Written by the Associate Professor of the Physical Therapy Department of the Chenggong University’s medical school, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
Putting these two, unrelated place, museums and local parks together, I’d wanted to talk about the problems surrounding education in Taiwan right now.
getting children into nature on a fieldtrip, not my photo…
A while ago, I’d gone to visit the U.S., other than visiting the related physical therapy units, I’d also gone to four museums, including the Horticultural Museum of Seattle, the Aerospace Museum, the Industrial History Museum, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Even though there’s only over two hundred years of history for the U.S., it had over six thousand museums nationwide, and, as children are attending schools, they were given the opportunities, to visit these museums on field trips of with their own parents. During this trip, it’d made me recalled how my six years of work and study here, how I’d gone to the museum with the most number of collections, in New York, as well as the cutest Jello museum (LeRoy in New York), it’d enriched my life as a student, and, helped me to de-stress, in the pressures of writing my doctor dissertations.
fieldtrips to the museums…educational AND fun!!! Not my photo…
The museums in the U.S. ranged across history, arts and beauty, the sciences, the children can copy the arts of the masters, to gain more knowledge on beauty, and can also learn from the historical facts, the science hands-on experimentations, to learn as they live.
From online, there were, over five hundred big and small museums here in Taiwan, most were located toward the north. But, the children’s fieldtrips, rarely go to these places, take for instance my son, for his fieldtrips, the students were led into the amusement parks, and, we can only utilize the weekends, to take him to the museums, but, the museums are jam-packed with people, and we can’t sit down, and examine the paintings closely, or to do a hands-on experiment offered in the museums. If the kids can learn like the kids in the U.S., with separate classes, going to various sections of the museums, I’m sure, that they will be able to, gain more from the experiences.
On the subject of natural parks, a while ago, I’d traveled to Japan, and walked into the local park in Hokkaido, the trees were so tall, the clear waters of the lake, had me lingering on; as I’d visited the U.S., visiting the glaciers and the forests of Mount Ranier National Park, it’d given me similar feelings, left that deep impression inside of my mind. The most important assets in these national parks are the trees.
or, this is your other alternative…not my photo…
There’s a saying, that the forests are the lungs of the cities, in the center of the city of Sapporo, the Nakajima Park, with the large amounts of land, with so many trees planted there, it’s, a true blessing, to the locals. The Mount Ranier National Park that’s not located too far from the city, is only open a few months of the year, and, would sometimes, restrict the number of visitors, and this showed how the local government really took care of the conservations of the natural environments, that, is why we’re still able to see some wildlife moving about the parks, and feel comfortable, walking in the midst of nature.
And, the reason why Japan and the U.S. are able to have such beautiful parks, it’s because of the strict laws and the citizens’ level of awareness.
From before, Taiwan had, sought out economic developments, and ended up, overdeveloping the mountains and the forests, and the natural disasters had, warned us all, over, and over again. If the related agencies can provide the awareness that helps the citizens not take the natural environments for granted, and set up laws that punished those who broke the laws severely, I’m sure, that our environment will get better and better.
Life is education, you must, take the children into the places that they live, in order to teach them. We can utilize the museums, to teach our young about the histories, the recently developed sciences, and the developments in the industrial fronts, that way, we will be able to, come to the solutions of how to reach that balance between environmentalism and developing the economy, allowing the natural beauties of Taiwan to continue on.
So, it seems, that conservation isn’t done as well in here as in the other countries, because field trips to the museums and the natural parks are uninteresting to the kids, I mean, which kid in the elementary school year would want to go on a field trip to some park where there’s nothing but trees? Of course, they want to have something more interesting, more exciting, to experience, that, is why conservationism, artistry, is easily overlooked in Taiwan, compared to the other countries in the world…
Life, the Obstacle Course 