My Corner for Education

I finally finished packing. The airport shuttle will pick me up in about 4 hours. I really wanted to travel light this time but I still ended up with two pieces of luggage, which puzzled me tremendously. The airline just reduced the baggage weight allowance to 23kg due to the worldwide soaring fuel prices. I may have to end up paying the penalty charge. I didn’t go to bed till three this morning trying to see what I could do to jam pack everything in there. I could not take out those presents for friends and family. I could not leave those pricy stuff requested by friends and family. I could not say no to friends who want me to deliver food supplements to their relatives. Well, the only things that I could take out would be my personal stuff then! So, out my dressy attires, no more dress shoes and no bottles of personal make-ups. Well, I did pack really light for myself but I still have two heavy loads for the others. Anyway, friends, don’t be surprised when you see me in Birkenstocks, shorts and T-shirts when I hand you a present or when I deliver your mother's package to you. That's my sacrifice! Sloppy J1492 is coming home and dressing like a UPS delivery guy in shorts! I guess there will be tons of shopping to do in Taiwan. The only problem is I really hate shopping!

As time goes by with the departure day getting closer each day, I have this strange feeling about going home. In fact, this is not the first time that I have such a sentiment. This kind of feeling often comes to me when I am in transition. Whenever I pass by a high ground where I can see the flickering lights from the houses in the valley down below, all those little speckles of light always give me a sense of homecoming and then create this urgency to rush home. The unsettled emotions always urge me to step on the gas paddle to speed up. The same feeling would also come to me whenever I see the same city lights from the sky above in an airplane. (That is why I don’t like to arrive at night.)

 

As the feeling of homecoming is getting stronger each day, another kind of emotion has unexpectedly surfaced. Excitement? Not really. I have passed that age that I would get excited easily. I actually have mixed emotions with hesitation and uncertainty. I used to get so excited whenever I was ready to travel back home. Last few times when I visited Taiwan, I started to feel more like a visitor than a member in my own family. As family members aged one by one, the feelings of home started to detach. Last time when I visited was for my dear grandmother’s funeral, I stayed only ten days. During those ten days, I actually missed my work and my home here in Canada.

 

I have become an “international drifter” who constantly wants to cling on to the sense of family, root and heritage. The truth is I no longer belong to anywhere. When I am here in Canada, I miss all my family in Taiwan. However, the dynamic of the family has changed and now I am just an occasional visitor. People here asked me where I came from, and people there asked me the same question. I came from nowhere and I am the one in transition. When I was in Taiwan, I wanted to leave. When I am in Canada, I want to go home to Taiwan. I am an international drifter who lives this life of drifting from place to place. Nothing is certain in life for me other than the love and care from the people I love dearly.

 

The other day when I brought it up to my friend Flora who came from El Salvador about my mixed feelings towards going home, she mentioned that she felt exactly the same way when she visited El Salvador a few years back. It's a sense of detachment and disconnection with things and people back home. I think it comes down to the psyche of immigrants; we constantly want to build a home in the new country but continue to identify with the old one. Now, suddenly, we just realize that the old one is no longer the same one we used to identify with. People moved and things changed. (Gosh, whenever I am reading people’s blogs, sometimes I don’t even understand the modern lingos they used.) We have changed. I have changed.

 

Where is home? I guess, wherever it may be, home is where we make it with the people we love.

 

Don't be alarmed by the title! I think if we want Taiwan to have a better education reform, we do have to take a good look at the other education systems and learn from the best of the best systems. A while ago, my friend Thomas in Germany asked me about the Ontario education system. I was very surprised to hear that he was not too happy with the education quality in Germany. In fact, he was more than disappointed that Germany is no longer in the top five European countries with quality education, and he has a daughter in the public school system right now.

 

Finland happens to be one of the top countries he mentioned to me. Johan from Talking Taiwanese has a new article about the fundamental problems we are facing in Taiwan and in the latest Taiwanese education reform. In this article, Johan suggests that we should look at how Finland has reformed their education system to reach the top rank in Europe. Finnish system may be the model that Taiwan should copy for the future reform.

 

To the readers out there who are concerned about our quality education in Taiwan, you are more than welcome to go to his blog and leave him your comments. I am pretty sure Johan would like to hear from you regarding your thoughts and ideas. Here is the link to his blog. 
Talking Taiwanese
http://johangijsen.blogspot.com/

 

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By Johan Gijsen

Having the pain of losing my father at his prime age, I often care much about those children who are growing up without a father figure. Unfortunately, that group of children has been increasing every year somehow. One year, more than half of my students came from single parent families. I don’t blame those parents who sought divorce as the resolution for their family because, in truth, there are too many reasons for a marriage not to work out. Unhappy marriages would lead to unhappy families. It is certainly not a great idea for children to grow up in an unhappy family with two miserable parents or in a conflicting environment anyway. It is just sad that those children can only live with one parent at any given time.

