Saturday, March 2, 2013

Kaohsiung Municipal Wunshan High

This post is for Jonathan who had trouble logging on.....

Amazing Vocational Visit to Kaohsiung Municipal Wunshan High School!

Yesterday we had an opportunity to visit with students, teachers, staff members and a former GSE participant, James Wang, at  Kaohsiung Municipal Wunshan High School.  

Without a doubt this will be one of the highlights of this trip for me and will leave an indelible mark on me both personally and professionally.  When we arrived we were greeted as we've become accustomed here in Taiwan with an impeccable presentation and gracious and humble hosts.  

We began with a round table discussion comparing schools in the U.S and schools in Taiwan.  A couple of valuable take away points that stuck with me were when they mentioned that respect for the teacher and the instructional institution originated with Confucius and is still evident in modern day society.  Second, their "high stakes testing" emphasizes pressure on the student versus our system which has become more of a measure of the schools success.  Thirdly, and this has been reiterated to us by multiple people, the value on individualism seems to be the polar opposite of what we cultivate in the U.S.  In Taiwan, the family takes priority over the individual so each student is representing more than himself in the classroom.  Lastly, the amount of hours that they spend in the classroom on a typical day is much higher.  They begin at the same time as us but end at 5pm and then go on to these "cram schools" until 9 or 10.  

My thought is that we have much to learn from each other and that through conversations and interactions like the ones we had yesterday both parties could learn a lot.  Somewhere there is a perfect balance between academic preparation and holistic teaching practices that we are still striving for. 

And, as we've also become accustomed to there was a surprise!  During the tour of the facility I was able to give an impromptu lecture on soccer to a group of 12th graders.  For those of you who don't know me, soccer is one of my passions. After that, the students did some demonstrations of their talents including some Judo, beat boxing and we finished with a Q & A session.  

All in all this was quite the day, one that I will never forget and I'd like to express my gratitude to all who support the GSE program that make exchanges like this a reality.

Jonathan
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment