A lot of literature has been written about education as the transmission of cultural knowledge yet the way in which culture, as ritual action, constitutes and fosters religio-cultural ideological myth remains largely unexplored in the context of ritual pedagogies in school settings. In Hong Kong, the government had initiated an educational reform promoting the play-based child-centred approach to replace the traditional mode of teacher-centred approach aimed at meeting the changing world at the start of 21st century. However, there are great variations when these principles and approaches are implemented in classroom practice. Even though the school voucher scheme1 providing support for parents to choose kindergartens that adopt the approach has been introduced in 2006, there is no significant impact in the field of early childhood education. This study aimed to identify the extent to which how different ritual pedagogies had reflected the mythical values that the teachers held by examining the forms and practices of ritual in two early childhood classroom settings. Data was collected through observational records and interviews to examine how the mythical values of the two teachers concerned had underpinned their ritualistic practises. The findings suggested that teachers using different ritual pedagogies had reflected entirely different mythical values that they held respectively. The implication for this study is that schools should not ignore the mythical values of their teachers if they are to realise their school missions and cultural values that they cherished. The study might give insight to early childhood practitioners and policy makers on how the ritualistic practises of the teachers could make a big difference to the realisation of their ideological goals. On the academic side, light might be shed for an understanding of the puzzled gap between the traditional teaching mode and the recommended approaches.
[Copyright © 2013 Grace LAU, Kwok Keung

The twentieth century saw great hopes but also great failures. Philosophy, however, by its timeless truth, might confront the ever changing fashion by giving people a pointer through its philosophical application in the realm of education. In this paper, the authors argue that many philosophical teachings from the famous Greek philosophers are indeed influential when their teachings are applied to the early childhood classrooms in Hong Kong. Their sphere of influence has extended from the British colonial period to the present era in Hong Kong as far as early childhood education is concerned. For Plato, his theory of Forms and his emphasis on the search of Truth will be compared with Aristotle empiricist views in his study of nature. While analyzing the theory of Forms and the idea of the Good, the authors found that Plato's approach could be traced back to Xenophanes who proposed a monotheistic theory of God and is religiously related to Christianity. Their applications in the top-down teacher-directed play-based curriculum were valid in the early childhood educational mode during the early colonial period to the 1980s in Hong Kong. Since Aristotle was found to have a different approach to Forms as compared to those of Plato, Aristotle's argument for Forms was mentioned and its relevancy to the prevalent hybrid mode of the play-work-based curriculum in early childhood education is explored. Following the most recent reform in early childhood education in Hong Kong, free play is recommended in the reform document. Heraclitus's doctrine of ‘flux' could apply most suitably in the free play condition as ‘flux' signifies an ever changing condition just as the nature of free play does. A final touch of this paper is on exploring the divergent views of Plato and Aristotle and their impacts on education today so as to provoke further thoughts of the readers in the areas explored.
[Copyright © 2017, Grace LAU & Kwok Keung HO.]