It happened again just more than a week after the reopening of secondary schools marked another milestone in Hong Kong’s painstaking struggle for normalcy: Political movements were quick to enlist schoolchildren freshly back to the classroom in their campaign to organize a class boycott. 

Being young and economically carefree, students are idealistic and rebellious in nature. So they are the ideal recruits at a time when many people’s livelihoods hang in the balance, and when much of the world remains in the grip of a debilitating pandemic.

To say that students are too young to have or express political views would be condescension that borders on infantilization. But nudging under-informed and impressionable youths down a path to hatred then self-destruction is irresponsible, to say the least. But that’s what the political demagogues in the city have been doing. One need look no further than the number of students arrested during the violent protests last year.

Hong Kong’s education system is on a freewheeling course. As if teachers’ preaching hate speech toward police officers, and in some cases their kids and other family members, were not enough of a red flag. Those stoking the violence have pinned the blame of students being arrested on “police brutality”. But the recent controversies in the teaching of history are hard proof of some teachers’ problematic approach to education.

The primary school teacher who portrayed Britain as trying to cure Chinese people of opium addiction in the 19th century either did not have adequate training in the discipline, or had let his bias toward the Chinese mainland get the better of his professional and moral integrity.

Then came the college-entrance history exam question of whether Japan did more good than harm to China in the first half of the last century. “The question is problematic in itself because it implies that the evil and the good are quantifiable, and that the good can somehow negate the atrocities committed by the invading troops during the years of turmoil. It does not do justice to the lives that perished, or the pains that still exist in living memory.” That might be the best answer to a question that provided just two excerpts of reading material, both hinting at possible Japanese aid before the war broke loose.

Much intellectual debate remains to be done for us to better understand the circumstances that came to make history. Much is left for historical research, and may be forever open to controversies. For example, after more research and public debate, more people have stopped viewing the British demand to export opium to China through the prism of ideology and race. More people now agree that it was an imperialist endeavor purely driven by profits, though some still do not acknowledge that such pursuits are inherently evil.

Trusted with the job to shape young minds, teachers should exercise caution as they guide students through such complex issues. As educators, they should seek to inspire critical thinking in the inquisitive youths, to better prepare them for future intellectual and political dialogues, instead of tricking them into accepting a binary worldview.

Like any other professionals, teachers are entitled to their own political opinions, but school yards should not be the battleground for their own brand of political struggle. A general studies lesson for primary schoolchildren, or a potentially life-changing exam for those aspiring to higher education, is hardly the appropriate place to make their contentious point.

As a result, people cannot in good conscience believe that students, still in their formative years, have the tools they need to question and debunk the fallacies, or outright lies, sputtered by their trusted mentors. One can only imagine how many students have been blinded by their politically zealous teachers’ prejudice, and how many are herded to a fight not of their choosing.

Unlike the mainland, Hong Kong does not burden itself with the weight of the Nanjing Massacre, or the plunders of the Old Summer Palace. It’s also free from the accusations of “harnessing age-old hate” that sometimes follow mainland people’s mention of such atrocities. From such a vantage point, it can more easily provide fresh perspectives on Chinese history and politics. But now, those responsible for invoking critical thinking in the next generation have willingly traded such promises for their own political beliefs, by passing bigotry as truth in their sermons.

It’s most unlikely that protesters who march past Elgin Street in Central waiving colonial-era flags would give a second thought to the man after whom the street was named. No clenched fists before the road sign that bears the name of the Earl of Elgin, who ordered the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in 1860 that culminated in looting and torching of artworks, antiques and architecture.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Holding ancient grudges achieves nothing. History surely should make way for the here and now, but let it be done with dignity. Educators who get wrapped up in politics should show enough respect for their profession, get their facts straight, and fight their own fight outside the classroom.

The author is a Hong Kong-based journalist.