My Corner for Education

A while ago, my friend asked me to write an article about her immigration experience. Each and every immigrant has their own story to tell. For many, their paths to Canada have not been as rosy as most people perceive. I kept forgetting about my friend’s request until last week when my Teaching Assistant (TA) told me that she has decided to go back to Holland with her fiancé next year. They have been very disappointed with their Canadian experience. I don’t know her well enough because she just came to my class to substitute for another TA this term. I told her to stay in Canada at least till they have received their citizenship. To my surprise, she told me that they have received their citizen status for a while; however, they have been very frustrated with their career choices here. They want to go back to Europe where their families are and where their skills and education credentials would be recognized and valued.

My TA’s immigration experience is very similar to many new professional immigrants in Canada; they have a hard time finding suitable jobs here. My TA graduated from a very famous European university with a master degree. In Holland, she worked as an educational psychologist. Her fiancé was originally from Belgium. Both of them came to Canada a couple years ago. Canada loves this kind of immigrants from the old countries. They have no problem passing the Canadian immigration point system because they are young professionals; however, it is a different story for them once they have arrived.

Canadian immigration system does not have a plan in place to help these young professionals look for suitable careers. Once they have arrived, they have to convert their degrees to the Canadian equivalencies and seek a job that would accept their “foreign” (or non-Canadian) trained experiences. It sounds easy, but road blocks are actually everywhere along the path.

They are not alone in Canada though. There are tons of professional immigrants prowling the cities looking for jobs related to their past professional fields. You can easily find a PhD driving a taxi, a doctor working as a technician, or an engineer working at the construction site. Why? The reason is that Canada welcomes skilled professionals; however, many of these people have difficulties securing an equivalent job once they have landed. Companies usually ask for “Canadian” experiences. If no company is willing to give them an opportunity, how on earth could they get a Canadian experience?

Most people argue that the language barrier may be an issue; however, most new skilled immigrants who have reached the point system to arrive in Canada do have the ability to speak fluent English. The worst is that sometimes these highly skilled professionals, such as medical doctors, have to be recertified, and the process would take years. Many of them simply could not afford to go through the prolonged process because they have a family to feed; therefore, they would have to take on a job and sometimes many jobs unrelated to their own profession in order to survive.

To friends who enjoy visiting my blog every day:

I am very sorry to post this message here. As a teacher, I thought I have the duty to speak up and educate this particular blogger who has been leaving nonsense on my blog. I just want all of you to know that I welcome all visitors. I am very grateful for the kind messages I have received from many readers. Whether you agree with my view or not, words posted openly should be exchanged with good manners. I am an educator and that’s just what I believe in and how I preach to my students. The following letter is posted only for the person (or the persons) who seem to visit frequently with ill intention.  

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Dear Troll (or Trolls),

I don’t know why you are leaving gibberish messages on my blog, and I do not know nor care about your intention. If you are so much inclined, why don’t you leave a clear message to me? I would be willing to read and respond to you, either in English or in Chinese. I can write in Chinese, but I just haven’t got the time to fix my Chinese input keypad yet. If you want to leave a message in languages other than Chinese or English, I pretty much can find a way to read it, too. If you have an issue with me personally, why don't you express it to me and let’s sort it out? Seal the message if you want. But, no gibberish, PLEASE!

We run an extra-curricular activity twice a week after school forstudents who are not strong in reading. It was made clear to us that it is impossible to improve their reading abilities in two months (20 hours);however, we hope that their attitude towards reading will bechanged at the end of this two-month program. All the students admitted to the program are lacking behind their peers in reading. Some ofthem are also showing behavior problems in class.

According to some research, boys tend to learn differently thangirls. Many testing results also proved that boys’ readingperformances lack behind girls’ at the elementary school (K toGrade 8) level; therefore, we decided to group all boys togetherinto groups of five or six. We focus on media literacy thatencompasses reading materials full of a variety of topicsand interests. Students are taught to read instructions foractivities such as games, recipes, science experiments, tourbrochures, and arts and craft.

