Using stories, to teach the students about their civic duties in the world, preparing them, to exercise their rights before they actually do come across the issues, translated…
The group of story moms in Zhonggang Elementary School of Sinchuang because of an illustrated book, “Children from Heaven” had helped initiated a series of discussions around the topics. After the story moms read the stories to the children, they’d helped the students understand the children who are main characters of the story in Sanying Tribe, how they lived daily—they’d lived by that tribal territory beneath the bridges, next to the riverbeds, the small huts they lived in, their playmates, their childhoods, as well as how they’d, fought hard, to defend their homes.
It’s amazing, these story moms, and the students and the teachers too! Because of this story, they’d started writing the letters, drawing the pictures to be send to the children living in the tribes; and hosted a debate on whether or not the tribe territories should be relocated in school, the school children acted as reporters, interviewed their fellow students, teachers on their views on the subjects; there was also, a mock voting to get the entire school body’s opinions heard, and in the end, the school invited the writer of the book to have a face-to-face meeting, a discussion with the students, so the students can get an in-depth understanding of the subject matter too.
I watched this documentary film with the footages, the words, and, I’d wanted to give them standing ovations, and commend this group of story moms, as well as the teachers AND the students too! Because this is a gentle, and brave tale, everybody showed how much they took from the tale! So, I wanted to call upon the writer of the story, Jia-Huei Xing, for her to tell us, how should the morning crew parents help the school push forth more of these sorts of reading materials to incorporate into children’s learning processes—for instance, the imaginations for life, or, getting involved as it’s a part of our civic duties, or even, to train the children to debate on the issues that they cared about.
Now, I give the mic to Huei, who’s on site in New York!
Thank you, anchor Liu, for asking so many questions, and I won’t, go off on the topics, and I’ll just start with the discussion of “good children”, and “good students” then!
I was once, a “good child”, a “good student” myself, and, I’d, looked back, and tried, what the adjective “good” assigned to my role meant? Hmmmmmmm, it wasn’t a “good” in a perfect world, but it’d meant, “convenient”. Recalling back some twenty odd years ago, the morning parents crew came to the classes to tell the stories, other than acting and telling the tales, most of our responsibilities are on helping the world create more “convenient children”, and “convenient students”.
In the past, we were, influenced by the academia, and, believed, that all we need to do, is to study hard, make good grades, and, we will, gain all our achievements, and, in order to gain the approval of our superiors, we’d made ourselves into complying subordinates, and, we’d climbed up the ladders step, by step, and became, someone who managed others ourselves. But this system had been, replaced by the democratic countries and the civics of societies later on, and now, the people ARE the owners, the rulers ARE our servants, “knowledge” too, transferred from “privately owned” to public responsibility now.
So, we don’t speak of “good citizens”, as the word, “citizens” became, standardized.
It’s just, education usually is, the slowest to catch up, even as the more innovative instructors wanted to work their magic, they’re, often, tied up by the rules of the old systems, in recent years, the Taiwanese society are more responsive to civic duties, and yet, as these messages were about to enter into the school grounds, they’d, stopped, because they couldn’t, exert any energies to bring about the changes needed. But, the early morning crew parents of Zhonggang Elementary School in Sinchuang are slowly, taking the wall apart quietly.
I began my contact with this group of parents back in 2012, they’d come to understand, the importance of “stories”, from my sharing my personal experiences with them, that as the realtors of stories, they’re so powerful. Like children, they’d, regained their passions for stories, and, in these past few years, I’d gone to lecture them about the skills needed, to be good storytellers for a dozen times, they were, the most avidly learning group of story volunteers.
I’d joined the plan of authors visiting the schools, the organization had been setting things up for a year, read through all of my books, hosted multiple reading club meetings, and, discussed the topics with the schools continuously, designed the activities in many levels. And finally, the school was, persuaded by them.
The entire school read all of my work, and found “Children of Heaven” worthy of discussion. Because this story was rewritten from the documentary with the same title, the children saw the issues of the relocation of the Sanying Tribe from their angle. The children learned to understand the subject matter through the media, the news, along with the fictitious illustrations. And, this sort of a three-dimensional made them too busy, other than enjoying the story, understanding the facts, they’d still needed to, judge for themselves, the values mentioned in the book.
They also interviewed me via webcam, and asked me why my books are different compared to other children’s authors’ works, why I would write stories on the children of migrant workers, or children who are of aborigine origins. The discussions we have of the stories, the interviews conducted by these young school reporters, the debates, the interviews with the author, along with the written reports, they’re all, interactions that we shared, the story groups’ designing of these activities slowly taught the children to understand other people’s perspectives, to think about the conflicts of the systems and the values too, and they were able to share their own views on the mater too.
In order to debate on “Whether or not the Sanying Tribe should Relocate”, the sixth graders looked up the laws on their own, and, they’d swayed between the changes in time, the systems of reality, and their own moral responsibilities. On the day of the debate, the students made very valid arguments, the debate was very heated as well, the principal and the teachers were all there, listening, while I’d watched the live reports with the rest of the student body, as well as the teachers outside the debating ring.
The next day after the debates, the school hosted a voting.
“The sacred vote’, was the high point of this journey to civic duty. That day, other than the first and second graders, everybody else in the school voted, over a thousand young citizens cramped up the auditorium, the screens no longer played on and on about how to be a fitting students, but instead, for the very first time, it’d, tallied up the votes as they were, being counted.
After the students did ALL these extended activities, I’d gone to the school to spend my day with the students, the instructors, as well as the parents too, the grades put on skits of scenes from “Children from Heaven”, they’d made the props, gotten into characters, and made themselves into my characters. I’d told them briefly, shared with them the three gifts from reading, to the world: that sense of belonging, creativity, and bravery.
That day, ‘d even received a school newspaper made by the students, with these young citizens’ voices, words, drawings, and, everybody in the school, the teachers, the students all received a copy of this paper, and the story group also hired a professional photography crew, to document the goings-on. The principal saw how the students were so actively involved, he’d told me, “let’s host this again next year, it being so successful this time around.”
This group of storytellers turned their lives around, as well as brought about changes to the school too, I believe, that it would be hard, for anybody to feel calmed after experiencing what I had here. Think about it, if the school is smaller scaled, but with enormous learning forums, and allowed the students to participate in such activities, then, the school becomes a place where good world citizens come out of, instead of just a place where the lessons take place.
So, this, is on the method of education, this group of parents used the stories, to bring about the discussions of major issues surrounding the outside world, the world that these students hadn’t gotten a clue about, and through the discussions of the stories, the kids got a closer look, at what is just and what isn’t, and in the processes, they’d learned to make their own judgments of right and wrong, and that should be, what education in school SHOULD focus more on, instead of just the academics, after all, we must teach student moral responsibilities, otherwise, how will they do right, after entering into the real world, if we hadn’t, prepared them well enough?