Like a Cog in Their Spelling Bee

         On April 10, 2019, I read and judged the last oral part of a spelling bee at Chung-De Middle School this afternoon. I have officiated at a number of spelling bees in Taiwan middle schools but this one was the worst, for me and the young participants.

     The organizers of this spelling bee made up their own rules.Their rules implied a student who incorrectly spelled was immediately replaced by a substitute if the sub could spell the word correctly; a dozen times I had to read the same word and sentences, twice.

     They had me standing in the front of a full gymnasium surrounding around fifty classmates form various classes on stools wearing their class shirt with cardboard whiteboards on their laps with a tissue and marker in their hands I read the word, sentence (without the errors) and word again before some cockamamie music timed them ten seconds. They didn’t turn the air-conditioner on until well into the program and I was glad they did. 

      When they narrowed the pool down to five, the children were lined up in front of the two desks near the stage. I had stood the entire two hours as instructed but a few female teachers took the liberty to sit behind those desks for a better view. I was asked to read the word and sentence and have the finalists spell the word out-loud into a microphone, some clearly some not. One girl spelling “exercise” I had to ask twice and get closer to hear. The third time she said the word, she spelled it correctly but one teacher behind the desk begged to differ and commented that the girl had spelled it incorrectly. “Not to my ears,” I said, 

but she insisted to have her way. I told her that she could be the judge if she wanted and stepped back to the side of the finalists. I asked the MC if he wanted me to judge as well as read and he looked befuddled and waved me on. To the next two students who spelled correctly I commented, “It sounded good to me.” It was then that it seemed to me the teachers behind the desk were asked by the organizer to leave and off they went to the side. I finished judging the students spelling with no suggestions from the peanut gallery. I was not apologized to. A few students seemed to snicker at their wise-ass teacher. The MC was trouble enough jumping around the list he gave me choose words out-of-order that he thought the contests should spell. 

        I was treated like a cog in their whims and not given professional consideration . So often it happens in Taiwan schools that the foreigners asked to officiate at an event are window dressing and not respected. Though some schools do have the children's interests at heart, there is no reason to invite a foreigner unless it adds to the event's reputation. This one did not. I will not do a spelling bee at that school again if they ask me.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

Women's Roles Discussed in the Taiwan Classroom

      In the Bread & Roses Curriculum I used with ninth grade ESL students in a Brooklyn high school for twenty years, I had the full backing of a women's liberation movement and support from the school's Relationship Abuse Prevention Program (R.A.P.P.). With Shengang Middle School's eighth grade English conversation enrichment program, I was stepping into uncharted waters.
     I had to remember the children were not just junior high school students; they were from Taiwan. In Taiwan, a male dominated Confucian society anchoring (or holding back) a progressive society, some real-life topics are taboo. Older teenagers might get more out of these  workshops with less nervous embarrassment but the topics won't be much easier to approach. In higher education in Taiwan, conservative deans might not let an EFL teacher use this subject matter in class; there would be more oversight, especially on the topic of "Women's Issues".

     After working with the children almost two school years, ninety minutes a week, workshop topics on women's studies like “Marriage Relationships” "Relationship Abuse", and "The Breadwinner" were still a little over these young teenagers' heads; the less mature among them goofed off in Chinese instead of practicing English conversation. They were capable of understanding the ‘big’ words and sentence patterns, but the role plays put them off. 
     Earlier in the program, we had discussed oppressive child labor. We did a cooperative learning workshop then and the students understood the "5 Types of Abuse" workers suffer (physical, verbal, emotional financial, and sexual) in addition to being overworked, underpaid, and endangered. With the "Haitian Family Budget" workshop, they could see how poor people must live, and with "Living Wage" workshop, they went home to ask their parents how they managed the family expenses. It was time to tackle the topic of "Women's Role in Taiwan." 
    The song I played for motivation, “Love Child”, for relationship abuse, was perfect. The children loved the beat and pounded on the desks. I then explained the song assuming the boyfriend's questions ("Why won't you sleep with me?") answered by Diana Ross & The Supremes. The topic had to be approached carefully with a playful tone. 

