On a sunny day in May, while most students were in school, 50 children and their parents were drumming and practicing martial arts with the renowned Taiwanese performance group U Theatre in Taipei. These children are home-schooled.
Two youngsters just back from several months in Cambodia are among them. Travel has been an important part of the education of this girl in the fourth grade and her brother in the second.
Their mother and teacher, Michelle Kao, is behind their unusual educational experience. Before her first child was born, Kao already made up her mind to teach her children herself, with a curriculum that includes travel. Since her daughter was 5, the family has made extended stays in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand, spending at least a month in each place.
The children learn about the history, geography, society, language and currency of the country, matching learning directly with their experience, Kao said. They were even tasked with budgeting expenditure during their travels.
The siblings have also attended elementary schools in Taiwan, at their own request. “But after completing the trial period they decided they liked home schooling better,” Kao said.
“I am not saying school education is bad. It’s just that I wanted to give my children the opportunity to learn things differently, and to do and see things I missed out on,” she said. “I saw in them potential that can never be developed in Taiwan’s education system.”
While planning her children’s instruction, Kao felt like she was in school herself. She recalled her elementary school days, when teachers labeled her “gentle and quiet,” but her mind was full of questions about the importance of grades. But tests are what school is all about in Taiwan.
Dorota Wernik, an educator from Poland, had learned about Taiwan’s exam-driven, spoon-feeding education before settling down here in 2000. “There were too many examinations, but no inspiration for independent thinking,” she said.
She and her Taiwanese husband, Tim Chen, opted for home schooling with a multilingual, multicultural curriculum for their two children, now in the seventh and third grades. Wernik tailored classes to fit their different personalities and interests.
“Our daughter once spent three years doing mostly astronomy, and she wanted math every day,” Wernik said. But her younger brother preferred studying a bit of everything. “I wonder how a schoolteacher could adjust schedules and methods to provide for such big differences among children,” she added.
Home schooling in Taiwan may owe its existence to the landmark April 10, 1994 mass demonstration that erupted out of long held grievances with the country’s authoritarian education. Students, parents and people from all walks of life took to the streets calling for modern education, smaller classes and more high schools and universities.
The Educational Fundamental Act, with its origins in that rally, went into effect in 1999, stipulating students’ right to education and parents’ right to determine the form and content of their children’s education. Home schooling had become legal.
Institutional reforms followed. Experimental schools were allowed, and efforts were made to reduce the burden of schoolwork. Uniform examinations for high school and university entrance were supplemented with other admissions procedures.
“There are more universities now, and classes are smaller in elementary and junior high schools. But overall, school education still cannot satisfy the needs of many parents and students,” said Chang Bih-ru, associate professor of education at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology.
The top-down reforms of the past decade have ironically led to more parents choosing home schooling or nonschool education, she said.
Since 1999 the number of home-schoolers has grown steadily, from fewer than 10 to around 1,400, with 450 of them in the greater Taipei area, according to the Ministry of Education.
“Parents are better informed now with the advent of the information age, and better equipped to plan courses and teach their children,” Chang said.
Parents may home-school children aged 6 to 15 of compulsory education age. Home-schoolers must register in the public school of their community, and have their lesson plans approved by an official Home School Committee.
Data provided by Taiwan Homeschool Advocates show that Christian and Taoist groups led the way in the first few years. More recently, home-schooled children have increased in number due to difficulties adjusting to school life and parents’ realization that they can act on their criticisms of formal education.
With the rise of home-schoolers, nonschool education has diversified in form, primarily due to the need to prevent children from being isolated.
“Home-schoolers lack peer interaction, so we started looking for other like-minded families,” said Chen, who now serves as THA chairman. “It’s also easier for groups to access public resources such as museums and counseling services.”
In December 2007, Chen said, families in the Taipei area began to meet regularly, arranging various group educational activities for their children. “With the help of the Internet and word of mouth, participants increased from three families to around 40 in 2010,” he said.
Parents also pool their resources to seek out teachers of philosophy, science, drama and the classics. Families share fees, or provide reciprocal educational services.
Compared to the estimated 2.5 million students enrolled in grades one through nine, the number of home-schoolers is relatively small, however.
“Financial concerns could be one reason as one parent will normally have to be at home,” Chang said. “But more importantly, although parents see problems with institutional education and are not satisfied with what schools provide, they are not sure what alternatives there are.”
“Home-schooling parents need to teach themselves even more diligently than they teach their children, in terms of different subjects and educational methods, so the challenge is greater for parents,” she said.
Taiwanese society is generally dubious about the feasibility of home schooling. Kao, for example, had to face questions from older family members.
“I was not sure if we could be successful at the beginning, either, but I was determined, and the longer we did it, the more confident we became,” she said. “Relatives saw the way our children behaved and matured, and they stopped saying anything.”
Kao’s husband was the first to change. As the sole breadwinner, he had to adjust his schedule to cope with the children’s traveling-learning plans. At one point he even changed jobs. “With home schooling I spend more time with the children, and the feeling has been good,” he said.
Bureaucracy has been a hindrance to nonschool education. The MOE has not finished drafting regulations on the recognition of home-schoolers’ credentials and their admission to university.
The snail’s pace of official change has led home-schooling families to become more politically active, showing up at public hearings on national education to pressure legislators into consolidating educational rights.
Pointing out that there were 5,000 dropouts last year in Taiwan, Chen said home schooling is just giving back what children deserve from normal school education.
“Schools are required to provide education in a manner that suits each and every student, to assess learning through a variety of methods rather than through unified tests alone, and not to appropriate music or physical education classes for math,” he said.
Chang advised the government to relax rules on curriculums and provide more space for alternative education, both in and out of schools.
“These approaches to teaching and learning may eventually effect change in the formal school system toward greater flexibility and more respect for children’s individuality,” she said. (THN)
Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw