The Inner Beauty that Reflected on the Outside

Methods of education, by the headmaster of a technical university, translated…

The headmaster of the Tainan Applied Technology University, Ping-Chang Lin, focused on the aesthetics of his children’s education, he’d spent a lot of time, taking his kids to the art museums, going to concert halls, and teaching them to differentiate the different colors and scents in the natural world.

Placing an Emphasis on Understanding of the Aesthetics

Ping-Chang Lin believed, that if the kids were raised, to know beauty, then, their views won’t be ordinary and resembling the tastes of others, and that giving them a sense of what beauty is, is important, to help cultivating them to have that flair about them later on in life, “She may not be able to paint, but, she could admire a piece of art.”

Ping-Chang Lin has a doctorate in Industrial Designs from a Japanese University, originally worked as the dean of the designs major for Chung-Yuan University, the dean of Taiwan Technical University’s Industrial Designs Department, as well as the Dean of the Designs School for Ming-Chuang University, and now, he’s living in Tainan, working on cultivating outstanding artists.  His wife, Chung who also works as a professor has two daughters and a son together, the eldest is working on her designs doctorate in Japan currently, the second daughter just received her degree from an art school, and his youngest son just entered into the medical department this year.

Help Cultivate His Children to be Aware of Beauty in Art

Lin said, that he and his wife are both instructors, and they’d focused on helping their young develop empathy and courtesies, since the children were young, they’d told them, “beauty starts from the inside”, especially, the kids were warned against saying bad things about other people, and, as the adults socialized with the children, they don’t cuss, the couple took great concerns in the aesthetics in the education of their young, no matter how busy they were, on the weekends, they would always take their children out, to hike, or to visit art museums, through the colors of nature, the tastes, and senses, to experience the world, to help the kids have more sensory memories.

Lin said, a lot of those internationally famous people all had a unique perspective in viewing the arts, and still, this ability is learned, if the kids don’t have the patients to sit through a symphony, then, the parents can use guiding questions such as, “Does this sound like a train?” to try to get the kids to focus on the music, and, when viewing a piece of art, the parents can ask questions like, “what painting do you like the best?” and have the kids tell you why, “making sure that your young knows how to appreciate music is way more than training them to play a musical instrument.”

Growing Alongside the Children

Lin said, that his three children have totally different personality traits, the eldest daughter has high standards for herself, the second daughter is a natural born artist, the youngest son is very rational.  The eldest had once given up on art, because she needed to carry the burdens of carrying on the family legacy, until one day, she’d opened up and told him, that, was when he’d understood, how much stress and pressure his eldest daughter felt from the outside world, although he felt heart wrenching, he’d still told his daughter, “dreams are worth pursuing for a lifetime, you mustn’t give up on it easily.”

Lin laughed and told, that it wasn’t until their kids are all grown, did he and his wife come to realize, “that children are not extension of us”, and only through accompanying, believing, and respecting, would it be called using love to educate, and, all the parents could do in the homes is to instill that right attitude, but they couldn’t make the choices for their young at all.  “Nobody ever taught us how to be parents, and so, we must grow, alongside the children.”

So, this, is a father’s understanding, of what educating his kids is all about, and, this, is still a trial-by-error process, and gladly, this father never made any major mistakes, he’d allowed his children to pursue their separate areas of interests, he’d instilled that sense of knowing what beauty is in his children when they were growing up, which is, very important.