 

I am in touch with so many wonderful divorced parents who are trying their best to provide the best opportunities they could offer to their children. More and more parents would share the custody of their children and work out a schedule for their children to live with both parents in two different households. I have to give them credits for trying hard; however, there is a group of parents whose behaviour really irks me! The other day one child was acting up in class because his father never showed up for his weekend visit. It reminded me of another boy and his story a while ago. Here is the little story to give you an idea about this group of absent parents.

 

JD was not a student of mine but he was in a class next to me. I knew his older brother because he was in trouble a lot ever since Grade One. The older brother was later identified with special needs and got a lot of extra help at school. (Apparently, he is doing better now.) JD was different from his older brother though. He was a gentle child but also required remedial academic support.

 

One day JD was very excited and announced to his teacher that it was his birthday that day and his father was coming after school to take him out. That was such big news to him because his father did not usually have spare time for him and his siblings according to JD. It turned out that JD’s father had more than five wives and was unmarried to all of them. He had at least fathered 18 children with those mothers but he did not live with any of the women. He simply just slept around! (Talk about irresponsible! I am fuming.)

 

The day after JD’s birthday, he looked unusually quiet like a deflated balloon, which did not sound like a boy who just had his birthday party. His teacher asked him what he did for his birthday. He replied that he waited and waited all afternoon for his father to come but his dad never showed up to take him out for his birthday. He told his teacher, “My dad is too busy. He has too many wives and kids. He does not have time for us.”

 

It broke my heart just listening to that comment from an 8-year-old boy! JD is not alone though. How sad! Nowadays, we have so many children growing up in dysfunctional families such as this one. I know JD’s mother is trying her best to care for them, but how about the other absent parent who only shows up once in a while like a travelling magician and has no responsibility to care for any of his own kids, all 18 of them? (Who knows? Maybe he has more children out there.)

 

I have a lot of parents/friends who are single dads or single moms who care so much about their children. They would kill to have more time with their children. I also have many other friends who could not successfully bear children and have taken so many attempts to conceive, to the point that their health is ruined. Meanwhile, I look at these children such as JD and his siblings, who desperately yearn for love and attention from their absent parents. What is going on in this world? I feel very sad for those parents-want-to-be but also upset with this type of irresponsible “occasional” parents.

 

I called JD to me at recess when he passed by my classroom a few days later. I asked him if he finally had his birthday party with his dad. The answer was till negative. I did not make any comment but told him to pick out a birthday toy from my red Rubbermaid prize box. He did, with joy, and that was the least I could do for him.

 

Kids say the darnest thing sometimes. I often wish that I have written down every interesting thing that kids said to me. Those words along with each and every incident happened may seem trivial to you readers, but they are really priceless in my view and it is great fun to recall some of those incidents. JZ is one of those students who I will never forget.

 

JZ was a natural performer who possessed excellent articulation skills. He was so full of “street smart” that you couldn’t tell that he was a child with learning difficulty. It took some skills to motivate this child to tap into his academic potentials because he pretty much believed that he was good at nothing at school. I was in touch with JZ’s parents soon after the first few weeks of school. His parents, as well as JZ’s grandmother, aunt and uncle who were taking care of him after school, were really on board to support me. We kept close contact with each other on the daily basis.

 

JZ often told me in class that he had done his best and there was simply nothing more he could do. Sometimes, trying to motivate him could simply become another power struggle between him and me. In fact, for children like JZ, he himself was really his own worst enemy because he believed that he couldn’t do anything right, refused to nothing more and then simply gave up. JZ might not be confident about his academic performance but he actually thought quite highly of himself.

 

JZ had many friends and he was very friendly to all his classmates. In fact, he was a great leader and quite willing to defend his friends when something was up. Friendship was such an important part of his school life. The only problem was that JZ was involved in the wrong crowds sometimes. So, when something did not work out between JZ and his friends, we certainly could hear about it and see it on JZ’s face right away.

 

One day, JZ had some run-ins with his up-to-no-good pals outside. When the class came in, almost everyone rushed to tell me about how JZ got into the argument with the other students. To be honest, the argument was really the secondary problem of my story. The main problem was JZ came in with a chip on his shoulder and already showed me his big attitude before I even got to him.

