Head of Night School: Chihua Shuai

Interviewee: Ms. Chihua Shuai

Date: Oct. 26, 2010

Venue: Interview Room

It has been two months since I took office of the director of night school. I was kind of worried that I couldn’t handle it well because I never had such experience before. My major job is about the administration, for instance, to decide who will be the teachers and which subjects and classes they will teach. Fortunately, our night school has being running for many years so most of the teachers are quite familiar with the courses and process. Besides, Ms. Chang, the head of registration division, had already ordered the textbooks before school began, and other teachers had keyed in students’ data as well. Actually I used to be the teacher at night school once before, but I quitted due to my backache. I felt those grandmas study so hard that they went to school even in heavy rainy days. They also had good manners that they would greet the teachers in a far distance. The best part job is to see how industrious and zealous they are. I like it very much.

It’s the 33rd year since our night school program started. Most of the students are grandpas and grandmas, but there are some immigrants or even foreigners who came to Taiwan for work. In the past there were few international students. However, there are more and more international students and we are considering to have a special class for them now.

If you have time, you kids are welcomed to visit the night school. Do you know how those grandpas and grandmas study? They use magnifiers to read Chinese characters each by each and repeat after the teachers. Because they had memory, many of them come back to school even after they have finished the three-year program. In addition, many seniors are very lonely so they actually come here to make friends.

Grandpas and grandmas are very different from kids because they are quite shy. For instance, when taking a photo on the other day, kids made gesture of victor excitedly, but the grandpas and grandmas just didn’t want to do so. Another example is one grandma told me that she was afraid of being called by the teachers. Whenever it is her turn to read loud or write in front of the class, she feels so nervous. However, they are really industrious. All of them came to school last week even there was a typhoon.

Here is a story. There was a grandma walking with a cane in the beginning of this semester. It took her quite a long time to walk from the school gate to her class. Nevertheless, she forgot which classroom she should go so she just sat down by a tree. Many schoolmates passed by kindheartedly asked her if she need any help. At last she found her classroom. Such a student obviously could not write well, but no teachers would blame her.

The curriculum of night school at present is different from that in the past. We have Chinese class, social science class, music class and PE class now. However, PE class is too difficult for the elder so sometimes they just skip it. We try to promote Petanque and hope it can help the elder to exercise.

We hope our night school curriculum can connect to the regular elementary school in the future that these grandpas and grandmas can share their life experience with more people.

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