Education- What is school, really?

Again, a lot of ideas are converging from all over the place so please bear with me while I try my best to sort this out.

Education has been a great interest of mine for some time now. Having experienced both “force-fed” and “free range” styles, I personally find the latter much more rewarding. It is also my wish to be in a school environment again, holding a teaching role as opposed to being a student to try to understand what it really is like to share ideas and values that I believe in. So far I see this as an experiment for my own learning and therefore I am not expecting too much success. I can’t say that I am seeing too much result yet, but there are kids who come to me after the class singing the song I taught, or using the vocabs to test me back!

So what is success? That’s rather subjective. Success to who? The teacher? The parents? The student? Everyone will give you a different answer. However, what is the ultimate success of education?

Then comes another idea that I am very much against. “Institutionalization”. It’s pretty obvious, from my previous posts, that I really hate the idea of institution. Think politics. Think religion. Think corporate. Think media. Think education! Based on today’s education system, institution starts when a child steps into a school.

So what’s so bad about school? Isn’t this the place where we learn different values and how to co-exist with other individuals of the society? Isn’t this where we learn from history and prepare ourselves to build a progressive future? Isn’t this where our bright future starts?

Well, let me site a recent incident, a rather small one, one that sounds more like a rant, but a rather horrible one.

On one Monday morning, after the flag raising ceremony (when every student needs to be present at the assembly), a class teacher came into the staff room and said that the cake she bought for the class is missing from the bag that it was sitting in. She found it on the soccer field, intact.

Before she could finish telling her story, a loud voice yelled,”It must be the dogs!” Referring to the dozen of stray dogs rescued by another teacher who keeps the dogs behind the school compound. The dogs sometimes escape the enclosure and roam about the school, but always been harmless.

Then before you know it, other people chimed in,”Yeah it had to be the dogs!”

The teacher quickly said it doesn’t look like a dog’s doing because the cake was intact, sitting on the field and the bag was also untouched. She requested to review the surveillance camera video.

Later, the truth was out. It was one of her students who got too anxious and took the cake out. Little kids are always unpredictable.

Then, a loud voice said,”Yeah it’s the kids, had to be the kids.”

Needless to say, the rest followed suit.

What is this? Cultural Revolution? Witch hunt? Or some private court deciding whether to stone a woman to death?

What’s horrible is that this took place in the teacher’s staff room, the very front line of education.

So what has institutionalization brought to education? We have schools, uniforms, rules, exams and a set of absolute values to grade your ability. Your ability as what? Student? Or as a human being?

We have many students with lousy parents. Parents who don’t enforce their kids habits, tell them to do their homework or even tell them to take daily showers. Education doesn’t start or end in school. Without a strong family influence, it is very hard for a child to really learn a value.

Teachers. Good teachers? Bad teachers? What are teachers?

If a school is an institution, then the teachers are the enforcers of the institution, the ones who sustain the relevancy of the institution, the ones who keeps making it seem meaningful. However, school merely teaches the theory, but no one learns, and truly learns from theory. You don’t learn how a fell feels like from a Physics or Medicine class. You learn from actual practice. So if we all learn from actual practice, what’s the point of school?

And therefore, what’s the point of teachers? First of all, why is “teacher” an occupation? I don’t have a teaching certificate, can I not teach? So what does this certificate really do? To protect the teachers and therefore to protect the institution, for the mere sake of sustaining the institution?

I am teaching everyday, just the same as how I am learning everyday despite the fact that I am neither a teacher of student by title. Learning and teaching comes from experience. Experience with the world and each other. We experience all the time, even when we are asleep, even when we are in coma. Why do we have to go to school to have the “right” experience? So that we can learn to believe in and up hold the system? What system? The future?

So it comes back in one full circle. It’s all about the future!

Then comes the ironic part. The idea of institution facilitates accelerated progression towards a specific goal because everyone’s thoughts are united. However, isn’t this anti-progressive in nature? How is a society progressive when there is a definite ideology? Furthermore, it’s proven that no ideology is truly attainable. We can only pretend to live in it, and even this is hard enough.

What happens when a person have been a teacher for his entire career?

What happens to a person who spends his whole life on theory?

