张紫瑶 澳门理工学院
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen!
Do you still remember that when we were in primary school, teachers required us to put our hands in the back or we would be penalized for misbehavior in class? Can you recall that when we were in junior high, our teacher compelled us do strictly follow the standard essay model or we would fail the composition part? Does it ring a bell when we were in junior high, our teacher warned us to never fall in love before college entrance examination or we would regrettably weep for the rest of our life?
Everything seems to be caged in a box. We strictly follow the standard answer to each item. In term of writing an essay which I believe depends more on our imagination and creativity rather than checking standard rules, we are still under the shady model so that we won’t get a low mark. After years’ study, our minds are structured like this: “we are not supposed to write creatively if we are not one hundred percent sure our work is going to be masterpiece.” But who can possibly sure he is going to be splendid if he doesn’t even dare to write? And how pathetic if a student does want to write something different but hampered by a so-called standard model!
Now we are in universities, I was convinced that finally we have the opportunity to express our own ideas, but there’s no interesting questions as we used to raise before; there’s no such curiosity as we used to hold before; there’s no such passion as we used to have before. We finally become mature but lost creative immaturity. We complain about why there’s no one won Nobel Literature Prize when we are writing monotonous essay; we complain about why our Chinese painting cannot reach the same level as our ancestors did when we are imitating their works; we complain about why we are always being sued of infringing intellectual property rights when we are copycatting every high-tech product;.
To let my ideas be accepted has always been my dream, to let my imagination run wildly is the whole generation’s dream. However realizing the dream meets obstacles sometimes, which is because our stuffed education never allows us to voice out loud bravely, because exam paper only acknowledge the so-called standard answer rather than a new styled one. I grew up in such an education environment as well, now I don’t even dare to suggest anything, but what a pity if a teacher has to read thousands of essays which look exactly the same, what a pity if our younger brothers and sisters still have to lock their minds in the box.
How to strive for that dream seems to be difficult. One of our greatest writer Lu Xun once said, path will show itself only when thousands of people walking through, but if we don’t even step on the field, we could never achieve the road. Our education does need a gradual change.
Given the current educational system students are going through, offering varies extra curriculum activities would be an effective alternative, such as debating, speech and free-styled writing training.
A speech contest like this I should say it is more of a privilege to those who are originally good at it, most students are not dare to say, so if delivering a speech could become a selective course for those who have interested in, we could be more passionate, elegant or persuasive in speaking and learn how to effect in public, and then help us to express our own ideas bravely.
When it comes to writing, for those students who are originally prefer writing to expressing, those regulations and controls are actually oppressing and depressing. I would like to suggest to provide a chance for us to write freely, we could write differently from what we are trained before, no matter in forms or content, set us free to write so that ideas and opinions are prioritized.
Ladies and gentlemen, when we have a beautiful dream, when we know there are chances to realize it, do not hesitate to strive, although it is hard to make the first step but eventually we have a bed so that we could dream; we have a window so that we could look far into the distance; we have a sail so that we could flee to faraway land; we have a peddle so that we could be brave.
