Trusting the art of blogging has been something that made me stronger mentally in a constructive manner. Honestly, I would not know what would happen to my writing if I didn't discover blogging from my high school friends. I used to sit in front of the computer and blog every day. I try my best to write lengthy but detailed posts about high school life.
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Hello everyone. First of all, a belated happy birthday to myself and also a shoutout to the world as COVID pandemic is officially over for nearly half a year.
A lot has changed for the better. For example, we do not need to worry about the virus on public transportations. We also have more freedom to travel around and not feel restricted to one place. I am certainly happy many people are traveling abroad once again. After all, it has been three long years. A lot of which has NOT changed. Education in Taiwan is still a problem. No one really understands why it is still stuck to its old ways and there have been calls to return to even older ways for college entrance methods, mainly the 聯考. Older people felt it was simpler and took care of the stress problems. The truth is, the stress will always be there. It will just manifest from different sources. That's all. Also, Taiwanese community have yet to truly understand the meaning of cultural melting pot. It means acceptance of other people's differences and not letting that get in the way of progress. Lately, I have been asked, or more like being suggested, to assimilate into Taiwan's socializing nuances. Clearly, mutual respect is needed but that can only be done when people express their feelings directly to facilitate bonds and friendships. That feels more like if you have a non-Asian skin color, they'd let it slide, but nope, not for Asian or Taiwanese Americans. When my response was not as adequate to the person talking to me about it, they suggested that I have been hiding behind culture shock term. I still feel it isn't but if the Taiwanese public wants people like me to put on a show, I will try to do so in limited amounts. Anyhow, it's been fun to talk about what I think and how I feel. Cheers, and I will begin blogging more frequently in the next few months! My posts are usually about education, but that's not the only thing that is happening in my life. I recently went to see a new clinic that is nearer to my place so that I can fix my muscles and their fascia issues. It is a delicate matter with the pandemic limiting my outdoor exercises and no my room is not big enough to do much exercise of any kind.
So with that in mind, I think much of my muscle bulk from past sports and weight training are slowly trimming down, with my weight becoming more obvious to me when I sit in front of the computer. Problems start to accumulate because of the lack of movement haha! Public education discussions in Taiwan these days are boring, repetitive, and polarizing. Much like many things in the internet age, active listening is highly lacking, and everything could be politicized or debated heatedly without mutual respect.
I'm so tired of listening to certain people complain about cram schools, government, and occasionally, private instructors, yet leave out those stubborn, inflexible, lazy parents and public school teachers from the blame. (NOTE: Most public school teachers try their best but usually they are not the ones in power within the hierarchy.) When it comes to public policy, it is everyone's business. Everything is interconnected. This blaming business has GOT to stop. Blaming any singular group does not fix the problem. And holding everyone accountable is only the first step. Afterwards, it is pushing to make sure kids don't ONLY learn for the sake of taking tests...and bam! Our uphill battle will commence once again. But that's the beauty of humanity, isn't it? It only learns from mistakes when the situation is bad enough. Being in a system usually gives people of a sense of empowerment, but it certainly does not give them the right to feel superior towards or to criticize those who are NOT within their system. To be fair, cram schools are businesses. Not every cram school starts out trying to become some frontrunner for education, and for good reason: that's usually not how money can quickly flow in. If people blame them, they highly oversimplified the problem. Cram schools are directly affected by public education, which is directly affected by teachers, which are affected deeply by parents' and students' opinions or stances, which are inevitably influenced by how society defines success and intelligence. The next time, you hear someone blame education on certain people or groups, smile and keep walking. We have bigger things to do. Good day to all of you. Yesterday's single-day confirmed COVID cases in Taiwan was roughly 65K with 41 COVID deaths. It pales in comparison with those in other countries, but we all know too well how some Taiwanese locals react.