 

I asked JZ if he would like to talk to me so I could help him solve his problem. He told me to go away and leave him alone. I would have done that except that he refused to come into the classroom. I certainly could not just leave him outside by himself. So, I told him that we could find a way to solve any conflict between him and his friends. He apparently was the one who initiated the problem, so his guilt was finally getting to him and making him really angry. His embarrassment had turned into anger which was then directed to anyone who came to his way and I happened to be the one!

 

JZ was so stubborn and refused to budge. He then threatened me that if I did not leave him alone, he would call his dad to beat me up. He claimed his uncle was a Tae Kwan Do champion and a Kung Fu master. He had won so many championships and he could just crush me. Then he told me that his dad was really strong and he would call his dad to beat me up after school.

 

Well, well, well. I listened to him go on and on about how powerful his uncle was and how he would tell his dad to come beat me up after school in his “street smart” voice. I finally said, “JZ, you have made a mistake outside but it was an easy problem to solve. Now you are just creating another big problem for yourself. So, you think that your dad is very strong, eh? You want him to beat me up after school? Huh? Well, why wait till after school? Why not now? Let’s solve this problem once and for all. You can go call him right now. Hey, in fact, I’ve got my phone right here. Call him. Call! You tell him to come over right now! I would like to see him as soon as possible!” While I was making the statements, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and pushed it towards JZ. I signaled him to make the phone call immediately.

 

You would not believe the look on this 8 year old boy’s face when I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. He was so shocked to see how I reacted to his threat. I guess he did not expect me to stick my phone into his face. In fact, he did not know what to do and how to react to that. After a long pause, I said to him, “Boy, now you have two options and you think carefully to make a good decision. You can call your dad right now to come over to beat me up. I would be very happy to see him. Or, you can walk quietly into the classroom and we will deal with the issue later. It’s your call now.”

 

JZ walked quietly into the classroom with his head down. After the long discussion with the class and a few apologies to his friends, JZ was back to his usual self 45 minutes later. Somehow, he forgot about everything that had happened an hour ago. Children forget this type of conflicts quite easily and quickly.

 

Of course, I had a chat with his mom, his grandma, aunt and his father later on that day. We had a big laugh and got a kick out of it. It was priceless to see the speechless look on JZ’s face. I really adore that boy. He later went to a special school for more individual support. JZ will always have a special spot in my heart, the boy who claimed his father was strong enough to beat me up.

There were a few times that I was almost ready to quit teaching all together. Here is one of those stories that happened to me years and years ago when I just started out in Canada. Things have changed much for the better, so I thought maybe it is time to write down parts of my interesting encounters over the years.
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After I started teaching in Ontario for about a year, the education sector began to feel the funding crunch from the government. I, along with more than 400 other new teachers, was given a laid-off notice in the spring. At first, I thought I had hit the jackpot to finally get this teaching job after three long years of unemployment, but the good time did not last. There I was about to be laid off a year later. Fortunately, the bad news only lasted through that summer. I got called back by the Board to a substitute position a few months later in September. Although the supply job was not a permanent position, it was definitely better than doing nothing at home.

 

The source of this news article: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2008/04/01/5164826-ap.html

 

 

 

Yesterday I went to a dinner function for Easter. An acquaintance who I have not seen for a while greeted me with the comment last night, “So, Taiwan has elected a president.” Honestly, I was so surprised that, for a Canadian senior, a grey hair old lady, who knows very little about Taiwan, she actually read the news about the presidential election. I proudly explained to her all the latest news that I have read about the election.

 

Taiwan is the place that I am very proud to call my motherland because 76.33 percent of the eligible voters turned up at the poll stations to cast their ballot to elect a new president. Listen! It does not matter who your ideal president should be. For all of you, the people in Taiwan, you have exercised your democratic right and also put Taiwan on the stage to prove the democracy at work.

 

 

Now it is about time for all people in Taiwan to show respect to each other as citizens in a democratic world would do to cooperate and help carry out the policies. The government is not going to function properly for you if the political parties could not respect the spirit of democracy, which is the very essence that is significantly different from any country under the communists’ reign. Now it is time for all people in Taiwan to show the spirit of democracy and to live the essence of democracy. Let there no longer be division between brothers, conflict between creeds, and discrimination against tribes. Enough damage and tragedies have occurred but now it is time for healing.

