The methods of an educator, to reach his students, translated…
Principal Ching-Zhen started smiling from the side, and actually, we all knew, that he was the real person who broke the wind for the students………
“The children will NEVER follow the adults’ advices, but they will surely, model after their adult counterparts” ~~~James Baldwin, American Writer.
“He’s one of the last year middle school cyclers!”, the female owner, Ya-Wen proudly, pointed to her own son. I’d quickly walked toward the handsome lad who’d served us the entire night who’s taller than I, “Come, hero, a picture together!” Principal Ching-Zhen smiled from the side, but actually, we all knew, that he was the one who broke the wind for his students.
Ching-Zhen led the two elementary schools and one middle school, to challenge the traditional way of education, and applied to become an experimental school, with four semesters, with the summer vacations, shortened by ten days, and, a week-long autumn and spring breaks, which he planned the fieldtrips for.
On January 18th this year, he’d taken along 120 students, to ride from Hualien to Yunlin, and used the geography and community service frames of learning, to change the mindsets of his students, “Challenging Ride from the North to the South”. Although he already had nine years’ worth of experiences in this, but for the sake of successfully pulling off this challenge, Ching-Zhen still rode by himself seven, to eight times before the date. He knew, that the students will be riding against the wind, underneath the heated sun, as well as the lowered temperatures.
Without knowing, that this trip, planned in 2016, was a “cursed” journey for them all.
Rode, in the Pains of How the Body and the Soul Split Up
The first day they rode, the rain just poured down nonstop, and, they’d had a 5.7 earthquake too. The third day, as they crossed the South loop, as the team of cyclists turned right toward An-Shuo, the never-ending slope upward started, swallowing the kids’ confidence one by one. As the entire team finally made it up to Da-Wu of the South Loop, the riders were separated by one kilometer between each and every rider. Because after that, there would be a fifteen-kilometer ride uphill, Ching-Zhen had the students huddled up, and sent the kids who weren’t feeling well or had become ill, to ride to Shouka, to shorten the length of the cycling troupe.
“CW want to go.”, at this time, CW, who the principal had asked a lot of the other students to look after, a student with autism called out.
“CW, get in the car”, Ching-Zhen was persistent.
“CW wants to ride up!”, he’d stated aloud five times, the child became more and more persistent with each and every call.
Disregarding his school principal’s commands, CW got on his bicycle, and worked hard, to catch up to the rest of the cyclers, and those kids who had already gotten into the car who were tired out from riding, after seeing their classmate who’d needed them to look after had gone along, they’d all, run off the truck one by one, put their helmets back on, and, with the strength that came out of nowhere, held tight to their handlebars, and, caught up with the rest of the riders. In the end, there were only three injured students who didn’t ride, and all the rest of the students, miraculously, passed through the central mountain ranges, and, arrived to Shouka by their bicycles.
After they got their congratulations and had a group photo, the following ten kilometer ride was all downhill, the section where most accidents happened. “Accidents happen, when you’d relaxed. After you’d climbed up to the peaks, and not known to still be humble, it will, be the beginning, of your own tragedies.”
Actually, a tragedy did occur on that day—Mr. Rong-Fa Chang who’d donated to rebuild the Camphor Lake passed away, and, Ching-Zhen held back the pains, because without Mr. Chang, there could never be the Biodome Camphor Lake Elementary and Middle Schools. As they rode on the 199 Pass to the Lake of Tears, Ching-Zhen huddled up all the students, and told them the news of the death of this great man. The kids all put their palms together, prayed, and gave thanks. On January 20th, the one hundred twenty students had learned more about life than usual.
On January 23rd, they’re, almost home, but, they’d been greeted, with a most serious kind of cold front, and the strongest wind they’d ever faced. With the strong wind, beating against their bodies, the cold front that sent chills down to their spines, the icy cold rain that slid into their coats, no matter how hard the kids pedaled, they just, can’t make any progress. Riding against the wind up north, they’d needed a wind blocker, especially when they’re faced with the strong winds of level seven to nine.
lecturing the students on conservation and environmentalism…
Principal Ching-Zhen, who sustained a knee injury, at which time, ran ahead of all his students, became the windbreaker; although, that was, the very first time he’d felt excruciating pains from his spirit, being separated from his body, but he’d continued, to lead the way. At which time, the ninth graders who were originally in charge of redirecting the traffic, they’d held tight onto their bicycles, rode as fast as they could to the head of the cycling line, took turns, breaking the wind. The parents who rode along in the car, seeing how their own fifteen-year-olds rode hard, with tears, their shadows getting bigger and bigger and bigger, they all cried. Just like Ching-Zhen had foretold, “As life start getting harsher, the kids started changing.”
After Making a Perfect Score, His Goal was Scoring a 120
In order to make her own children grow bigger and have the capabilities to change one’s own life, Ya-Wen’s mom sold the house in Taipei, moved her family to Gukeng, so her children would have the opportunity to follow Principal Ching-Zhen on all the trips. Like the German school principal, Kurt Hahn said, “traditional education focuses on knowledge, causing students to lack the self-confidence, to not have enough empathy toward others, and lacked the abilities to show gratitude too. And so, through ‘doing while knowing, knowing while learning, learning while doing’, the process of discovery, each student will get enough of the stimulations they’d needed from all senses, to slowly up the ability of emotional management and abilities, to slowly, live out one’s own purpose in life.”
This time riding southbound, Ching-Zhen asked me to set up a three-day children’s literature camp, and Ching-Zhen also hoped to combine “discovery education”, so the student, after visiting and discovering the locals’ way of life, then, they can, start creating. And for this, on this day, Ching-Zhen took me to visit the hundred-year-old Gukeng Coffee planter, the innovative dragon fruit planters, the Butter Bus Cordon Bleu pastry chef, along with the founder of Bar-Den Coffee. “After you learned about these individuals, then, you will have more to teach your students using more creative measures.”, toward education, Ching-Zhen always wanted to go above and beyond, the call of his duties.
In order to help make the coffees in Gukeng well known again, he’d flown to Jakarta, then, transferred to Kalimantan Island, then, rode in the car for three whole hours, to the depth of the mountains, without the marked roads, just to see how the Japanese consumed these plantations in Indonesia. After he’d returned here, he’d stated, “Our ways of making coffees was twenty-years more advanced than theirs, we have too much of a competitive edge here…………I shall, work with the government, to set up a tourist route from Gukeng to Alishan to help boost the local economy, and, as the younger generations returned, the kids too, then, the community will become alive again………”
As the sun set in the west, everybody was focused on chowing down the freshly baked pizza made by Ya-Wen’s mom, only Principal Ching-Zhen, still talked with the high winds, on his visions for the local community, the reforms in education here, as well as the kids’ futures. At age of forty-seven, wrinkles had, filled up his face, I knew, that this man who’s at the forefront of education is still enduring the harsh sun and the pouring rain.
not my photograph…
“I will be willing, to break the wind with you!”, I’d made a promise, to a star that came up into the skies first, “if I will have that honor to.”
And, as all the students were discussing, whether if it was, Venus or Mars that first came up high into the skies, but I knew, that so long as the experimental education team of riders are still moving forward, the names of the stars, are, no longer important anymore.
So, we have here, a visionary of education, he’d taken his students on rides, showed them that they can do anything they set their minds to, set a great example for his students to follow, and, this man with great vision will eventually get to see, everything that he hoped come true, because he is instilling that sense of passion, into all of the lives of the students he’d managed to touch…