Political biases, uncertainty-triggered fear, and personal interests cloud their judgment more than we like to admit. The sad thing is there is nothing much we can do about it other than try our best to explain to those who are willing to listen. But first, we must let them know we are listening too. I thought over about how the cultural and historical influence on how people view public issues. It is not a surprise that people blame the government every time when things go bad. It is a habit that has been rooted deep not because of distrust. It is from the belief that the government or hilariously the president, IS the sole entity responsible for EVERYTHING the nation is going through. A democratic government is supposed to make sure the major things are taken care of, but it is still a bureaucratic system and for it to function strong and quick in times of crises, the people must actively become involved. Heroes do not wear capes and no human can singlehandedly carry a nation. That only happens in dictatorships where people worship their leaders out of blind admiration or pure fear. Only then would I say that the dictator/president/leader is the person responsible for failures. My US education allows me to see things in a broader scope. It made me look beyond the surface and try as much as I could to piece the puzzle together. I ask questions with the simple 5W1H and find answers to them. More importantly, when I am sort of done thinking, I go out and hustle either for work or for answers. The concept of hustling in Taiwan for traditional people is a boggling and scary endeavor. To them it means their kid or friend does not belong to any institution and has to earn his or her bread running around. It is unstable and therefore a BAD position. These people are usually the ones who tell, encourage, or force their children into seemingly stable jobs. While I am not here to point fingers, I am here to lay out that concept under a different lighting. Ask most people who are NOT Asian in the US, and they will tell you they know hustling is practicing to become a working and functional member of society. Hustling can hone skills in interviews, communicating with people of different socio-economic status, and gaining skillsets in fields previously unknown to them. Hustling is a process, not a "job". Going out to earn your money is respected and Americans are proud of that. It is not inefficiency. It is a PROCESS to get from point A to point B in life. And continues on forever. Instability does not always mean things are bad. It merely means we are not done building something. It is funny to see Taiwanese parents buy LEGOS for their kids and forget that the building process is actually some form of hustle. To me, it is making mistakes through stacking LEGOS together, actually crashing the work, and then redoing it all over again. Isn't that, in some way, instability? But isn't that instability ALSO the reason why the kids are thinking and trying to put together a stable building or LEGO work? As a slash professional, I hustle a lot, but I know what I am doing and the purpose of the hustle. It is a means to a greater end. I build my own career and business based on that. Students and startup team members who are close to me know how tough it is every day for me to set out and work with current students, potential parent clients, and schools. They see the teaching complexity and multiple roles I have to switch around to communicate and work. And they respect the hustle. Just because someone does not work from an office and earns more than 45K NTD per month, does not mean they do not know WHY they are doing it, HOW they are going to make it happen, and WHAT they do. Everything is a process of building. LEGOS is not something that "improves your kid's intelligence for test". It is a thinking process of hustling in a controlled environment, so that one day when they have to tackle multiple projects and job responsibilities, they can handle it just fine. Do not let culture get in the way of interpreting HUSTLE in a healthier way. You can not protect your children forever. They will fail somewhere eventually. If they don't fail now, the price of failing increases as they age. Do not rob them the opportunity to make mistakes and be ok with it. Kids should be able to make mistakes and not fear of being punished. They just need to have the thinking process of running over those mistakes and try to prevent them from happening again. Simple as that. I hustle to make education, society, and eventually my country, to become better. Why do you work besides paying the bills and wanting to buy more stuff? ![]() This marks my 4th/5th year judging for this tournament. Each year, new and old debaters show up to challenge themselves. Some do it because they want something to use as part of the college application process. Many do it to showcase their language mastery. And then there is a small batch who do it because debate is truly fun for them. This was my first time being completely free from coaching duties and I assumed it was going to be more of a cakewalk. I was completely wrong. This marks the second year the tournament was held online and because of the abrupt change in venue, the tournament organizing team scrambled to put all checks and things in place. I want to first give a super big thumbs-up for that amazing and seemingly impossible feat. They may not be the team that steers us clear of the COVID-19 impact on healthcare, but they certainly play an important role in continuing education goals for Taiwan. As head judge, moderator, and time keeper for all three regionals (Northern, Central, and Southern), never have I ever felt the burden of ensuring the flow and smoothness of tournament lie so heavily on my shoulders. I guess that is a part of growing up as an adult. It is a signal of deeper trust from organizing head professor Charlotte Chang and a stronger commitment asked of me in terms of how Taiwan's education evolves. I am extremely grateful for that, considering that I was never a full-time teacher in public or private school. Oddballs like me tend to NOT have the opportunity to showcase our talents to help further society unless a few the "normal" elite adults see our worth and bring us to light. Most are just obsidian rocks sitting abandoned at some random corner. I learned a lot as an educator this school year and intend to bring them into what Education Legion intends to do in the long run. Hopefully during Nationals, we will be back to face-to-face tournament and clash like we used to. 2018-2019 was the last school year a face-to-face tournament was held. COVID-19 is truly a menace. I pray that our nation will survive and bounce back from the negative effects of this pandemic. During the third and final Regionals (Central), I was given the digital podium to give remarks on public forum track. I was and still am, very