Photograph courtesy of Marie Bordeleau
Redwood Middle School teacher Marie Bordeleau (bottom row, middle), Saratoga High School principal Kevin Skelly (bottom, far right) and three other educators from Santa Clara County (front row) traveled to Taiwan on an educational exchange trip, where they met with Taiwanese educators (back row).
Taiwan trip unforgettable for educators
Redwood's Bordeleau, Saratoga's Skelly visit Taiwanese schools
By Rebecca Ray
Saratoga educators Marie Bordeleau and Kevin Skelly traveled overseas to get a glimpse of the educational system in Taiwan, and what they saw they probably won't forget.
"I don't think I have ever experienced such a positive growth experience," said Skelly, principal of Saratoga High School.
Bordeleau, an eighth-grade language arts and social studies teacher at Redwood Middle School, agrees. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip," she said.
The Distinguished Citizens Society, whose headquarters are in Taiwan in the city of Taichung, hosted the educational exchange in Taichung and Taipei April 13-20. The Silicon Valley chapter of the Distinguished Citizens Society and the Santa Clara County Office of Education, who coordinated the trip, chose Bordeleau, Skelly and three other educators in the county to attend. Educators, who were required to apply for the trip, had to show that they were interested in learning about the Taiwanese educational system, as well as in sharing what they learned after they returned home.
The Distinguished Citizens Society is trying to organize a second part of the exchange for this fall, when people from Taiwan would visit and observe the educational system in Santa Clara County.
Skelly noticed that at the six or so schools the Santa Clara County group visited, teachers travel from classroom to classroom while a group of students spend the whole day in the same classroom. Each classroom also has a student leader, who sits in the first row directly in front of the teacher and acts as a spokesperson for the class. Student leaders are chosen by their peers and have to be among the best students academically.
Students eat and drink in the classrooms. However, they are also responsible for cleaning up after themselves. Bordeleau said it would be fantastic if schools were to have students do this in the United States.
Bordeleau noticed that in Taiwan there are bigger classes, larger schools and longer days, and that students wear uniforms. There are 45 or 50 students in each class. One elementary school accommodates 1,700 students.
Schools operate under a standardized national curriculum--Bordeleau and Skelly's group visited English classes in both cities and saw teachers who taught the same grade teach the same unit.
Skelly said he was struck by how ethnically homogenous the schools are. He admits that when he saw a Caucasian girl in a classroom, he stopped and stared, which caused the students to laugh. The girl was an exchange student from Canada and one of the school's four foreign students. Skelly said that he didn't appreciate how "remarkably diverse" California and the United States are until the trip.
Skelly observed a "cram school," filled with students preparing for exams, and found that exams are a constant worry for students and their families. At the end of their ninth-grade year, students take exams that determine which high schools they can attend. The name of one girls school they visited, Chang Sun, means "second best"--it is considered the second-best girls school in Taipei.
Skelly says that when he talked about discipline problems with one principal, she said there were no discipline problems and didn't understand what he meant by "unmotivated" students.
Skelly also noticed that the schools place less emphasis on extracurricular activities. He said that when he described the Senior Ball and cruise at Saratoga High, Taiwan educators showed "wide-eyed astonishment and disbelief" that a school would have such an event.
The Santa Clara County group met with school officials and dignitaries, including the educational minister of Taipei and mayor of Taichung, and exchanged ideas about the merits and unique aspects of the Taiwanese and American educational systems.
Bordeleau says she gained a new understanding of her students who are from Taiwan. There, she says, students' interactions with teachers tend to be more formal--an explanation for why her Taiwanese students tend to interact more formally with her. Also, she says, students in Taiwan seem very dedicated to doing well, which explains her Taiwanese students' tendency to be hardworking.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
