Professionalism of School Teachers

During the devastating Sichuan earth quake, a school teacher ran out of his classroom without taking care of his pupils. He later openly publicized his actions and his thoughts behind it and became an instant celebrity of sorts in China.

The teacher was later fired from the school and stripped his teaching credentials, which opened yet another can of worms.

On the internet, the teacher had gained more attackers than defenders. Each side has been passionately arguing on his moral and legal stance on the matter.

A couple of days ago, Fang Zhouzi jumped into a foray and pointed out that there was another issue behind the case: the lack of professionalism in China. In a brief essay titled To Be a Teacher One Has to Act Like a Teacher, he said that the teacher's action demonstrated that he did not have the professionalism required for a teacher.

Echoing previous arguments by Rao Yi, Fang Zhouzi said there was no real translation of the word "professionalism" in Chinese. Teachers, just like doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, architects, and accountants, are special professions that demand certain higher moral obligations to the people they serve.

The widespread corruption in many of such professions in China, Fang Zhouz conluded, is rooted in the lack of professionalism.

Rao Yi: Chinese Culture Lacks Professionalism

During an interview with the newspaper Science Times (科学时报), Professor Rao Yi described his experience after returning from overseas and his vision for Peking University.

When asked about difficulties and challenges he had encountered in China, Rao Yi observes:

Chinese culture lacks professionalism [Rao used the English word here]. There is no formal translation for this word, because there is not yet such a concept in Chinese culture.

There is also a lack of intellectual [again, Rao used the English word here] atmosphere in China's academia. This word ["intellectual"] has been mis-translated in Chinese for a long time. The reason is also that there is no such concept in Chinese culture. It ["intellectual"] should be an activity that is higher than knowledge itself. [In China,] people work on science purely for the purpose to be better than the next person, to publish more papers. They don't exchange ideas and talk about their research only when they are ready to publish. It is not only being selfish (小家子气), but also an indication that they are not doing as an intellectual pursuit. There are also people who never come to scientific discussions. For them, research is clearly just a job, not an intellectual pursuit. This is very common in China.

Perhaps fearing for controversy, Science Times deleted this paragraph when it published this interview. However, the complete version of the interview is also widely available on internet in China.