 

I detest people who draw the racial line in Taiwan. For someone like me who have travelled across a couple of oceans, visited a few countries and witnessed discrimination at large, racism is the last thing I would expect to read about from Taiwan. I am not too naive to believe that racism does not exist in Taiwan. I know racism, the root of hatred, is everywhere and this is why, as an educator, I am extremely concerned about this social cancer. Shockingly, I have read so much nonsense online which no doubt (I hope) was all due to the great political divides including the mocking from some of our foreign residents in Taiwan. As the hype of presidential election subdued, I hope people would rationalize their conduct and come to the common senses.

 

Historically, Chinese people, politics and culture, spanned over the massive continent, were divided one time or another due to the barriers of languages, geographic locations and races. Why are we as a collective, after hundreds and thousands of years of history, continuing to commit this political, social and cultural suicide? Didn’t we, as self-proclaimed highly educated nation, learn anything from history?  

 

To my friends and family of all young and old in Taiwan, whether you like it or not as Chinese or Taiwanese, we are all on the same boat in Taiwan. I, for one, might be born only a few decades ago to grandparents and parents who could not speak Mandarin well but somewhere in Chiayi where my ancestral gravestones laid for the last 400 years clearly marked “Fu Jien, Yong Ding” which was the origin of the ancestral homeland. The matter of the fact is that we can not deny our ancestral and racial connections with many other regions in Asia.

 

Being hotheaded with boiling blood can not gain Taiwan any solid ground in the world. Politicians who constantly punch each other and smash chairs only portray the island as an idiotic laughing stock in the eyes of the others. No doubt, Taiwan is facing a global political and economic bully across the Strait, which is not wise for us to hide under the sand like an ostrich and declare no contest to the matter, or to be confrontational with no political backing from the world. We have to gather ourselves together to show the political bully and the global bystanders, who at one time or another deserted us for their own profits, how united and committed we are to find a resolution for the future of all humanity.

It is your election day in Taiwan. Please cast your vote no matter how busy you are! Your vote is important to Taiwan’s political future.

 

Election is a democratic process for all citizens to exercise their right. It is only fair if you cast your vote carefully to be part of the decision making process. I always have a very strong political sense no matter where I am. Since I can not be there to vote on this special day, I have been keeping my political view to myself for a few simple reasons. (Note 1)

 

First of all, I don’t need to display my personal political opinions since I have no right to vote in Taiwan. As an expat in Canada, I have my own idealistic view about Taiwan’s politics but no matter what, there will always be people who disagree with my personal view. (Note 2) So, why do I even bother to set up a public battle ground here in my personal blog to argue with strangers? (I can do that any time but definitely not before the election.)

 

Secondly, I think there are enough comments said already on TV or in the newspapers about the two major political parties in Taiwan. I don’t carry any party colour and it is damn rude (pardon my language) to ask people about their political party colour. Who cares about the party colour if the political party’s platform has no solidified strategies for their political plan? You are voting to elect a president of the country, not a pop-singing idol! All politicians, in Taiwan or in Canada, should look beyond their time in the office when it comes to planning for a state’s future. You should vote for the candidate who has a vision for more than four years in the office. I am fed up with politicians who are so shortsighted and only go for popularity contest!

 

Last but not the least, it is really up to the grass root citizens, i.e., YOU, to form your own rational judgments based on the political platforms presented to you by all parties’ candidates. So, there is no point for me to tell you what I think because the truth is that you, the educated voters, already know what the best will be for yourself. Politics is the same around the world. There are always political tactics played out in front of our very eyes during every election campaign. People tend to get emotional and even irrational at times. Don’t get caught up in the psychological political warfare. (Note 3) I personally detest all those idiotic tactics. I truly believe that, as a citizen with Taiwan’s future at stake, you need to step back, think with a futuristic view and make a wise and important decision.

 

The bottom line is, whatever the election outcome may be, all citizens in Taiwan are on the same boat for the next four years. You need to be actively involved by casting your one and only precious vote with caution. Today is the very day for you to do just that. On this special day, my heart is with all of you who are passionate and concerned. My friends and family, every vote counts, so Go Cast Your Vote!

 

 

 

Note 1: I have not been back for too many years. Apparently, my old ID has been taken away and I have to re-apply if I plan to live more than 6 months in Taiwan.

 

Note 2: In some Canadian families, there are three personal viewpoints that people don’t generally like to discuss at the dinner table; i.e., religion, income and politics.

 

Note 3: I noticed that some politicians like to play the "race card" or use the strategy to divide and conquer.