Today we traveled to Shuangxi High School and met with History teachers and English teachers. We had a seminar where we discussed the differences and similarities between the Taiwanese educational system and the American system / Fairfax County. We shared with the teachers some of the practices we found most useful in the classroom. We also had a chance to look through the students’ work and the textbooks they used.
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| Fairfax County teachers meet Taiwanese teachers |
Taiwanese students are a dedicated bunch! They go to school until June 29th and they start the first week of September…and here I thought Fairfax County went long! Students in Taiwanese schools start school at 8 AM and end at 5 PM and then they go home and study more. The educational system is very rigorous and college entrance exams are very competitive – it is no wonder they spend so much time devoted to school.
After our seminar, we toured the high school. We visited a business classroom (that had 52 students in it!), a history classroom where they were reviewing about Confucius, a math classroom, and also an English classroom. I was impressed by how well-spoken the teachers and students were in English. For some teachers, their English was flawless.
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| English teachers at Shuangxi High School |
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| A classroom at Shuangxi High School |
That night we went to a dinner in New Taipei City. New Taipei City is now the most populated city in Taiwan and lies just north of the capital, Taipei. We met several other teachers from high schools in the area and had a wonderful dinner full of dumplings, seafood, vegetables, buns, my favorite – taro root soup, and of course, Taiwan beer!
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| Welcome Dinner |
We ended the night by lighting our own lanterns. We picked the color that represented our wishes and then wrote on them with calligraphy pen. They lit them for us and we watched them float up into the night’s sky. The Taiwanese celebrate the Lantern Fest….
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| My latern I painted |
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| About to let my latern float away! |
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