So far, I could tell that boys in the small group learn welltogether. In fact, they are better listeners than girls in thesmall group. Girls tend to socialize a lot through out the sessionand forget that their task at hand is to read the instruction andcomplete the activity. Boys, on the other hand, are very taskoriented. They want to finish reading the instruction and get tothe hands-on activity as soon as possible. It was very obvious thatboys are very interested in this type of reading program followedwith hands-on activity.

We did a survey before launching the program to find out theirattitude towards reading and how they see themselves as a reader.Before the end of this program in June, we will conduct another oneto measure if there is any significant change in their attitudetowards reading. It would be interesting to see the result. We hopethis program will make a difference to inspire a few more studentsto enjoy reading.

On my way home today, a radio talk show host was saying that the scouts group is thinking about adding an additional shooting badge to their existing badges. He was surveying the listeners on the air to see whether people agree with the idea or not. Some people mentioned that it should not be a big deal because it is just like joining a gun club and you will have the practice in a controlled environment anyway. Personally, I don’t think that is such a good idea at all for little scouts to participate in the sport of target shooting. I don’t have problem with taking up target shooting as a sport; however, I think age and maturity are important factors and should be the prerequisites for this sport. I am against the idea because I had the first hand experience of handling guns in my late teen years. Here is the story of my target shooting experience in my senior high school.
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When I went to senior high, all students were required to take military education credits. (I am not sure if this is still the case in Taiwan now.) I quite enjoyed taking the military training which is like the cadets training here in Canada; however, these credits were required for high school graduation. We had to wear this khaki uniform once or twice a week when we had the military classes. The typical high school military education at that time was quite primitive. We simply practiced marching and lining up a lot. I think it was really for the discipline and character development.

I somehow took these credits quite seriously because I thought military universities could be a potential option for me; especially, my high school is located right above one of the elite military universities. I really wanted to join the military right then because I strongly believed in self discipline. All my instructors also recognized my enthusiasm and leadership quality. I guess, with mutual respects, I got along just fine with all of them through out my three years in high school. I was even recommended to attend a military cadets’ summer camp one year.

I was actively involved in many activities at school. One of the clubs I attended was the target shooting club. The club was organized by one of the military instructors. When I first went to the club, we had more than 50 male and female students. By the time we were ready to train as a target shooting team, we only had about 6 girls left. Not too many people could endure the harsh physical training and prolong lifting and aiming a rifle with the weight of a brick or a sand bottle hanging at the tip of the gun. On top of that, we did not have any head gear for hearing protection. (My husband used to tease me that I must be deaf from all the target shooting practices; though I have to confess, sometimes it could be just my selective hearing. Heh, heh, heh.)

For three years in Senior High, I was trained alongside my male teammates in the target shooting team almost every day before and after school. When it got close to the competition, we had to go to the restricted base for target shooting practice with live ammunitions every week. I missed a lot of classes during those few months before each competition, but the experience was definitely worth it! The base was where I learned to respect the training process and how dangerous it could be to mishandle a gun. (I am forever pro gun control!)

With mixed feelings and a twist of fate, I was ready to enter my senior high school. When I first saw the senior high school above Fu Shing Gong in New Pei Tou, Taipei, I immediately fell in love with that environment. Where the school is situated is outside the noisy Taipei city and half way up the hill surrounded by lush green. The school campus was designed to have multi-levels on a hill. Taipei Fu Shing Senior Public High School was a co-ed high school (I don’t know if it is still a co-ed.) The boys’ section was high above the main school office buildings. The girls’ section was at lower level close to the field. The whole school looked so new and refreshing then. It was quite rare to find a campus with such a relaxing atmosphere like that in Taipei.

