By Lu Ning (鲁宁)

EO Online

Translated by Zhu Na

Original article: [Chinese]

Weiyang No 1 experimental school in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province, recently decided to only let good pupils wear the red scarf of the Young Pioneers of China, and forced others to wear green scarves, prompting intervention from the Shaanxi Provincial Youth Working Committee, which is expected to overturn the policy.

However, the attempt to classify people into different groups has enraged tens of millions of internet users.

It is compulsory for all pupils to wear the red scarf of the Young Pioneers of China. The red scarf is their symbol, which represents a corner of the national flag, stained with the blood of revolutionary martyrs. It seems that the school’s principal and teachers haven’t properly understood the authorities’ “political purpose” in asking children to wear the red scarf. Their green scarfs are a blasphemous, and aren’t just a source of online outrage, but also an embarrassment for the authorities.

 In fact, it doesn't matter if children wear a green or red scarf, both of them are relics of attitudes to education from the time when the Chinese were "subjects". Over the past fifty years, China made the transition to a “society of citizens” from a “society of subjects”. However, its universities, schools and even kindergartens still employ an outdated way of cultivating “revolutionary successors” instead of qualified citizens of a modern society. Educators take on the noble mission of cultivating future “revolutionary successors,” starting from the kindergartens.

Education is the basis of a nation’s survival and society’s development. However, a “society of subjects” and a “society of citizens” require different education standards and methods. The choice of standards and methods depends on the fundamental purpose of education. For the former, its fundamental aim is to cultivate obedient subjects; the fundamental purpose of the latter is to shape a citizen capable of independent thought and aware of his social responsibilities. If we have chosen the later path, then our primary school students shouldn’t need  to wear any “scarf” whatever its color.