Taiwan is renowned for its biological diversity in the scientific field because of its especial geology and geography. So, you can find a big range of insects, animals, trees and so on in a small area.
Biological diversity plays a big and important role in environmental development and in the richness of the residents’ lives. How about in the education field? I think there is great consensus among educators and parents about educational diversity. Therefore, I, as the leader of a school, put diversity on the apex of the pyramid of my school goals, encouraging my colleagues to guide our students in their own personal way, which includes their hobbies, interests, and potentials, even though I endeavor to promote my idea—a reading campaign; I still insist that it doesn’t hinder their pursuits.
Meanwhile, I encourage them to give profound consideration to their thoughts, goals, and methods; once they have carefully thought these through, they should choose and decide and then assume what their choice will bring. Everyone in my school should learn how to explore, choose, decide and assume. In this way, the meaning of freedom is also reflected.
Last Saturday I was invited to attend a furniture exhibition hosted by the Yu-Dong Junior High school (玉東國中) in Hualien. All of the furniture, around 90 pieces, had been made by the students of this school. I was impressed with their great work. This school has been abandoned by a lot of students and their parents for more than 30 years because its process and results have been bad. The new principal wants to revive it, so he is putting a lot of effort into his school. The exhibition is one of his school’s achievements.
It’s a good idea because it opens a way for those students who aren’t interested in academic subjects. I witnessed on their faces the confidence gained from their work.
I do hope we educators can see the needs and potentials of every student in our mass production system; I mean the class formation.
To put it simply, educators have to look at the individual while taking care of the whole class. This is an important indicator to measure how far our educational system has come.