Who CARES about the Reforms in Education, Find the Values that’s Going to Make Youth Meaningful

How to go about, reforming education, translated…

In order, to take my students into the real world, from the abstract of books, I’d tried walking that path that my older school mate took me on once…

The Promises of Seventeen that Wasn’t, Carried Away by the Wind

“Teacher, my grandfather doesn’t smoke or drink, but he’d died of lung adenocarcinoma two years ago.”, my student, L, with that serious look on his face continued, “I suspect, it’s related to the air pollution, can we do an exclusive on the subject on this issue of the school periodical?”

from the papers…

A few days later, the “Campus Air Pollution Measuring Squad” was founded, the members took their collected data, gathered in my office. The students quickly drafted up a proposal, and, visited the Taichung Fire Powerplant twice on their own time, and, on the weekends, they’d interviewed Professor Chuang from the Environmental Department of Zhong-xing University too.

Two weeks later, the students interviewed the workers at the city’s Department of Sanitation. “Teacher, you know what?”, my student looked excited, and shared with me his findings about the plans the local government was taking, to end the air pollutions.

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From the Abstractions of Books, Entering into the World of Reality

Just as Ching-Zuan Chen stated, “the children in Taiwan had derailed from the realities. Meaning, that everything that the students learned, are all standardized knowledge. But, from psychology, to biology, to philosophy, it’d told us, that we must, lead the children into reality, then, into the world of abstracts.” In order to take my students out of the abstract world of the texts, toward the real world, I’d attempted to walk that same path that I’d gone down, with my older schoolmate, leading the way, and, as I’d walked on, I’d, stowed away five extracurricular groups, and, five more groups that stressed on the middle schools, as well as the exclusive stories.

After I’d gotten involved into the discussion on air pollution, I’d told L, apologetically, “Doing this focus group will take time from you preparing for your monthly exams, and, it may affect your getting into a better college, I’m truly sorry!”

“Not at all, Sir, I’d learned how to collect the data, how to analyze media responses, planning the activities, leading the groups, time management, communication, problem-solving, as well as systematic thinking, at least, I will no longer be a follower of the rantings on the subjects of discussions now.”

not my comic…

Last year I’d gone to the meetings at the National Education Foundation, seeing the slides on reforming education, one of them had, “Use your moral beliefs, to direct the actions of students, the focus of the 12-years’ of education contiguously is to have the students learn to solve problems that they’re faced with in real-life situations, and learned the correct attitudes of approach at the end.”

Such, a grand idea, or rather, the dreams, with the hardship in the outlook. Because, before the beliefs of eliminating the entrance exams, you want the instructors to ignore the realistic academic subjects, the instructors would get grilled by the parents for being impractical, irresponsible even.

But maybe, we can, listen to the words of a former editor of a technical school in Taipei, “…you said, how, can we, working as the editor-in-chief of school periodicals, foresee, that we’d needed the experiences, to solve this problem we’re currently faced with?” and, this former editor-in-chief was, Zi-Shien Tong, the CEO of He-Shuo Corporation, he’d invested and filmed the “They are Writing on the Islands”, with the expected return of just five-percent, but he’d said, “if matters can’t be understood, or isn’t quantified by money, doesn’t mean that it’s not important.”

There was, this lack of understanding by his peers, not measured up to the values by his realm, a kind of a foolish drive to him, and maybe, it was like how I’d criticized my older school mate, how I was, accidentally, branded, with the lead markings of working to publish the school periodicals, and because it’d happened when I was so very young, I can’t, wash it off now, that lifetime marking, well, I shall call it, “ability” then.

So, this, is on the observations of the world of education, and, the man’s drive is what’s going to make him a success in life, and even IF nobody ends up believing in what he was saying, what he was selling (his ideals???), he’d still made his voice matter, to him, and because he found a way to voice his thoughts, that, will always leave a mark in history.