2003 (E) Task 3

55. reference to Lily Chan’s letter Interviewing relatives 56. bring up different things from usual family discussions 57. learn a lot about own family history 58. learn about life from the experience of other people 59. importance of talking together as a family // share thoughts and feelings with family 60. learn to talk ‘sensibly’ with adults 61. learn to listen carefully to other people’s ideas 62. learn to be sensitive to other people’s feelings *For 60. – 62.: Any or all these can alternatively appear under the topic heading ‘Schoolwork and Employment’.

Oral history / Historical context 63. (only) major events are well-documented 64. little knowledge of day-to-day life in the past 65. women’s lives have often been more private than public 66. teenagers today have a different perspective from their parents 67. gather information about thoughts, feelings, motivations

Schoolwork and employment 68. useful skills for study 69. (links to) a task-based approach to learning 70. learn how to interview 71. learn to be organised and accurate with data and information records 72. using these skills in an integrated way (must include 70 and 71) // ‘real life’ practice / skills // not just (classroom) exercises

Use for the future 73. the world / Hong Kong is changing (all the time) 74. not enough is done today to capture / record / document how we live our everyday lives // all changes need to be documented 75. can learn from the changes that are taking place now 76. comparison can be done easily between different countries and different decades / for a particular decade

Relevance Lots of irrelevant material Some irrelevant material Hardly any irrelevant material 013 Readability PoorSatisfactoryVery Good 013 PoorSatisfactoryVery Good 013 Language Presentation Marks

CST Lam Tin Secondary School Lam Tin Road Kowloon The Editor Hong Kong Post P0 Box 250 Hong Kong 31 March, 2003 I am writing in response to Ms Lily Chan’s letter to the Hong Kong Post dated 24 March, 2003 titled ‘Waste of schoolchildren’s time’. In this letter, I would like to answer Ms Chan’s criticisms on the Childhood Memories Exhibition. As a member of the school’s project team, I think I could explain the benefits of the project to Ms Chan and the public.

In Ms Chan’s letter, she questioned what teenagers can gain from interviewing their relatives. In fact, their relatives may bring up different things that they do not usually get round to discussing in the family. It is also a good way to learn about life from the experiences of other people and they must not forget the importance of talking together in the family. By interviewing their family members, young people can collect more about the adults’ memories of their family life when they were children. They can gather information about thoughts, feelings and motivations. At the same time, they can learn a lot about their own family history. As teenagers have a different perspective from their parents, they can be more aware of the differences in lifestyle between the 1970s and today.

Ms Chan also expressed her concerns that the interviews were only about everyday life and they had completely ignored the wider historical context and this may not be useful in the serious study of history. However, while the major events of history like wars, political scandals and natural disasters are documented, there is much less information about the everyday life of ordinary men and women in the past. Therefore, teenagers need to explore the history by themselves. In addition, women do not feature so much in ‘official’ documents or create public records about themselves. Thus history from a woman’s perspective is not something they can find in traditional history books.

Ms Chan should not overlook the fact that there are a wide range of useful techniques students can acquire from this project. This project helped teenagers to develop useful skills for study as it linked well to a task-based approach to learning. Students can learn how to interview effectively, to be organized and accurate with data and information records. Then they can use these skills in an integrated way in real life not just as classroom exercises. In the process, teenagers also learn how to talk sensibly with adults, listen carefully to other people’s ideas and be more sensitive to their feelings. All these can indeed assist schoolchildren with schoolwork or with future employment.

The personal information being collected will be useful to future generations around the world, too. It would be important in the future to show how people used to live. In fact, the world around us is changing all the time, particularly in Hong Kong. But there still is not enough done in an organized way to capture how we live our lives day to day. It is true that these changes need to be documented if people want to think about them and learn from them now and in the future. As the project is international in nature, it also allows students in different countries to compare information about a particular decade for two or more countries.

I hope the information I have provided can solve Ms Chan’s worries and she will understand how this project will be useful to the future generations around the world. Yours faithfully, Sammy Chu