honored to give some tips to students on the essence of debate, the foundations of critical thinking and language, and the meaning of such activities for Taiwan's society. Truly, a very gruesome but fruitful series of Regionals! Policy and public forum are equally fun. I look forward to judging and mentoring more in the future! ![]() So today I had the opportunity to chat with a cram school owner. It was very accidental and the owner happened to be a math teacher. I assumed that it would have been easier to communicate about Education Legion's intentions as a team. Everything sounded ok until we talked about the rate that I will charge. Now, I already know that cram schools in Taiwan have a weird preference for teachers of fairer skin and exotic eye color, but I was a bit disappointed with when I heard it from the math teacher, that he believed parents would still choose based on hair color and such. That works well for people who are just here to earn a quick buck, teach some basic children's English, or just have a job with comfortable working hours. It certainly did not sit well with me, but I understand his assessment. After all, he has been in the cram school environment for some time. But then again, experience is just as important as creativity. A good mix will almost always give rise to a game changer. The question is: Is Taiwan mentally ready? He was quite honest that even with foreign teachers, their hourly rate does not exactly exceed the 1,000NTD/hr mark. My team rate is exponentially higher than that because English debate is not any typical teaching or learning process. It is also not, and I am not bragging, a service any typical Taiwanese cram school can provide. Noting that he had no idea about how English debate or critical thinking classes are conducted, and also remembering this was only an initial phone call, I quickly assured that our team is more than qualified to do the task of teaching whatever their foreign or TW teachers can do in their cram school, and that all we need is a chance to have a demo when the pandemic is less quirky in Taiwan. I finished the phone call with the hopes of having further conversations in the future with him. After all, people do not change overnight. Let alone society. This concept of 中師 vs 外師, continues to annoy me to the highest degree, mainly because of the fact, that I know only a small batch of 外師 aka foreign teachers are qualified as "good" professionals in the cram school world. I can also estimate that less than seven cram school foreign teachers can even remotely teach, let alone coach or train, an English debate team in the whole of Taiwan. Now my estimates may be off, but they are most certainly not far from the truth. And I have spared the foreign teachers who are IN the system from any criticism. I am sure Taiwanese local students know deep in their hearts who works hard and who doesn't. I am not going to start a war against them without reasonable and just cause. ![]() My team is full of former high school debaters and cross-disciplinary people who are ready and excited to bring students closer to becoming global citizens with some level of self-learning discipline. We are the ones best suited to bridge that gap between the education system and the students in light of the 108 curriculum. For that, providing stellar quality education also comes with a price tag to ensure my team members get what they deserve. Taiwan, for all its niceties, has yet to conquer the illusion of English learning through foreigners that DO NOT CONNECT with Taiwan on a deeper level. If it was so effective, why are students in Taiwan going to cram schools starting elementary school all the way up to college, sometimes also in business? Yes, people, college. Because they need to "refresh" or "upgrade" their English to combat TOEFL/GRE/IELTS/etc. It is ironic and quite frankly a cash cow for no good reason. The harms are not apparent until one looks back at how much money is spent on English and yet it is somehow not retained as a skill or language that one can use effectively in the workplace. Yes, business people who pay to have class, but honestly, how many rely on their colleagues or subordinates to "carry" them so their weakness would be shielded? You know the answer to that. I understand that the government is doing a lot of stuff to bring in qualified foreign teachers into the system, and that's great, but it fails to realize that our calendar and system do not coincide with many of these foreign teachers. I also don't think these people are ready to adapt to the Taiwanese calendar or way of life. Many still think they will be able to do things their way when they land on the island. Funny thing is, if the roles were reversed, they would be indignant in their stance that WE Asians should be the ones adapting to THEIR way of life.
The human resource for education should be drawn from those who are localized and understand the culture enough to accept the conditions of the status quo while working to make reforms possible. That, sadly, is not going to be found in some fresh foreign nationality graduates overseas who, consciously or not, think they are "selling" their skin color or nationality for that matter. Education requires dedication. Talent can not be vetted properly when the requirements and pay given, can't attract teachers with cross-cultural understanding. Taiwan already has these people. It is just a matter of whether the government and schools are willing to legitimize our existence into the fold. I will continue to chip away at the status quo. This is the country that made my parents and grandparents. It has given me a good share of disappointments, but most importantly, its people provided encouragement, help, and opportunities when I felt like all hope was extinguished and darkness crept up on me. English debate in Taiwan has the potential to increase English usage holistically and can encourage students to integrate prior knowledge from other subjects to debate better. It is a worthy cause that I pursue and promote in Taiwan, because it will free students from the vicious cycle of sitting long hours just to get some grades that seem to indicate their English is good enough to get into some "OK" college. We are not shooting for "OK". We are shooting for English language mastery and critical thinking application in life! And some day, we will tear down that wall. Just not today. And that is ok. We debate to build nations. How about you? ![]() I am more than happy that I am not coaching an English debate team for any public school this year for Nationals. Most people think that I am getting the best of both coaching and judging, it seems. What makes it hilarious is that they don't see how hard it is to portray the neutrality as I am working with multiple schools when it comes to workshops, speech events, and winter training. Without the burden of coaching