This morning I was preparing a few students for drawing contest. One of the students told me that their teacher was in a car accident last night, being hit by a car and sent to the hospital. He obviously did not know the details, and I didn't think this to be a serious one. After all, no one expects bad things (or good things) to really happen.
I thought it will be a good idea to have the kids make some cards for the teacher, so I went to the staff room to get color papers. The head of the department was also in the staff room which is unusual because it is Saturday today. That was when I got the news from her that the teacher passed away from her injuries this morning. I put down the color papers. For a moment, I didn't know what's the best thing to do.
I went back to the classroom and continued the session like nothing happened.
Lots of thoughts went through my head since. It's complicated. The most immediate one was the worry about her students. They spend very much time with her as she was also coaching the sports team. She trains the kids and takes great care of them, often much more than the kids' own parents. She's whom they look up to. Naturally, to me, I am more worried about the kids having to deal with the sadness that cannot be expressed fully and that itself is heart breaking.
I was also thinking about the suddenness of this event. It was the night of teacher's day in Taiwan. She's out to have dinner. She dropped the rest off and parked the car, made her way to the restaurant when a car hit her. She had so much going for her teaching career. Her efforts in coaching her students in the sports team is really paying off and taking off as well. She just led the team to Japan winning several medals and just returned from the trip two days ago. The team still has several competitions to attend, of which includes today's swimming competition that the team ended not attending because of this tragedy. Just like that, she's gone. She was probably excited about the meal that she was going to have, with her friends and students. But she was gone, taken if you will, in a flash.
Perhaps that's the good way to go. No warnings, no suffering. No pain, no emotion. For her, at least.
Perhaps that's the way god rewards her, that she's done her part and it's time to return.
Either way, it leaves a huge void in everyone's heart.
The clock continues to tick. The day goes on and the world moves on as it always does. I went to town to get lunch, bought a bucket to store thrash and a mop at the hardware store. I cleaned my dorm room. I took a short nap. I made dinner. The day goes on while I keep looking at the empty room across from my dorm that used to have an occupant. She's no longer coming back, but her room is still filled with her personal items, her presence.
But she's not there anymore.
It's like the world has changed, but not. There's just no word in the world of languages to describe life and death, and this is exactly why it can make us feel so helpless.
As humans we think about our differences all the time. We think about the ideologies that we disagree with and how we have better solutions than each other. But today, I was reminded, through a death, that we are really all the same because of our differences. After all is said and done, why would it matter? I disagreed with her teaching style. I thought I have better ways. Now that she's no longer around, why did it matter in the first place?
All I know is, a good soul has left us and it's up to us to find meaning in it.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Art Textbook
I over heard a student say,”Hey, remember to bring your Art text book along!”
An art text book? That’s like trying to teach people to be creative. Oxymoron.
In all of my years pursuing my interest and studies in art and design, other than art history, I’ve never used an “art text book”. Naturally, I was furiously curious about what these art text books are about.
You see, when I was a elementary school student, we had art classes, and music classes and physical education classes. We drew and made stuffs in art classes. We learnt how to read music scores and some instruments in music classes and we learnt and played sports in physical education classes.
Today, in Taiwan’s elementary education, they jumbled up art, culture and music in one lump. There’s no distinct art or music classes. They are now the same. So you don’t have a teacher who’s well versed in art, or music, or “culture”. You have a teacher who knows nothing only to be enabled by the presence of a text book. If you can read, you can teach art, music and culture, because you can just read the text book to the kids.
The same goes with physical education. It’s lumped together with hygiene class. So the teacher doesn’t need to know any sport. He/she now has a text book to follow and it’s up to him/her to decide how the class will spend their time. In class or outdoors.
We have a sports equipment room full of basketballs, footballs, badminton rackets and soft base ball bats. We also have three brand new table tennis tables and tons of new rackets. We also have a mid-sized grass field and a nice basketball court. Yet, I rarely, if ever, see teachers teaching the students about any sport other than baseball (Baseball team). All those basketballs and footballs and badminton rackets are locked up behind the door all the time. It wasn’t until this semester that I decided to teach the kids English starting with basketball that the kids started to actually play basketball on a basketball court. It was a riot but everyone had fun.
Back to the art text books. I borrowed the mysterious text books from a teacher to see it for myself. The text books includes both art and music contents, as well as introduction to certain cultural activities, but it’s lacking. Why is it lacking? It’s lacking the most most important aspect of arts learning- experience.
Arts and crafts, music and definitely culture are not what you can learn from text books. These are to be experienced with emotions, with direct interaction between body and mind. Art and music are essentially forms of expressions. It comes from within, not external. For a child, whether it is art of music is irrelevant. They should have the freedom to choose whatever ways to express themselves, and the important thing is not about the tools, but their confidence.