I fell in love with the campus right away; however, the thought of going through another three years of  torture somehow clouded over my head. The reality was that if I would hope to enter any university in the future, I really should have secured myself in the top three female high schools. Unfortunately, attending any school other than the top three schools would only mean there would be an uphill battle for me in the next three years. Let's face it. Fu Sing Senior High School was the last one on the public school list at that time. I didn’t have high hope or any hope on the school, a “partying” school in many people’s view. So, I thought I could just forget about my dream of attending any university right there and square.

On the second thought, it was a complete surprise and a wake-up call for me to get on the high school band wagon since I thought that I would never be able to pass the entrance exam anyway. I always criticized myself for not preparing well enough for the exam. After being accepted for a high school, I thought, maybe I still had a glimpse of hope. I realized that I should use my time more wisely for the next three years if I ever wanted to advance myself to a college or a university. Put it this way, I was at my wits end because it was impossible for my parents to send me to a private college. I really had nothing to lose at the time; therefore, my attitude towards my next three years in high school was somehow changed. I had to!

Whenever I have confronted an obstacle, I am able to analyze the outlook from different perspectives with a humble but positive attitude. That is really a lesson learned from my life experiences. When I was young and hot headed in high school, I would have never thought of that. After the reality check after that summer before my senior high, interestingly, I ended up enjoying my three years of high school at Fu Shing. I met a lot of good friends, friends who have impacted on me and friends that I would keep for life.(Note 1) I also received and willingly accepted guidance from my teachers who believed in me.

I had very interesting life turning experiences at Fu Shing. I took the leadership role again throughout the three years of senior high and was actively involved in many extra curricular activities at school. (That would be another story on its own.) Since it was a co-ed school, it actually gave me a very positive experience for my character development. I had the opportunity to compete with many male counterparts at school instead of being distracted by the opposite sex at that awkward “hormone raging” age. (Apparently it was the first and foremost concern for my parents, or any parents at that time.) I was trained to be an independent thinker, and most importantly, I was able to endure hardship and overcome obstacles with patience. I realized that positive attitude is everything!

I caught two students passing notes to each other. One notewrote, "When do you want to have sex?” I was so shocked to read thatnote. What do they, two eight-year-olds, know about “sex”? It isquite alarming and scary. I didn’t even know what “sex” meant whenI was in high school. I think children are growing too fast toosoon! Whenever I have found notes like these, I would have toquestion the children about what they know and why they wrote thenote. The sad truth is I have to find out if they have been exposedto sexually explicit materials or abusive situations at home beforeI can contact the parents. There are a lot of sick people outthere, and unfortunately, some of them are parents.

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Yesterday, police in Toronto charged the mother of a twelve-year-oldgirl, who traded her own daughter for drug. She forced thetwelve-year-old girl to take drug and had sex with six, possiblymore than ten, men. I was shocked (and disgusted) that this kind of crime wascommitted by the girl’s own mother. A drug addict would do anythingto get high. I have seen it first hand before but not to thatextent.

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One of my students was acting up the week before Christmas. Ifinally had enough with her, so two days before our Christmasbreak, I called her aside and questioned her about her out ofcontrolled behavior for the whole week. She told me that she wasjust very angry that her mother had stolen her Christmas presentsunder the Christmas tree, and her grandmother told her not to tell. Well, I knew the child did have pastrecord of lying and cheating in class, so I immediately contactedher guardian, her grandmother, regarding her behavior problems andthe story she told me. Sure enough, her grandmother confirmed thatthe child’s mother, her own daughter, did ripped open all thepresents given to the family from social agencies and tookeverything of value. The girl was the first one to discover thatall the presents were missing. That is a real-life Grinch story tome! I could not believe that anyone would steal from their ownmother and daughters, but she is a drug addict. An addict would doanything in order to buy drug and get high.

My husband made a comment about my junior high article after he had read my blog. He thought that the way I described my past may give people the wrong impressions that I was a rebellious student. (See post note) Well, I wasn’t. I might be rebellious in spirit, but in fact, I was a good student with just a touch of free spirit of my own.

