Learning Records

Activity Theme:

Interview Principal Shih, Li-Lan

Place:

Yu Jen School History Room

Time :

January 2^nd, 2008 (Wed) 9:25 am~10:05am

People:

Lin,Shuang-Chu、Wang,Chia-Yu、Lin,Yi-Yun、Chan,Ya-Ting、
Chang,Kai-Hsiang、Chao,Yi-Ching、Chen,Yu-Jou、Chen,Chu-En、
Huang,Yi-Chieh、Lee,Shu-Mei、Huang,Yu-Hsuan、Wang,Tzu-Wei、
Lee, Pi-Chu、Tsai, Hui-Chen、Yang, Fei-Ting

Content:

How are you, principal? We are from the team attending this year International Schools CyberFair. You are our principal and have served in the school for the longest time, so you must have many special experiences. We hope that you can share with us. In addition, we also want to ask you some questions about our school.

 Principal and we had a picture together

Lin, Yi-Yun asked:

“Why did you want to be a Sister?”

Principal answered:

“I was a Sister since I graduated from the university. Why did I want to be a Sister? Some Sisters came to work at my home when I was an elementary school student. When I was in summer vacation of junior high school, every time Sisters would ask two people to go out with them, and they would ask, ‘Li-Lan, could you come with me?’ But I didn't know where they would like to take me. Then we went to visit a sick child. Therefore, I started to know that Sisters’ life is to visit and take care of others and concern with others. My mother encouraged me a lot. She said, ‘Being a Sister is good.’ After thinking, I understood that the qualifications for being a Sister: first, must be a Catholic. Second, pray. Third, get along with others and be familiar with living in a group. If your personality is very strange and cannot get along with others and live in a group, you will not be able to be a Sister. I found that I am easy-going, like to pray, and like to help others. After considering these qualifications, I decided to be a Sister.”

Huang, Yi-Chieh asked:

“Since when did you start to serve in Yu Jen Elementary? How old were you at that time?”

Principal answered:

“Before I did not serve in the school, but if the school needed me, I would come to help. My help was temporary at that time. I started to serve in Yu Jen since September, 1973. You haven't born yet. I was 27 years old and felt very worried because teachers were younger than me and worked work.”

Lee, Shu-Mei said:

“Why did you want to work in Yu Jen?”

Principal answered:

Being a Sister needs to take three vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience. Every sister has a lot of work to do, such as working in churches or other places. In addition, Sisters will be assigned to different places by Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary. They will assign Sisters to the place where needs help. Therefore, I was assigned to work in Yu Jen by Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary.”

Chan, Ya-Ting asked:

“We know that Yu Jen is a Catholic School, and we want to know how principal is selected . What kind of qualifications does a principal need?”

Principal answered:

“The school is a corporation which organized the board of directors. And the board of directors will choose a principal from Taiwan or other countries. After being recommended by Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary and invited by the board of directors, the principal will be decided. The qualifications of being a principal are: first, you need to have a teacher credential for elementary school; second, you need to have teaching experience; third, you must have the qualifications of being a principal. Then you will be evaluated by Department of Education. After you passed the evaluation, you can be the principal of Yu Jen. It is not easy to be a principal. I need to meet those qualifications and pass the evaluation.”

Chen, Chu-En asked:

“How many years have you served in Yu Jen? Have you ever been a principal of another school?”

Principal answered:

“In 1973, I began to serve in Yu Jen. During I worked in the school, Taipei Guang-Jen Elementary School also needed a principal. Therefore, the board of directors of Guang-Jen Elementary School went to Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary for inviting a Sister to be their principal. Then they asked me and I accepted because I will go every place, if Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary assigns me to go. Therefore, I left Yu Jen Elementary School for Taipei Guang-Jen Elementary School to be their principal. The school was different from our school and it was a hard time to serve there. I had served in Yu Jen for 7 years for my first time. In 1994, Yu Jen Elementary School hoped that I can come back to help them and I thought: I will go the place where needs my help. Therefore, I came back to Yu Jen in the second semester in February. I have stayed in Yu Jen since 1994 until now.”

Chen, Yu-Jou asked:

“Have you ever met any difficulty or troublesome matters?”

