Because once these teenagers are out of school, they get nothing to do, and, when they got nothing to do, they get into, trouble…how this head counselor came up with a program that helped the students stay in school, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
In the Xing-Fu Middle School of Wenshan District, over forty-percent of the students are from lesser families, the head counselor, Chen, started back in 2016 school year, set up the free talent classes after school, and because the students found the motivations to learn, the school now has, a zero dropout rate. Chen said, that she’d hoped that as the kids thought back to their middle school years, they will find, that learning was, something fun to them.
Chen started working as a school counselor back in 2016, the school is located in the city of Taipei, bur more than forty-percent of the students are registered as low-income, the parents are all busy with making ends meet, to pay enough attention to their own young, and because the lack of adult supervision, a lot of the students can’t find the motivations for learning, they’d started, hanging around the corners of school, the super convenience shops locally the parks, to chit chat, playing the cell phone games, and the local communities didn’t find the validations for the middle school, and the relationship of the schools and the local neighborhoods, worsened.
the counselor, with the projects made by the students of the after school computer program, photo courtesy of UDN.com
Chen did an inventory of the assets allotted to the school, and set up the free talent programs, not putting the stresses on the staffs of the school. To help find the interest areas, before the courses are set, she’d done a survey, and opened up the watercolor, comic art, Korean, Computer illustrations, etc., etc., etc., at the most, there were, four different courses offered per week, with six separate classes offered per week.
Chen told, that the most successful was the computer illustrator class, a lot of the academically excellent students who’d found the courses interesting, with higher learning motives, and they’d, gotten good marks for their technical skills and arts competitions, which goes to help them in getting into their desired schools or programs as they graduate. And, asking questions when they have problems, it doesn’t necessarily help students perform better academically, but, as the motives of learning increased, it’d turned the school into a zero-dropout campus.
Through these past couple of years of setting up these talent courses, Chen proved, that turning an unpolished diamond into a shine isn’t that difficult. She’d told, that we only need to make the courses interesting to the students, then, it could, spark that desire, that motivation to learn in them. Most of the students weren’t doing so well, not because they lacked the abilities, but due to the lacking of resources at home, so she’d, pushed forth the afterschool tutoring programs, and, made sure of the qualifications of the instructors of the talent courses, and stayed with the students until nighttime in school, then school is, out.
And, even as her workload increased with the added talent courses, Chen was glad, because the free talent courses, made the students stop “hanging around with nothing to do”, she’d felt relieved. She said, “as the students are older, I’d not expected them to contribute to the world, but as they start working, I hope, that when they looked back to their middle school years, they will have, nothing, but good memories of learning.”
And so, this is an educator, who saw a need, to get the students off the streets, so they don’t get into trouble, and, she’d found a way, to reach out, to touch the lives of these students, by offering them the extra talent courses that are, interesting to them, which drives the students from internally, to learn, and she’d, achieved her goals of, keeping the students from hanging around the streets, and prevented them from getting involved with the wrong crowds too.
Life, the Obstacle Course 