about education? How many of the people appointed to the university councils do?