What happens to a person who spends his whole life just telling an ideology?

What happens to a person who spends his whole life sustaining an institution?

What happens to a person when the institution ceases to exist?

What happens to the human inside the person?

This extends far beyond education, but education is such a fundamental element that makes our society and future, it is probably the most important part of our challenge as human race. Is is also ironic that before the existence of school, we lived as free individuals. True freedom of the mind. To go back is like going back to a savage world of uncontrolled behaviors. So yes, perhaps we need something to keep things in check, but like everything else, we need to constantly remind ourselves if we still have that human inside us.

Missed Entry: Flying Fish Season

Flying fish. Sounds exotic! Yes it definitely does. It's a fish with a pair of big side fins that propels itself into the air, therefore crowed with the name of flying. Actually, I don't really know much about Flying fish, but it is as special to the locals as it is to me.

Flying fish season is between April and late May. It swims by Taiwan's eastern strait in the Pacific Ocean, along the infamous black current to migrate to different places. Think Finding Nemo when he joins the sea turtles on to the mysterious highway.

This part of the ocean is also one of the deepest in the world. The black current is also a very dangerous place to be, that is if your ship sank. The current is so strong that you can drift hundreds of kilometers in the matter of days, therefore it makes search and rescue very difficult. The local fishermen go out into the ocean in the late afternoon and return at around 9pm. This was when I went to the port to check them out.

As I got there, there are a few boats cleaning their nets. What they do is, they will pull the net in sequence and remove the Flying fish that is trapped in the net. A 200 count will be a great day for them. Sometimes, they catch swordfish, a bonus to them.

The port is dark, not packed with people, but it's a rather happening place. As the boats come in, friends and family gather to watch the fishermen harvest their catch from the nets. They chat and drink, probably the most precious family time of the day.

The Flying Fish season is over now, so no more grilled and smoked Flying Fish for me. However, when I look out into the ocean at night, I no longer see the spotted lights in the vast darkness, and I am glad that these guys aren't out there in the dark and dangerous ocean rocking on their tiny piece of floating plank.

Photo Entry: Another Dimension

New lens means new world! Finally got myself the Nikkor AF-S F2.8 105mm VR, one of the best lens Nikon has to offer now, and one that I've been drooling over for many years. Finally, seeing all these little creatures calling my name around here, I made the plunge. It's addictive, I've been looking around for bugs and critters as models... so far most of them are rather shy except the frogs.

Photo Entry: The Tidal Belt

What is the Tidal Belt? It simply refers to the region that is exposed when the tide subsides. A teacher organized a small outing for outside school learn to learn about the creatures living on the belt. The locals harvest shell fish and other seafood at the belt often for their own use and for sale, and the teacher invited one of the parents who frequent the area to teach the students about what's edible and what's not. Having grown up away from the coast, my only memories of the sea is limited. In the north, the water is polluted and people don't really pay respect to the environment, so finding creatures along the coast is quite a big deal for some years. I wasn't expecting much when I joined the kids to go to the belt, but I was pleasantly surprised. Sea cucumber, sea urchin, hermit crabs, regular crabs, star fish, eel... you name it, it was like a big seafood buffet! I've never see such happening place in my life, therefore, I decided to get myself a macro lens to capture these fellas. Before that lens arrives, here's some teasers.




 

Photo Entry: Yu Li Township

Yu Li township is in Hua Lian county, but because it's one of the bigger towns around the area, locals from here go there quite often for stuffs that aren't available here. Yu Li is about 30min away, but you have to drive across a mountain pass. Sounds great to me!

Riding through the mountains is quite nice, even though the road was quite narrow. It's was considered a short ride and in no time I was in Yu Li. I didn't go into the downtown area because I was rather awed by the endless rice paddy fields surrounding the area. This part of the country is not only well known for its beautiful scenery and untouched environment, but is home to Taiwan's best. No kidding, I've been really enjoying eating the rice here.

Needless to say, photo time!

 






















Here's a local community for the retired... I mean, retired from living.


The last moments of a dying bird...



Also, there is a abandoned rail way that has been converted into bike path, with the train station now a bike store. Really neat!



 

 


And lastly, a dog, being a dog.