Cultivation of humanistic citizenship through teaching practicum

Abstract

The rise of humanism has been found since the World War II. When brutality has spread across the world, it starts to make us revisit the question “how to be a human”. After witnessing the brutality of wars, one of the important missions for an educator is to educate students to be good citizens. This is the basic concept of citizenship. Citizenship education has not received much attention in Hong Kong. It is until 1990s the Hong Kong government starts to realize the importance of it. Facing a few times of failure and criticism, the Hong Kong government has received little credit for practicing citizenship education. Humanistic citizenship cultivation is seen as an empowerment to students. Integrating all the literature and findings, the author suggests that pre-service teachers practicing humanistic citizenship education may encounter the dominant discourse resisting the cultivation but at the same time assessment and scaffolding might provide a chance for the humanistic citizenship to thrive. This research aims to bring humanism into citizenship education. It will first define humanistic citizenship education. Then it will suggest challenges and opportunities in practicing it from a pre-service teacher’s perspective.