As a student, I was always polite and respectful to my teachers. I conformed to the school authority and the expectations of others’. I worked hard, but I also struggled to keep up with others. It was not easy to keep my free spirit high in that environment. I was always helpful and energetic at school. I had my group of good friends and certainly didn’t fall into any “wrong crowds”. Seriously, I might have terrible memories of how I struggled to fit in academically in my class, but overall, I did all right at school. I just had my doubts and questions about the education. At that age, we could not do anything about it!

I think I was frustrated with the learning environment and the educational framework that confined students in such a pressured environment to the point that I simply wanted to escape. The education structure did not allow us to learn interesting topics, nor to be inspired to learn in a positive setting. If I did not have high enough grades in academics, I was not considered as a good student. That was so wrong! Now I always try my best to relate my personal experiences to make learning fun. If I do not have fun teaching a lesson, that means my students are not having fun learning it from me either. Learning should be fun and we should have fun learning! (Ha.ha.ha, too many “funs" and too much fun! Having fun is the key.)

I had my most memorable experiences with the marching band in junior high, which fostered my passion for instrumental music. I had a great opportunity to learn different musical instruments and to expose myself in a music appreciation environment. I played a trumpet in the school marching band. Our band performed at so many events and formal occasions. I sang and conducted in a few choir performances. I was also involved in many other extra curricular activities. I entered countless speech competitions and poetry recitals, and won many as well. Another important thing was that I entered the world of English songs and started to develop my love for learning a new language during my junior high years. (See Post Note 2)

One thing about my learning a language is that I am pretty good at “imitating” (or pronouncing) sounds. My university professor gave me 96% for my Spanish Conversation Level 1. (If I am not mistaken, I skipped quite a few Spanish classes. Maybe that's why I don't remember much of my Espanol.)  I remember people used to think that I was probably raised in a family from Beijing because my pronunciation of Chinese Mandarin was so perfect.  Whenever people make comments like that, I would usually show off my “imitating talent” again to prove to them that I can speak perfect Taiwanese-style Mandarin as well. (Hahahahaha) Well, maybe 500 hundred years ago my ancestors did come from somewhere in southern Mainland China, but my gene pools were pretty much developed from the country side of southern Taiwan, the City of Chia Yi.

The other day when my husband and I were having some trivialconversation in the car, I suddenly realized that he is able totake his early retirement in 10 years. My Golly, I always like to jokeabout wanting to retire as soon as possible, but retirement isreally the last thing on our minds. Now it is in fact not too farahead in the future for him. Ten years will fly by sooner than youexpect. (I am not usually a jealous type, but I am very jealous onthis one.)

I always think that only those people who can not retire woulddream about their early retirement days. (I do that all the timewhen I have a bad day. ha ha ha.) I came to Canada after a fewcareer moves in my life. By the time I moved to Canada and finishedmy degree from the Faculty of Education in Ontario in 1992, therecession had already hit Canada hard for quite a few years in the90’s. It was very difficult for me or any new teachers to secure afull time teaching job in Ontario at that time. I, therefore, did not get a fulltime teaching position until a few years later.

To re-establish a new career in a new land means that I will not beable to retire at the same age like some of my colleagues whostarted teaching immediately right after they graduated from theFaculty of Education. Instead, I will have to work a few more yearsto accumulate enough work years in order to get a full pension. Thejoke among my friends is that I probably have to teach till I use awalker to get into the school. I can not picture myself walkingaround with a stick and supervising four hundred little kids in theschool yard. (Ha. Ha. Ha.) I think the day I need a walker to goanywhere will be the day I say Sa-yo-na-ra to my job whether I get afull pension or not.


PS. My DA-PONG husband said, "Don't worry, Shiao-Pong. I won't retire until you are ready to retire." How sweet is that!

My life in Taiwan was quite ordinary. My stories from the bygone past were nothing exciting at all. This series of articles, however, are my written thoughts for my own reflections and for family and friends who care very much about me. If you happen to enjoy reading them, I thank you for your time. 

