學生在曲奇上畫出曼陀羅圖案 (照片來源: 鄧偉文)
Students drawing mandala on the cookies (Photo credit: Tang Wai Man)
The Education Bureau of Hong Kong revised its Secondary Education Curriculum Guide in 2017 and updated its one of the seven learning goals for the students – “to become an informed and responsible citizen with a sense of national and global identity… and respect for pluralism in society”. Schools are encouraged to achieve this goal through values education and implement it by providing students with holistic learning experiences, namely integrating the elements of cognition, affection, and action.
香港教育局在2017年修訂了《中學教育課程指引》，並更新了其針對學生的七個學習宗旨之一——“成為有識見、負責任的公民，認同國民身份，並具備世界視野……和尊重社會上的多元性”。教育局鼓勵學校通過價值觀教育實現這一目標，並向學生提供整全學習經驗，即結合認知、情感和實踐的要素以實現這一目標。
In response to the updated learning goal of pluralism, many school teachers who are responsible for other learning experiences (OLE) and moral and civic education have looked into the topics of ethnic minorities (EM) in Hong Kong. However, when the guideline discusses the value of respect for others, it merely advises students to accept the fact that everyone is unique. Dr. Tang Wai Man, Department of Anthropology, who is interested in intercultural education, thinks that this approach is rather passive in understanding ethnic relations. It also fails to achieve the goal of integrative learning. Dr. Tang thus referred to his earlier experience in another intercultural project, Multiculturalism in Action, which emphasizes partnership, mutual empowerment, and sustainability in its model, to devise some new intercultural projects to work with the school teachers.
為了回應多元化學習目標的更新，許多負責其他學習經歷（OLE）以及德育及公民教育的教師都對香港少數族裔（EM）的主題作出研究。但是，當討論尊重他人的價值時，它僅建議學生接納每個人都是獨特的事實。對跨文化教育感興趣的人類學系鄧偉文博士認為，這種方法在理解族群關係方面相當被動，也無法實現綜合學習的目標。因此，鄧博士引用他早前在另一個跨文化項目“多元文化行動計劃”中的經驗，該項目強調伙伴關係、相互充權和可持續性，來設計一些新的跨文化項目來與學校教師合作。
One of the projects is to make mandala cookies with students. Many ethnic minority (EM) women in Hong Kong have good cooking skills and are creative in cooking. Dr. Tang invited two of them to conduct an intercultural workshop for a group of secondary school students. They innovated some cookies with mandala patterns and multiple flavors, such as ginger and cinnamon, and added a short description to explain how these elements are symbolizing South Asian cultures. Furthermore, they prepared some plain cookies and different colors of icing pens for the students in the workshop to let them draw their mandala on the cookies.
其中一個項目是與學生製作曼陀羅曲奇。香港許多少數族裔婦女都有良好的烹飪技能，並且在烹飪方面很有創造力。鄧博士邀請其中兩位婦女為一群中學生舉辦一次跨文化工作坊。她們創造了一些具有曼陀羅圖案和多種口味的餅乾，例如薑和肉桂，並簡短說明這些元素如何象徵著南亞文化。此外，他們為工作坊的學生準備了一些普通的曲奇和不同顏色的糖筆，讓他們在曲奇上畫出曼陀羅。
The workshop was held during the lunch hour, and it ran successfully. The students enjoyed the process of drawing mandala and were impressed by their EM teachers. One student said, “the cookies are too beautiful to eat… I hope that the teachers can come again…” And the EM teachers were also impressed by the students. One of the teachers said, “I didn’t expect that the boys would also be interested in drawing cookies… they were so focused…” In this one-hour program, the students acquired new cultural knowledge, actively participated in another culture, and socially engaged with people from another ethnic background. This aligns with the goal of integrative learning of cultural pluralism. However, it is challenging to sustain this kind of approach under the current education system since it only sets 10-15% of school time on OLE, and moral and civic education is only one of the five components in OLE.
工作坊在午餐時間成功舉行。學生們很享受繪製曼陀羅的過程，並對他們的少數族裔老師留下了深刻的印象。有同學說：「曲奇太漂亮了，不捨得吃……我希望老師能再來一次……」少數族裔老師也對學生有深刻的印象。其中一位老師說：「我沒想到男孩子也會對畫曲奇感興趣……他們很專注……」在這個一小時的課程中，學生們獲得了新的文化知識，積極參與另一種文化，並與來自另一個族群背景的人們進行社交互動。這與綜合學習多元文化的目標相吻合。但是，在目前的教育體系下維持這種方法具相當挑戰性，因為它只將10-15%的上課時間設置為OLE，而德育及公民教育只是OLE的五個組成部分之一。