How this instructor, came up with the ways, of using creative cartoon characters, to help her connect better with her students, the innovative means of teaching here, off of the Newspapers, translated…
The Wen-Hsin Elementary School of Beitun District, Taichung, the first and second grade homeroom instructor, Tsai loved art since she was a child, being a math major, she’d used the cartoons the students were watching, Pokemon, Super Mario, Corner Creatures, and she’d, sketched them onto her students’ assignment books, and the blackboard, to communicate with her class, and the students also, shared their secrets creatively.
Tsai is twenty-nine years old, started teaching math after she graduated with the applied mathematics degree from Tainan University, she’d taught at Wen-Hsin Elementary for four years, as a homeroom teacher for the lower grades. She loved, sketching since she was a child, as a student, she saw how the older instructors sketched on the students’ assignment books to hold conversations, felt that this was an interesting way to interact, plus she’s a homeroom instructor for the lower grade levels, and she’d, started using this means to interact with her students as well.
the female instructor with the cartoon characters she’d drawn on the blackboards, photo courtesy of UDN.com
Tsai said it took her some time, to now which cartoon characters her students were into, and the twenty-five members of the class would give her their opinions on it too. She’d investigated and found, that they liked the character of Pikachu, and the characters of a Japanese cartoon family, and, as the students completed an assignment, or made good grades on quizzes, she would draw the cartoon characters, with the words of encouragements to them, and as the students are doing well, they can, “make the orders”, and she’d drawn what they wanted her to draw on slips of papers, and give it to the students.
Tsai shared, that a female student just started in the school, and was having adaptation difficulties, and cried daily, not wanted to enter the school, as she’d learned that the student loved Pokémon, and other cartoon characters, through the slips of papers every day, she’d drawn the characters, and encouraged the female student to come to school, and a month later, the female student slowly, immersed herself into the class, and had, shared with her her feelings of what she experienced in school with her with the sketches too.
And so, this, is the innovative ways that this instructor came up with, to interact better with her class, through these sketches, she’d made herself, more like a friend to them, which makes the students more willing to, open up about their troubles, problems to her.