Principal answered:

“Around 1971, there were many parents who wanted to let their children attend Yu Jen Elementary School because Yu Jen was different from other schools—namely, first, we have school bus, and this is convenient for parents; second, we provide lunch because at that time Yu Jen adopts whole-day class schedule and parents are not convenient to send lunch over the school. It is great that school provides lunch for students, so many parents wanted to let their children attend our school. However, our classrooms are limited, so it is impossible to enroll all the students. This was very difficult for our school. Once a councilor pointed out that our school was illegal in some place during a meeting in Taichung City Council. But they cannot find any illegality and I said, ‘our teachers and principal work hard and students attend school happily every day. I don't know what illegal things we did.’ Then they said, ‘Elementary school cannot teach English’ and I said, ‘Every school in the world has English classes. If students start to learn English until junior high school, it is too late. And our students learn happily, do you think this is illegal?’ Finally, someone called me and said, ‘We did not do anything illegal. Because one parent's child cannot attend our school, they appealed to a councilor.’ I said sorry to the parent. Later, because there was one student transferring to the other school, the child attended our school. Therefore, illegal matters were resolved. Moreover, because of the accident, our school's reputation increased. So it is hard to say, ‘bad thing is always bad.’ ”

Huang, Yu-Hsuan asked:

“Are you always a principal? Is it busy to be a principal?”

Principal answered:

“After I graduated from my university, I had taught in junior high school, senior high school, and university for many years. I was a teacher in those schools, so I am not always a principal.

It is very busy to be a principal, but I still need to pay attention to other important things. Like being a student, if a student has an exam tomorrow, he will have to prepare for the exam. You must remember that the most important thing must have its priority. Even if I am very busy, I will also pay attention to students’ safe and health. People are more important than things.”

Chao, Yi-Ching asked:

“What is your ideal of education?”

Principal answered:

I always come back school around 7:15am every day after finishing praying and I see students walking in the school one by one and I will ask them if they have their breakfast yet. If they haven't, I will ask them to eat breakfast prepared by parents and then thank them. Until now, every student will eat breakfast and looks healthy. One of our six educations is aesthetic education which includes students’ play, music, and art. Moral education means that you need to think of others; social education means that you can live in a group and get along with others; physical education means healthy body. Because you have steady mood and healthy body, you can do well in study; finally, we emphasize intellectual and sacred education. I hope that my students can be diverse in many aspects. They not only know how to study but also an excellent person in all aspects and a sacred person. These are our six educations and the ideal of education.

Chang, Kai-Hsiang asked:

Could you tell us who designed our school emblem? Does it have any special meaning?”

Principal answered:

“I told to our art teacher that I wanted a school emblem in which there are six educations, cross, and two hands. Why are there two hands in the school emblem? Because teachers, parents, and students all need hands to learn, if we have no hands, we will not be able to learn. As for the cross, the horizontal line of the cross represents that students have to stay in the group to get along with others; the vertical of the cross represents the relationship between God and people. Our school respects God because you need to be blessed by God after you try your best, you will be successful. Therefore, we combine the three elements together to make our school emblem. This is the origin of our school emblem which is used until now.”

Wang, Tzu-Wei asked:

“Why you want to hold those events such as School Start Blessing Ceremony, Concerning Activity—big hands hold little hands, and Experiencing trip?”

Principal answered:

“The purpose of School Start Blessing Ceremony is to concentrate their mind on learning after summer vacation and winter vacation end. All students and faculty need to attend the ceremony together to encourage students to study hard and pray for God's blessing.

Big hands hold little hands activity refers to the relationship between seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen. At present most of students are the only child in their family, so all students are relationship of sisters and brothers. 4^th grade students’ hold the hands of freshmen's. This is what I mean—big hands hold little hands. This kind of friendship has to be built in the school and needs to be developed deeper in the society.

Experiencing trip is held for 5^th grade students because in the beginning of study in 5^th grade, students often feel difficult, we plan a activity for 5^th grade students—that is, they can learn things while go out. During the activity, a Father told me that no matter how late the activity finished, you have to let students have dinner. He said, ‘Eating is important for Chinese, so eating is a beautiful rest.’

The main purpose of those events is to let students get along well with each other in the school or outside the school.”

Chao, Yi-Ching asked:

“Why do you want to hold Intuitive Knowledge Education on every Monday? What is the meaning of the activity?”