any public school team, I am now given free rein to literally judge as I please. If the matches are bad, there won't be any need to mince words. If the matches are good, I don't need to shower them with praises. This year's Taiwan High School English Debate Regionals and Nationals is going to be so awesome! The debaters are going to see themselves as they really are. There are no friendly matches where I will give any comments to help make them better before the real tournament. And that is totally fine. To be frank and realistic, I am not getting paid for friendly matches, much like any other full-time teacher. The only difference is, I am a freelance coach and technically, that should have been under my paid hours. I am sure most full-time public school teachers will disagree and say they don't have paid hours on this either. Here's my response to that: it is easy for them to say when they have a stable, monthly income to a job that almost guarantees they won't be fired. Since I am usually brought in to provide the coaching and help needed, that means the school teachers need my presence to make this possible. The reason why I accepted the unpaid friendly matches that I need to accompany debaters to in the past was that this is an integral part of coaching and the kids need me there to boost their mental stability. Some people understood and were grateful. Others were not so cordial in their responses. But all that talk is just mute if they don't understand and act on it. That's mostly why I am building Education Legion as my brand to critical thinking and English coaching/mentoring, as well as teaching part-time at a less prestigious public high school. The resistance and bureaucratic red tape that surrounds the notion of a freelance coach being a public school's coach just seemed to wear me out a bit too much after 5 years, but I am super grateful for all the teachers that have given me the opportunity to work with them, in good and bad times. Education Legion is not just some cram school startup. We are going to aim at bringing education to the next level and force schools to up their game. Since no war of such is fought alone, we will slowly assemble as a team, strengthen our core skills, and reach out to those within the system that still understands the value of collaboration and educated outsourcing. I am hopeful of the future, weary of the potential risks, and always looking for open windows. Peace out. As usual, I am working on a variety of things each week. Recently, I have been going into the school office more often. It is not because I am prepping for classes or something, but rather, trying to get accustomed to having an office. I had one already last semester but this semester I had more free time to go in.
But no worries, I don't fiddle on my phone or watch Netflix. I read books instead and gain knowledge that is essential to understanding the world. I did not foresee myself concentrating so hard on my book before. It is a delight to be able to finish reading book after book. Overall, self-learning-wise, I am getting things done. As for Education Legion, we are now approaching an impending expansion in personnel and human resource pool. Our winter camps, as I probably mentioned before, were spectacular and the work distribution helped. After Lunar New Year, our inquiries on camp and collaborations have flooded our weekly agenda. My partner Tim, much like me, have been working on school/work, project planning, and mostly communicating with people from different groups/parties/schools. It has been very very fruitful but the downside is that our brains are really working an near-full capacity on a daily basis. Good thing I seem to have Tuesdays and Thursdays to cool down my brains. New personnel includes a group of kids that are bound to graduate from high school. We did not exactly give them any assignments directly related to E.L., but I did encourage them to work on their government-required 7000 word list as part of their project before the end of their high school life. Part of becoming our team, besides being up-to-speed on English proficiency, is book reading. So, all college-level students who are on our team have book reading assignments as well. We will see very soon how they fare in the face of school work, clubs, and social life. Overall, Q1 is going quite smoothly and each day is looking brighter and brighter. Cheers! ![]() The year of the ox was indeed a year of toiling and for the most part, my personal spiritual and career challenge. I am glad that year is finally over and that the gods or whatever is up there, decided to grant me the privilege to continue my journey on Earth. We all crave for some form of external recognition, no matter how confident or determined we are in who we are and what our mission is. I am grateful for everyone who has helped me out when things did not look so pretty. COVID-19 is now officially termed "coco" because I feel it has been around too long for me to read it like Voldemort from Harry Potter. I just want to make it less of a mental ordeal each time I look at the number of deaths and sick people around the world. The world needs more positive vibes to get through these odd days. Education Legion, my team of critical thinkers, debaters, and movers, is finally looking like it is blooming to the kind of team I had always wanted. They say in a startup, people don't succeed because there is no market need or they ran out of cash. To me, the number one problem has always been, and always will be, hiring the right people. I have had my share of misfortunes over the years with personnel who seemed to want to do a cause but ended up only looking out for their own pockets and interests. Whether it was the local Taiwanese social movement, the news team Report For Taiwan, or even certain collaboration gigs with schools, there were always factors or people who disappoint me.
Being an independent instructor and slash professional, I am glad that I can be honest about it rather than hide it under layers and layers of verbal pleasantries. I am grateful that my past students have gladly trusted and entered their apprenticeship journey with me beyond the scope of high school debate or MUN. It is an honor to have so many young people working together for the long-term cause of cultivating a stronger, more thoughtful community for Taiwan. I may not be a Fulbright scholar, a full-time public school teacher, or some hotshot public figure at the moment, but I know what I do is worth clapping for myself in good times and bad. And hopefully one day, we may all clap wholeheartedly to the motto, "We debate to build nations. How about you?" Cheers and may the Year of the Tiger, bring forth the best yet for our dreams of a critical-thinking oriented community! |
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May 2022
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