The Students

I expected Taiwanese kids to be very well behaved, and to follow very strict manners. They don’t. They scream and argue, jump out of their seats to kick other students, and constantly interrupt me to ask for bathroom breaks. Sometimes they put their jackets on their heads, sometimes they pretend to sleep, and sometimes they do rank things like make spit bubbles. If there’s a mosquito or a fly in the room, it will be a few minutes until the lesson can continue. My “after class” students are seemingly normal Grade 1 and 2 students, so I sometimes have to remind myself that they have more stress and pressure in their lives than I do.

The day of an elementary-school student typically starts at 7:30 a.m. Classes start at 7:40 a.m. They wear uniforms and clean their own classrooms. Grade 1 and 2 students will finish at lunch time, and Grade 3-6 students won’t finish until 4 p.m. After school, most will go to a cram school. Many students go to more than one cram school. They may go to English classes and math classes on top of other activities like violin lessons or karate practice. Some have different backpacks filled with books for each school they attend. They don’t get to play very often, so they actually really love the spelling and writing games we play in class. They will seriously jump up and down and cheer while their teammate tries to spell “cereal” the quickest.

Punishment

At my school, we have a reward system based on cards. If you collect enough cards, than you can trade them for gifts like pencil cases and stickers. If a student is bad, we take some cards away. We can also yell (my coworkers sometimes yell in Chinese until they cry), assign more homework and talk to the parents. Parents will punish kids based on their performance at school. Some non-issues in North American classrooms are big deals in Taiwan. For example, if you lose a pencil, you just get new one, right? Not in Taiwan. I learned about this one day when I heard my coworker Shauna talking to a parent on the phone in her calm, professional voice for parents. When I asked her what it was all about, she said that one student said he traded pencils with a girl, but the girl said the boy took the pencil. Shauna had to call each parent twice about this, and talk to them in person. Now, both parents were coming to meet at the school. All because of one pencil! I asked Shauna why she was putting so much time into the issue, and she told me that when the girl came home that day without the pencil, her mother hit her. This mother is not considered a psycho either. I have another student who cries every time he does poorly on a test at public school because he will get hit. My Taiwanese co-teachers think this particular student is very weak for crying about it. It’s just a fact of life that poor test scores mean you will be punished. Even adults get smacked by their parents on occasion.

Exams

After Grade 6 comes junior high, which is basically three years of preparation for the national senior high school entrance exams. Students are assigned to senior high schools based on their test scores, not on the location of their homes. It's important to get into a good senior high. Then, at the end of senior high comes the national entrance exam for universities. Almost 67 per cent of those who write the exam go on to a post-secondary institution. Entrance into the best schools is obviously very competitive, especially for the most popular programs. Engineering degrees account for over 25 per cent of the bachelor degrees awarded in Taiwan. Leaving the country for school is also a very popular ambition. If a family has enough money, it is likely that the student will be trying to get into a university in the States. This means English proficiency exams. It is the hope of many parents in Taiwan that their kids will be able to leave the country. I can’t really elaborate on this, but I’ve been told that it’s just better to live outside Taiwan. I suppose it has something to do with the amount of brilliant engineers working as taxi drivers and garbage collectors in this country.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Sometimes, my students aren’t bad, and actually make me laugh.

• The other day, I started class and had begun reviewing some vocabulary. Nick interrupts me saying, “Teacher Amy! Teacher Amy!” This always happens. It’s usually about how someone else is doing something wrong. “What?” I said back. Nick had a very concerned expression on his face. He said, “Teacher Amy, I have a hamburger and some juice.” Yes, he looked very worried indeed.

• On my birthday, my co-teachers got together and made my after class students sing happy birthday to me. One student named Amy gave me a striped pencil with a pony eraser and said “Happy Birthday.” The next day, some students tried to say “Happy Birthday” again, but I told them it’s over. But Amy really likes me, so she gave me some crackers and a small chocolate ball and said “Happy Mother’s Day.”

• A few of my Grade 1 students have taken to saying “baby.” I will ask them something with flashcards like “What is it?” And they will say, “It is an eraser, baby!”