Hear and see the lyrics of "Love Child" here.

(The teacher holds the answer key and goes over the vocabulary in advance.)

The unit "Women's Roles" was started with a controlled composition (CC) called "One Woman's Role." I read it aloud with the students repeating after me. New vocabulary was written on the board and explained in simple English. We then did Step 9a practicing future tense with the text in a whiteboard competition. I then verbally engaged the students in reported speech with Step 6b, turning the woman's role into a more liberated one using the negative to illustrate an opposite lifestyle for modern women.
After the break, I touched on the previous topic of "Direct Democracy" by introducing the Opinion Survey: "Marriage Responsibilities". I read aloud the directions and explained the task. Each student had a copy. I read aloud the statements. After each statement, I asked for a show of hands for their opinion and wrote the results down in a chart on the board: 

    The children were asked to write sentences analyzing the data ("Everyone thinks both husband and wife should cook the meals."). The opinion survey showed that the students believed in equality of responsibility in marriage. But for all the  equality between the sexes these young teenagers supported, in dating, marriage and the workplace, the sexes were not equal.                     

Matrix for "Concentration": 1 point for spelling,
 2 for a match, and 3 for a sentence definition or example. 

      As part of the Bread & Roses Curriculum, light-hearted role plays, controlled composition, and music with competitions and

Matrix for "Jeopardy": Easy answers are 20 points,
more difficult are 100.

whiteboard games such as “Jeopardy” question-writing or "Concentration", a word-match and sentence making game was conducted  between the eight teams of four students. But then we got down to the role plays, one called "The Breadwinner" and the other called "Cooling the Relationship." 

  We started "Panel of Experts" activity; eight students, one from each group that sat up front with mini-whiteboard and markers. I read the Opinion Survey statements about Marriage Relationships and told them to write their opinion in a sentence; was it the wife’s, husband’s, both, or either’s responsibility. All thirty-two students took turns representing their groups. They wrote and showed their boards when done. When the students got the drift, I extended the questions to be about the role play.  The class was quiet and the responses were mostly on task. The children loved seeing their classmates in the hot seat. 
     After the break, we began brainstorming for the role plays. I paired the students up within their group, told them to choose who would play the roles of Douglas  and Frankie. I want to mention that in both role-plays, sometimes two boys or two girls played partners. The students chuckled but understood the possibilities of same-sex relationships. 
     When some students reverted to speaking in Chinese and playing, I walked around and kept them on task. Mostly they brainstormed. I left only ten minutes at the end of class for one set of partners to demonstrate, but when they did, they took the easy way out; the husband told the wife what to do and the wife complied meekly. I asked them if that was the way it goes in Taiwan relationships. They looked sheepishly about. With TV sitcoms and horrific news of abusive relationships, they had to do better than that. We put off the role plays for the next class. 

Another conscience-raising role play you might want to try is the "'Cooling' The Relationship" scenario.

     Teenage pregnancy is an issue in Taiwan. The data  is underestimated because of the stigma attached to it. An NGO called “The Garden of Hope” has for sixteen years been doing outreach visiting schools in the Taipei area. Abortion statistics are kept low-key and teenage girls are directed to adoption services or orphanages. 
    Confucian principles and conservative constraints on society in Taiwan can oppress students on their way to adulthood. There have been some inroads with AIDS prevention and same-sex marriage legislation, but when push comes to shove, the male's point-of-view dominates.    I was concerned that no matter how I pared the B&R and Community Curricula down, because of cultural beliefs, the children had no index of the subject matter; they hadn’t discussed it in Chinese at school or  home. It is considered irrelevant because is not required for tests or graduation.
      There was English being practiced by those who wished to join in. The children had fun despite the serious nature of the topics. Perhaps it was okay for a foreigner like myself to bring these taboo subjects up. Along with English as a Foreign Language, foreign teachers must share our ideals of an equal society between men and women. The rising of the women is the rising of us all! 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

