Eyes meet, and the man's become misty as he says with unabashed happiness: "Madam, let me look at you closely- it's been 38 years!" Teacher, principal, and educator Miao Ya-chun has just been paid more than a year of paychecks. A student has taken time to remember, to visit, to praise.
As Chan pulls a yellowed and fragile calligraphy copybook from a carefully wrapped package, her mind goes back to an unruly but promising boy she once singled out briefly for special attention. Chan shows her the copybook she once gave him as a present when he was in a small provincial school in the eastern coastal region of Taiwan. He has kept it all these years, even during his military service on the offshore island of Kinmen (Queymoy).
From seemingly insignificant gestures...
"Being a teacher, I have enjoyed more spiritual nourishment than material reward," says Miao Ya-chun, who is now 59 and currently principal of Yung-le Primary School in Taipei. Early in the 1940s, Miao was among the few female students who received normal school education in her hometown, located in Kiangsu Province. She began what the Chinese call the "chalk career" in 1950, shortly after she came to Taiwan due to the Communist takeover of the mainland.
Principal Miao makes it a habit to be both visible and accessible on her primary school campus.
At that time, the 51-year occupation of Taiwan by Japan had just ended, and it was clear that Chinese culture and language had suffered during the period. Given these circumstances, the government decided that general promotion of the Chinese Mandarin language was crucial for unity on the island, as well as for its eventual reunification with the mainland. Educational programs were therefore set up to promote more intensive study and use of Mandarin.
Miao, who could not speak the indigenous Taiwanese dialect, nevertheless became one of the pioneers in practicing the direct method of teaching her Mandarin classes. Without aid of phonetic symbols or grammar, she taught her students at Lung-shen Primary School how to speak the national language through oral practice. To her surprise, in the early years she also had Americans and Japanese among her students.
Later, around 1959, she recalls being officially recognized by the educational authorities of the day for her adaptation of audio and video materials for the classroom. Beyond language classwork, Miao adapted her teaching methods for other courses, even appearing on educational television in the early 1960s to give mathematics lessons. "Taiwan's educational TV was still in the embryonic stage at that time," she says. "Today there is even a National Open University on TV that offers a full range of courses. "
When the Department of Education of the Taipei City Government held its first exam to recruit new primary school principals in 1972, Miao was the only female among the 15 educators who passed the examination. All 15 later attended a 10-week intensive training program, which Miao believes has exerted a lifetime influence on her career as an educator. "It was a significant turning point for me, and it altered my disposition and changed my thinking in many ways, " she says.
Miao practicing a long established habit—bidding her students farewell at the end of the school day.
Miao gives a simple example, but one with deep resonance: "I learned that in being the leader of a school, you should set examples by your own behavior. The basic everyday school schedule is a case in point: the principal should welcome the teachers, and the teachers should welcome the students to school each morning. And at the end of the school day, the process should be repeated as teachers should see the students off and the principal bid the teachers good night. It creates a better atmosphere."
During her first five-year term as a principal at Chien-tan Primary School, Miao was most gratified by her effort to involve the students' mothers in school activities. Because bridge construction was underway near the school, students were experiencing a difficult time on the way to school because of muddy roads and chaotic traffic. Miao organized 14 mothers into a voluntary safety patrol to stand at dangerous intersections. This action was the first one of its kind in Taiwan, and attracted considerable media attention. From then on, mothers became more involved in all sorts of school activities, and began holding regular sessions to help students who had family problems, learning difficulties, or deportment problems at school.
In 1979, Miao became the principal of Yung-le Primary School, which had the huge enrollment of over 2,500 students. Because of financial restrictions on the island and educational authorities with different priorities, she took the initiative to establish a school library, to her an obvious requirement for any school. Support came immediately from the donations of both parents and teachers.
Once, when the director of the Department of Education of the Taipei City Government came on an inspection tour, he jokingly-but with more embarrassment-handed Miao five New Taiwan dollars to apologize for the limited budget spared for school libraries. Today Yung-le boasts a comfortable, well-designed library with more than 40,000 volumes in its collection. And even though the city provides more budgetary support, students' mothers are still active by volunteering to help manage the library.
Yung-le again became an educational leader under Miao's leadership in 1985. when it began a language correction program for those schoolchildren having difficulties pronouncing Mandarin properly and clearly. Since this was a new idea, the school's teachers were first sent to hospitals for professional training. Miao recalls talking with mothers who were reduced to tears of joy when they were finally able to hear their children tell stories they had made up by themselves, and do it in clear Chinese.
Currently Yung-le is experimenting with the "Method of Creative Thinking," a course designed to move students away from the locally popular mode of rote memorization toward more creative thought. "It's not just feeding children a fish to eat, but teaching them how to fish for themselves. Every single question raised by teachers is open to varied answers, encouraging students to think independently," Miao says. The approach is long overdue, and she has hopes that the idea will spread rapidly to other schools.
Miao describes her philosophy of school management as "a combination of authoritarianism and democracy," which means that democracy, complemented with a degree of discipline, is the best way to ensure that policies and plans are carried out. She says: "Every plan to be implemented should first be thoroughly discussed by the faculty, and then short-term and long-term goals can be mapped out, strictly followed, and evaluated." Miao also emphasizes implementation of the art of skillfully combining the advanced teaching methodology learned by younger teachers with the experience of older faculty.
Substantial changes are taking place on the educational scene. With family size generally reducing in Taiwan, today's children have different attitudes from earlier generations. "They also seem to have more self-dignity and be more active compared with the earlier generations," Miao says. "Therefore, the best form of classroom discipline is by eyes, instead of by voice or rod."
Changing educational requirements also give Miao cause for concern. Modern children have heavy burdens of extra learning, such as computer training, English, and piano. Parents are anxious to take advantage of new opportunities, and also have exceedingly high expectations for the performance of their children. Miao believes more leisure time should be left for a carefree childhood.
In a Chinese society, the lingering concept of traditional sex roles imposes double work on career women like Miao. She has gone through hard times by trying to be both a conscientious principal and a loving mother for her two sons, especially when they were still small and demanded more maternal care. "One evening when I got home after work, my neighbors were already finished with dinner and enjoying the cool summer night in their gardens. But it seemed to take forever to make a fire in my coal stove, and from anger I gave up and kicked it across the room. As the boys were hungry, I had no choice but to fix the broken stove and continue my struggle," Miao recalls with a wince. It is memories like these that are softened and moderated by visits from former students.
Lin Chiu-po talks to his mini-school during a break in Hou-tung's near incessant rain.
In contrast with Miao's clear-cut line between her career, and family life. Lin Chiu-po, principal of Hou-tung Primary School, has a different philosophy: "taking the school as home." His environment makes this possible. Hou-tung is a rural grade school with only some 250 students, far different from urban counterparts like Yung-le.
Hou-tung is nestled at the end of a winding road in a remote mountainous area in Juifang. Taipei County. It is a declining mining town which saw its peak period around the 1960s and 1970s, and today is utterly quiet. Many of the homes have been vacated, and after powerful Typhoon Lynn swept through the area last October, some residences even collapsed. The year-round rainfall of the area promotes the growth of rich expanses of moss across the roofs and walls of the town, and under the black umbrellas moving slowly along the quiet streets many faces are old and furrowed.
Except for the azaleas blooming on the hills and cliffs, one can hardly imagine any vitality in this sunset town. This is a mistaken perception, however, for even the disastrous landslide along with the flood brought by last year's typhoon did not destroy the liveliness of this small primary school. The minute the lighter rains of this year stop, out into the half-restored schoolyard run enthusiastic children, reminding visitors of the original meaning of Hou-tung—"monkeys' cave."
Most of the schoolchildren are currently staying with their grandparents, who have spent their lifetime in mining jobs. Because their parents have left the town for better city jobs, the school plays an especially important role in supplementing truncated families. "Sometimes they even have to baby-sit their little brothers or sisters in class," Lin says.
Lin points out typhoon damage that still requires repair work.
Before the typhoon ruined the faculty dormitory, Lin and many of the teachers spent 24 hours a day in school. The ties between teachers and students are no less close than family ones. Children like to confide their secrets to teachers, just as they would do with their parents. "We are always with the kids," the principal says.
The typhoon brought about such an unprecedented catastrophe to Hou-tung that even now many of the residents who had to be evacuated have not been able to restore their homes. But from Lin's perspective, the disaster afforded a chance to demonstrate everyone's determination to protect their beloved school in the midst of crisis.
When the flood arrived on October 26 last year, it was a holiday and some teachers were doing some touch-up painting at the school. One teacher was barely able to rescue his sleeping baby before the rushing waters destroyed the dormitory and left the campus in waist-deep water and mud. At first it looked like the end of the world, Lin says, but with the aid of soldiers stationed nearby and all the faculty, school was resumed in a week.
Due to the limited budget allotted by the Taipei County Government, Lin's major concern is how to keep his school going on its shoestring finances. The school receives approximately US$300 to cover the total administrative expenses for each month, and only a slightly greater sum for monthly maintenance. Since tap water is not available in this region, the coal needed for boiling drinking water is donated by the students' families.
Despite the financial restrictions, Hou-tung is not short of well-educated and dedicated teachers. All 11 teachers come from outside Juifang, and three of them have B.A. or M.A. degrees from National Taiwan Normal University, normally the source of teachers for Taiwan's best junior and senior high schools. It is the pristine country children and the land of fresh air and green mountains that encourage teachers to stay for years in Hou-tung.
Hou-tung reminds one of the Chinese saying, "Even the small body of a sparrow has all the necessary organs for life." So the school has all the essentials. The classrooms for music and natural science have been restored since the flood, and the arts room is almost completed. A teacher with a degree in library science also has been active by pulling together a respectable book collection for the children.
Lin, who was born in Juifang, has been a devoted educator for 45 years. Although he became principal of Hou-tung nine years ago, his relationship with the school began much earlier. Around 1945, just after Taiwan reverted to China following the Japanese colonization, Lin taught in this school. One of the current teachers at Hou-tung was one of his students at that time. Now he will retire in a year or two as principal from the same school.
It was not an easy task to teach in those unusual years of the 1940s, Lin recalls. When he started, he had to teach the children Mandarin Chinese using a mix of Japanese and Taiwanese, and he was just learning Mandarin himself from fellow teachers. In addition, the entirely new history and geography textbooks—focusing on China instead of Japan—also caused many adjustment difficulties. "There was a time the parents were reluctant to send their children to school because of all these changes," Lin says.
Those memories are now more than four decades old. As Lin stands on the same campus and points at a cherry tree in full bloom, he says: "It's never missed a single spring, even after the typhoon." And like the sturdy tree, so Lin has taken root in this small town and helped young minds bloom each year without fail.