Principal answered:

“The reason that I hold Intuitive Knowledge Education on every Monday is to help students to be alone quietly and gather their mind to make self-examination after each weekend ended. Students need to be quiet to hear their own intuitiveness. This method of introspection must be learned by students and used through the whole life.”

Wang, Chia-Yu asked:

“Why do you instruct Life Education class for sixth grade students every year? What is the meaning of Life Education?”

Principal answered:

“Because sixth grade students are going to graduate, especially our students’ physical and mental development is quicker than those of other schools, in order to let our students get ready to attend junior high school, I instruct Life Education class for sixth grade students. Of course, I want them to notice that they grew up already and need to study hard to get into the next stage of learning.”

Lin, Shuang-Chu asked:

“Why did you found ESL? What does ESL stand for?”

Principal answered:

“Our school is the first school having English classes. Because the world keeps advancing and students will work in the society after graduation, they will need the second language. Because English is not our native language, we cannot learn it naturally in our environment. Therefore, we established ESL and IEC programs to let our students prepare in advance. ESL stands for English as a second language.”

Lee, Shu-Mei asked:

“You always tell us to be grateful. Who do we need to appreciate for founding Yu Jen?”

Principal answered:

“Rev. Theophile Verbist, Rev. Jerome Heyndrickx, Rev. Shao-Tang Lee, Rev. Yong-Qing Wang, Rev. Chi-Tung Chou, Rev. Shih-Lin Yuan, Mr. Ting-Hsiu Liu, Rev. Stuck Ivo, Bishop William F. Kupfer, Sister Ying-Chun Tseng, Vice-principal Cheng-Yo Lin, Miss Hsiu-Luan Yang, Father Wim Bollew, Mr. Chieh-Shun Huang, CICM, Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, Rev. Chih-Ching Sung, principal Li-Fan Chang, principal Mei-Chi Cheng, etc. There are too many people to thank. I can't list their name at a time. I want to thank all the people who dedicated themselves to Yu Jen. Because of their dedication, Yu Jen can be successful.”

Huang, Yu-Hsuan asked:

“Did you join to handle Class Love while Class Love established? Could you explain briefly the reason that our school founded Class Love?”

Principal answered:

“Class Love established in 1971. In the beginning, Class Love was located in the church on the Da-Ya Road. Then we moved to the church opposite to original one when I came in 1983. Because at that time there was no extra space in our school, we borrowed the church to open the class. At present, there is Class Love Building in our school.

Why did we found Class Love? Because some children with mental problems cannot move freely or do not have self-care skills, in order to let those children be able to grow up, like other normal children, we persuaded parents to let their children attend our school to learn and their thoughts changed a lot. After the new building completed, we moved Class Love back to the school. Although taking care students of Class Love is tired and difficult, I know that they can learn, so effort is worthwhile. People who are not in our school called those classes Special Class, but in our school everyone called those classes Class Love. We hope that everyone can love them.”

Chan, Ya-Ting asked:

“How did you feel when you worked in Class Love for your first time?”

Principal answered:

“At that time, my feeling was complex. I am used to walking fast but those kids walk very slow, so I need to hold their hands and walk as slow as them and squat down to learn with them. Because they work hard, I have to become them and do what they do. If they have any progress, I will keep encouraging them because encouragement is important to them. Therefore, what accounts is to learn how to change ourselves as getting along with them instead of changing them.”

Chen, Chu-En asked:

“Are there qualifications for a teacher of Class Love?”

Principal answered:

“Special education teachers need to be train, and then assign those teachers based on what kind of disability a child has. Teachers have to be diligent and patient. Some actions such as wearing on socks and pants or using restroom are difficult for those students. It may take a minute for normal people to wear on socks, but it may take a year for mentally disabled students to learn the action. Therefore, teachers of Class Love are different from other teachers and they need to have special training to be patient to those children and know how to deal with special situations.”

Wang, Tzu-Wei asked:

“Why did you want to build pear ball field in the playground? Why did you call it ‘pear ball’?”

Principal answered:

“Building pear ball field is to train our hands and degree of accuracy and to develop our muscles. When I found that the sport is very suitable for our students, I asked a Canadian Brother of Viator High School to teach us how to play and asked him to teach our physical education teachers. We thank this Brother's introduction of the sport to us.

