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SCMP Reporter

Remember, money can't buy love
There have been many news reports recently about families that quarrel  over money. There have even been stories in the media about sons and daughters who threaten their parents with knives because of cash disputes.
These people are very greedy and they don't appreciate that money has very little value when compared with the love of their families and  friends.
I think that teenagers in Hong Kong are so preoccupied with money that they ignore the  people around them and damage the relationships with their loved ones.
I'm glad that I understand that no amount of money can replace the people I love.
I hope you understand, too.
Yip Wing-yee, Christian Alliance S. C. Chan Memorial College
A gifted teacher who inspires students
A good teacher is  very important to the success of our studies. And being taught by a talented teacher motivates us to work harder.
We are  students of St Paul's Secondary School and we want to tell you about Ms Grace, the English tutor we had last year.
Unlike some teachers, Ms Grace cares about  all her students. It doesn't matter whether you are attentive and obedient or naughty and distracted; she does  her best to help everyone improve their English.
She gave us loads of extra material  on grammar, vocabulary, speech and other aspects of English  in order to help us make as much progress as possible.
To encourage us to read more books, she chose some interesting stories that suited our level and lent them to us.
She encouraged us to read Young Post every day.  Almost every week,  she would give us the 'word power' section of the newspaper's Liberal Studies article  as a  quiz during lessons.
When she found that only a few students from each class were able to get involved in inter-class debates, she adopted a different method. She arranged debates with different classes so that more students could benefit from such activities.
She has done a great deal to improve our language standards, but in the process, she also cared about our feelings.
She read our  blogs on Xanga, as a friend would do.
It wasn't because she wanted to check whether we were saying bad things about our teachers or using foul language on our blogs. She did it because she wanted to understand us better.  She also writes blogs about herself under her own name  so that we can understand her feelings as well.
I think it's great to have a teacher like Ms Grace.
I hope that every student in Hong Kong will be lucky enough to be inspired by a teacher who  really cares about them.
Former 3B students, St Paul's Secondary School
A better view
The importance of education is quite clear. Education is all about maximising one's potential. I believe that one can safely say that a human is not complete until properly  educated.
There are two principal reasons. The first is that the training of a human mind is not complete without education. It turns a person into a thinker and it tells us how to evaluate options and make the right decisions.
The second reason is that a person can only acquire knowledge through education. It gives  them access to knowledge about history  as well as the present.  Without education, a person is like a closed room.  Education  helps them open the window to the outside world.
Vijay Kumar Varma, California School
Weddings in decline
The number of marriages  in Hong Kong is declining. It seems that the new generation is no longer interested in weddings.
Young people think of marriage as just another set of rules designed to  control  them.
Hong Kong's falling birthrate  means the number of talented grown-ups who can lead Hong Kong in the future will decline.
The government  wants to encourage young talent to move to Hong Kong. I think this is a very good idea because the city needs  more intelligent students at its universities.
Thousands of overseas students go to Britain and the United States every year to benefit from the higher standards of education in those countries.
I think the government should think about making Hong Kong an education hub, attracting top talent from around the world.
Wong Ching
Teen times
Childish, rebellious, naive and immature - these words are often used by adults to describe teenagers.
Are these descriptions correct?  I don't think so.
Adults usually think that  young people are inexperienced in life. They are older than us and therefore they think they know better than we do.
I do agree that the longer you live the more experience you gain. But it is also true that you do not have to be old in order to acquire knowledge. When it comes to judging right and wrong, some teenagers are better at it than adults.
Today's teenagers face  challenges that most adults have never had to go through when they were young. Extreme exam pressure and having to cope with rapid technological advances are just two examples.
I think maturity should be judged by a person's behaviour, not by age alone. There are  some very immature adults.
Only a minority of teenagers are involved in violence, drugs and sex.
I think teenagers nowadays are not as childish, rebellious, naive and immature as many adults believe they are.
Wong Ka-ki, Our Lady of the Rosary College



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