A Living Wage for Taiwan Middle School Students

     We did the Living Wage workshop, the eighth graders at Shengang Middle School . I was afraid, a few weeks ago when the thirty-two ESL conversation enrichment students were given the task of asking their parents to tell them their families' monthly expenses, to see how much they needed to earn to live without debt, that no one would actually go home and ask them, and I was right; no one did. But I played dumb and drew a chart on the whiteboard, anyway, for each student to write his or her family’s eight biggest expenditures, and two more lines for miscellaneous expenses such as pet supplies.

 On cue, the odd numbered groups went up en mass to write figures from their heads, from their friends’ heads, and any other notion to not be singled out. Meanwhile, I went around to the even-numbered tables and encouraged, sometimes cajoled them into action. Vincent, the school dean, was there to give me full support, even suggesting that a thirty ping (Taiwan measure, 1 ping = approx 35.58 sq. ft) apartment in Shengang rented for about 10,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($333 U.S.) a month, just to make sure the students had ballpark figures.

 It all worked out well. Most of the time I engaged the students in conversation, interpreting the figures and analyzing the data: “Rent is the largest monthly expense.” It took the full ninety minutes but it was a fast-paced expose of the cost of living and, finally, showed clearly how wages in Shengang were not high enough for a family of four to cover a good standard of living. The living wage the class came up with, based on the calculated average monthly family expenditure of 50,000 NT ($1,666 U.S.) for a legal standard forty-two hour a week full-time job wages (though most workers are pressured to give unpaid overtime) over four weeks, 168 hours, was about 300 NT per hour; the minimum wage in Taiwan is 140 NT an hour. Our living wage calculation didn’t take into account taxes and a recommended 10% of earnings saved. Granted, taxes are much lower here than in the U.S.; property taxes are almost non-existent. The living wage in Taipei, Taiwan's largest city where the living standard is highest, must be much higher than in the outlying area of Taichung where property value is lower.

It was the first time I did a living wage workshop in Taiwan. In retrospect, I don’t know what I waited for. Perhaps I knew parents wouldn’t be forthright with personal financial details, not with their children and certainly not with strangers. It seems the children didn’t bother to ask. The students knew this was no scientific survey, but one day, when they would need to make a budget, it will be nice to know how much they should be paid to meet their living standard. One day they will realize they are being exploited by their bosses and take action, maybe even ask for a raise; I’d be dreaming to think anyone in Taiwan would organize or start a union, but as Vincent pointed out, it is good for the children to realize how hard their parents work to support their families.  

     Everything we have done in class has led up to the Living Wage Workshop. A few months earlier, the children had done the "Haitian Family Budget" workshop to see how hard it is for impoverished underpaid workers to eke out a living; Taiwan's living standard is higher than Haiti's. I read and we discussed Fire at the Triangle Factory, by Holly Littlefield; the students were confronted with America's history of  unthinkable sweatshop conditions, not far removed from Taiwan's own.  I thought it was time the chickens came home to roost and we'd brainstorm "Living Wage" here, so I gave the children an assignment to ask their parents about common living expenses and waited to see how many would do so. Meanwhile,  we explored direct democracy, doing an opinion survey on "Energy and the Environment".  I was building up a case for direct action for the common good and to improve their English  practicing real-life skills. 

Read "Social Action with Taiwanese Students" here. 

     The Living Wage Workshop is a perfect segue into the last phase of the 8th grade Bread & Roses Curriculum: activism. It explains clearly why students in Taiwan should become better at English skills; how they could change their lives, their community, Taiwan, and the world. The children have the power! Each group would brainstorm a problem and use direct action to tackle the problem for their final presentations, this in a middle school with twelve-year-olds. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.