Class boycott for democracy offers students valuable life lessons

As students from several universities and colleges prepare for a week-long boycott of classes from next Monday, to protest against the National People's Congress Standing Committee decision on political reform for Hong Kong, the local community is responding in diverse ways.

While some are sympathetic to students' right to assert their freedom of speech and expression in a peaceful way, the anti-Occupy Central movement has gone to the extent of establishing a hotline for people to report incidents of class boycotts. Others have cautioned students about staying away from classes, saying that doing so might adversely affect their learning.

Are students really going to suffer a lot academically by boycotting classes for a week? Opinions may differ. But I think they would benefit, overall, if they missed classes for a short time for a legitimate cause. In fact, if they were to take the class boycott as a "learning group project", they could accomplish what is generally not achievable within the four walls of a classroom.

There are several major limitations of the dominant learning model currently practised at universities. The first is that we teach in compartments divided first by disciplines (such as politics, business, law, philosophy, mathematics, and so on) and then by separate courses within each discipline.

However, the challenges that graduates face outside educational institutions do not arise within these artificial boundaries. The universal suffrage saga is a case in point: it is a fascinating cocktail of law, politics, ethics, public policy, colonial history, economics, business, international relations and media advertising.

The project of boycotting classes for one week to push for universal suffrage will offer students an unprecedented opportunity to learn collaboratively in an interdisciplinary setting. Students should gain a lot by working with their peers from across the disciplines at all levels.