Why do we call it ‘pear ball’? It's pear-shaped. In addition, we cannot get these sport accessories from sport supply stores in Taiwan. We have to buy it from Canada. Therefore, pear ball sport comes from Viator High School.”

Chang, Kai-Hsiang asked:

“Are the twelve scenes of Yu Jen special design? Why?”

Principal answered:

“I spent a lot of time to think about building the school. I took our students into my consideration. Once I asked some students to walk on stairs to tell me how high of each stair is comfortable for them. Therefore, I told the Mexican architecture that the new school is based on children's needs. I want the school smells like Yu Jen. I suggested the architecture that I didn't want to see any angle of the wall in the school, so all the walls in our school are all rounded. I also asked him not to paint the walls because it will be inconvenient for our students if we paint walls very often. I suggested having a world map design in the campus combining with English words; compass will be helpful for students to know the directions because the world is big. Then we need a sundial because there is sunshine anywhere in our school. Those designs were thought by me at that time and other designs were the architecture's idea. Moreover, there are over twelve scenes in our school because there are 12 signs of the zodiac in Chinese culture and it is easy to remember, so we chose 12 special scenes in our school. There are a lot of scenes which are not chosen. You can help me to choose if you think it is special.”

Wang, Chia-Yu asked:

“Have you heard of the ‘Receipt became tiles’ event? Could you explain to us?”

Principal answered:

“During we were constructing the new building, and students could see the situation of the construction. One day, a student told me, ‘Principal, the underground level starts to build! Is there anything we can help?’ It comes to me that this is not only our matters but also students’ because this is their school. Then several teachers and I started to think what students can do. Then we held the ‘Receipt became tiles’ event. We also had a slogan: ‘Let's transform small stamps into tiles and Let's work together to build our school.’ Because of the event, students donated their receipt seriously. The sooner the building is built, the more receipts they donated. Therefore, the new building is filled with teachers, Sisters, donators, and students’ efforts.”

Chen, Yu-Jou asked:

“Could you tell us the differences between us and students before? Do we have some changes?”

Principal answered:

“Before 1998, computers are not so popular and after 1998, computers are popular. Except teachers’ instruction, students can learn knowledge themselves and they started to learn make graduation DVD now. Besides, I also found that students are more generous, so if I know there is something that students can do, I will ask them to do. Before teachers would tell stories about central virtue, but now students will have plays to present—namely, students are brave to show themselves and teachers usually stay with them to assistant them. Therefore, now you have so many events to attend, and you have to seize the chances to learn.”

Lin, Yi-Yun asked:

“Do you have any special feeling since you have served in education for a long time?”

Principal answered:

“It is almost 40 years. I think that I never taught students who cannot be taught. No matter how bad people described the student, I can let the student become a good student. Therefore, I never see a student who cannot be changed to be good. This is the power of education. Sometimes I have tried my best to teach the child, but his learning is still slow and I will go to Church to tell God, ‘God, you love the child much more than me. Now he has some difficulty. Although teachers teach him, his parents’ teach him, and Sisters teach him, he cannot have any progress. Please give him power for learning.’ After praying, I found that the child started to have progress. It only takes time. Therefore, you cannot give up any classmate because everyone can be taught. This is my biggest wish.”

Lin, Shuang-Chu asked:

“Do you have any plan for the development of Yu Jen in the future?”

Principal answered:

“In the future, you will live with others, so I want you to develop your personality and interests while you study in the elementary school. If you encounter any difficulty, please remember, ‘Life will be better.’ I always work hard to let your life have a goal and let you have the ability to deal with difficulty. If you meet some difficulty, you have to help each other and encourage each other and then you can overcome it. This is my wish for Yu Jen.”

Huang, Yi-Chieh asked:

“Could you give us some encouragement? And take a picture with us?”

 Principal answered:

“You are very excellent. You still have a long time to attend school. In the future, when you attend junior high school, senior high school, university, and then start to work, everything you do is based on your thought. So you have to learn how to get along with others and have the ability to overcome difficulty. No matter how difficult the thing is, please remember, ‘I can overcome it.’ I believe that our students have the power of persistence. Life is precious, so we have to show the glory of life.”

We invited principal to take a picture with us

Learning Records