Eons ago when I was in junior high school, prior to my attempt for the high school entrance exam, I had decided that I would never want to go to a regular high school. I simply could not stand to spend another three years to prepare for another tedious nation-wide university entrance exam. I knew I would not be able to make it to the top three female public high schools in Taipei, nor did I care about going to any top high school. I hated the way we studied in junior high. Heck, I certainly did not want to repeat that kind of life for another three years! What little did I know was that life has its twists and turns! 

At the time, in Taiwan, junior students generally had to take many entrance-exams in July to determine the destiny for our future. The first and foremost was the entrance exam for public high schools. The second exam was for five-year junior colleges. There was also an exam for public vocational high schools, and finally, if all failed, we still had the option of entering private high schools. You see, it was quite mind boggling for a little Grade 9 girl to decide her future, but that was just the way it was and the way it had always been in Taiwan. (Apparently, there is no more entrance exam now! I don’t really know much about the new Taiwanese education system.) 

I was so full of myself, young and ignorant, I guess. Since I had completely dismissed the idea of going to a general high school at the time, my options were either to attend a public vocational high school or a five-year junior college. At first, I thought my marks should be decent enough to enter a public vocational school easily. Then I realized that a high school diploma, however, might not be sufficient enough to secure a job later on. So, after much thought about my options, I decided that maybe I should go to a five-year vocational college to get a college degree and get it over with. You see, I got it all figured out and I was very happy with my decision. I declined to take the exam for public vocational schools and saved the fee for the exam all together. “Why waste the money since junior college is a better choice for me!” I thought. 

As the results of the two exams came out, I was facing a really tough decision. First of all, I was lucky to pass the public high school exam and got into the last public school (the 7th at the time) on our wish list, Fu Shing Municipal Public High School. On the other hand, I also got accepted at Ming Chuan Commerce College. (Apparently, it is a university now.) Of course, I wanted to go to Ming Chuan for her famous International Commerce Program. English was the only subject that I enjoyed in junior high. Since English was emphasized so much for this particular program, it was quite obvious to me that I should just seize the chance. 

In many people’s eyes, I am a typical workaholic. Whatever I do, I do it with more than 100% of my work time and effort. I enjoy goingto work. I am a teacher; therefore, I enjoy going to school everyday. I guess if the school was open on weekends, I'd probably drop by when I had some spare time as well. (Hahahahahahaaaaa…..) No, I am just kidding. I won't go to that extreme, but I do love working on school related activities. I volunteer for social programs that benefit parents and students. I run homework clubs to provide some remedial support for my students. I organize extra curricular activities for students at lunch time. In the summer, I take art lessons or university courses, so I can be better at teaching my students or running a club. I go to workshops and then bring the ideas back to my classroom. It could be boring to run a rigid program because I am already big on routine in my class. I certainly don’t want to be like a "drill sergeant" all the time; therefore, I like to research fun ideas online or through a varietyof books for science experiments, games or plays at my spare time to make my programs interesting and innovative. Put it this way: I am a big kid myself! If I am not having fun learning in my classroom, neither do my students. If I was not passionate about learning, I couldn’t possibly expect my students to be motivated as well. Honestly, sometimes it is really difficult for me when I get sick and have to stay home. I LOVE SCHOOL! It is hard for me to plan fun activities for someone else to take over and run the fun program in the class. Oh heck, I get jealous because I will missall the fun time. Plus, I simply can not expect someone to come in to continue or finish the program that I have planned and taught the day before. This is why I hate to take a sick day. People tease me because I don't have a life. My friends think that I am nuts. Maybe I am. I AM crazy about school though. I certainly hope my students feel the same way. Last time I checked, they all loved to come to class. One kid even cried before he left at the end of each day for a few days. He said, “I love school!” (Hahahahaaaa……) Am I teaching a group of little nutty kids? Time will tell.