The text books includes famous works paintings and sculptures. It’s not a history text book so it’s not trying to make students memorize anything, but it puts students minds into pre-built frames that defines what’s a painting, what’s a sculpture, what’s fine art, what’s classical etc. Kids don’t need to know these adult bullshit. They just need to know that it’s ok to crush crayons into pieces and smear it all over their papers as long as that’s what they want, and that they clean up the place when they are done.
What’s the use of telling kids that “New York City is full of high rise buildings, rude people and foul smell” when they don’t even get to go to town that’s only 7min drive away because their parents are working in another state to raise enough money to feed the family? Oh and the info is probably out dated represented by only one image and a paragraph of after thoughts.
Why can’t we use multimedia and do video conferences with other countries’ school children? Technology is what we have, for cheap!
If it is so damn necessary to have printed literature as learning tools, why can’t the school order National Geographic, Lonely Planet, Times Magazine and/or Newsweek and talk to the students about what’s on these constantly updated magazines?
“Art text book” to me is the concrete evidence that the world is run by morons as decision makers who doesn’t know what the fuck they are doing, so people who don’t know what the fuck they are doing can avoid telling the kids,”Opps, sorry kids, teacher has no idea what art is.”
An art text book? That’s like trying to teach people to be creative. Oxymoron.
In all of my years pursuing my interest and studies in art and design, other than art history, I’ve never used an “art text book”. Naturally, I was furiously curious about what these art text books are about.
You see, when I was a elementary school student, we had art classes, and music classes and physical education classes. We drew and made stuffs in art classes. We learnt how to read music scores and some instruments in music classes and we learnt and played sports in physical education classes.
Today, in Taiwan’s elementary education, they jumbled up art, culture and music in one lump. There’s no distinct art or music classes. They are now the same. So you don’t have a teacher who’s well versed in art, or music, or “culture”. You have a teacher who knows nothing only to be enabled by the presence of a text book. If you can read, you can teach art, music and culture, because you can just read the text book to the kids.
The same goes with physical education. It’s lumped together with hygiene class. So the teacher doesn’t need to know any sport. He/she now has a text book to follow and it’s up to him/her to decide how the class will spend their time. In class or outdoors.
We have a sports equipment room full of basketballs, footballs, badminton rackets and soft base ball bats. We also have three brand new table tennis tables and tons of new rackets. We also have a mid-sized grass field and a nice basketball court. Yet, I rarely, if ever, see teachers teaching the students about any sport other than baseball (Baseball team). All those basketballs and footballs and badminton rackets are locked up behind the door all the time. It wasn’t until this semester that I decided to teach the kids English starting with basketball that the kids started to actually play basketball on a basketball court. It was a riot but everyone had fun.
Back to the art text books. I borrowed the mysterious text books from a teacher to see it for myself. The text books includes both art and music contents, as well as introduction to certain cultural activities, but it’s lacking. Why is it lacking? It’s lacking the most most important aspect of arts learning- experience.
Arts and crafts, music and definitely culture are not what you can learn from text books. These are to be experienced with emotions, with direct interaction between body and mind. Art and music are essentially forms of expressions. It comes from within, not external. For a child, whether it is art of music is irrelevant. They should have the freedom to choose whatever ways to express themselves, and the important thing is not about the tools, but their confidence.
The text books includes famous works paintings and sculptures. It’s not a history text book so it’s not trying to make students memorize anything, but it puts students minds into pre-built frames that defines what’s a painting, what’s a sculpture, what’s fine art, what’s classical etc. Kids don’t need to know these adult bullshit. They just need to know that it’s ok to crush crayons into pieces and smear it all over their papers as long as that’s what they want, and that they clean up the place when they are done.
What’s the use of telling kids that “New York City is full of high rise buildings, rude people and foul smell” when they don’t even get to go to town that’s only 7min drive away because their parents are working in another state to raise enough money to feed the family? Oh and the info is probably out dated represented by only one image and a paragraph of after thoughts.
Why can’t we use multimedia and do video conferences with other countries’ school children? Technology is what we have, for cheap!
If it is so damn necessary to have printed literature as learning tools, why can’t the school order National Geographic, Lonely Planet, Times Magazine and/or Newsweek and talk to the students about what’s on these constantly updated magazines?
“Art text book” to me is the concrete evidence that the world is run by morons as decision makers who doesn’t know what the fuck they are doing, so people who don’t know what the fuck they are doing can avoid telling the kids,”Opps, sorry kids, teacher has no idea what art is.”
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Photo Entry: Taitung Hot Air Balloon Festival (Part II)
The Taitung Hot Air Balloon Festival comes to an end and this time, we revisited it for the early evening time slot to capture some fire ball shots.
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