Involution and “Lying flat” in Hong Kong Education — Series 1 — What is “Lying flat”?
In mainland and Hong Kong, involution and “lying flat” become keywords recently. The Hong Kong Education Bureau has even released curriculum documents on values education and aimed to solve the above problems. “Lying flat” is to describe the mentality that people do not want to compete, have no goals, muddle through things, just to meet the survival needs, and have no desire in their life. It’s to describe people’s mentality of sleeping in bed and resting all the time.
In society, some people who “lying flat” will find part-time jobs, and when they have a small number of deposits, they will stay at home to play computer games, to take a rest or do nothing. When they have financial needs, they will work again to earn to meet the minimum survival requirements. In the education aspect, some students will stay at home, some will choose “lying flat” in schools.
It seems that the term “lying flat” is incompatible to describe young people. This age group is usually full of energy and liked to explore different things. When someone develops this mentality and is already “lying flat”, how can they live for their whole life? Students who are “lying flat” are mainly divided into two categories. The first category is to hide at home, and the second category is able to attend classes normally, but only meet the minimum requirements. I had been teaching in three banding of schools in Hong Kong, no matter what the banding of the school is, there are some students who choose to “lying flat”.
