At first glance, Yung'an Elementary School doesn't seem to have anything that would particularly distinguish it from any other medium-sized elementary school in Taiwan. But when you walk in the front door, exchange your shoes for slippers, and walk inside, you can't help but gasp in surprise at what you find. Instead of a regular roof, the building is covered with a tarpaulin sheet, much like what covers a domed sports stadium. The thin roofing material lets in a lot of natural light, and it feels as you walk through the building as if you are in the covered courtyard of a big residential compound. The students frolic on the wooden floors in sneakers, running, jumping, sitting, lying down. Students are relaxed and there's a certain kind of warm atmosphere that they might not even find in their own homes.

The classrooms at Yung'an are not divided into a single room per class, as at regular schools. Instead, the students gather in what is known in the field as "class spaces," which measure some 40 by 20 meters. Movable partitions are used to divide the class spaces into smaller units. The four bigger units on the inside serve as classrooms. A wide aisle runs down the middle. On the outside, next to the brick walkway, there are cupboards, coat racks, a row of computers, and shelves full of books. Between classes and during recess, the children gather round the computers to surf the Internet and play games. Pinned to the partitions are drawings, essays, and other works done by the students in class. Every student has a chance to put his or her work on display.

Breaking with spatial conventions

Yung'an Elementary School principal Hsu Ming-chin played a key role in the school's design and construction, taking part from the very earliest planning stages: "Yung'an is the first school in Taiwan to be designed to conserve big open spaces." In keeping with the recommendation of the Education Reform Committee to limit the size of newly built schools to 48 classes, the six grades at Yung'an have eight classes each. Within each grade, the eight classes are divided into two "class groups," A and B.

Says Hsu: "You have to totally rearrange your space before you can break away from old thinking habits and free up people's minds." The concept of open education is not completely new in Taiwan. Some local governments are already promoting it, urging schools to stop "lining up kids in rows, just like so many pegs in so many holes," and encouraging them to rearrange their classroom space to meet the unique needs of each student. In open education, the more gifted students might, for example, sit quietly reading in a corner while the teacher teaches class. In the meantime, relatively slow learners could also break away from the rest of the class for special tutoring.

Though open education has been around a while already, Yung'an has gone a step further with its "class group" idea, with four classes sharing the same open space. In most schools, each classroom is like a kingdom unto itself, but such kingdoms will never exist at Yung'an. The four homeroom teachers in a single class group have to coordinate with each other all the time and build up a strong group spirit. In the process, the children in the class group also come to identify with each other as a group, and they learn how to respect each other.

The establishment of class groups at Yung'an is fortuitously timed, for a tremendous amount of work must be done to implement the nine-year integrated curriculum that the Ministry of Education launched last September.

According to Huang Ling-ling, director of academic affairs at Yung'an: "During regular class time, the students in the four different classes stay in the area that's been partitioned off for their class. While there, they read, write, do math, and the like, without interfering in whatever's going on in the other classes. But the new nine-year integrated curriculum leaves 20% of the curriculum for each school to develop on its own, and when we teach the courses that we've developed ourselves, the students in a single class group all gather together and our teachers team up to teach them."

Making tests fun

From the very start, Yung'an has served as an experimental school for the nine-year integrated curriculum. Taiwan's textbook publishers are now hard at work compiling textbooks for the integrated curriculum, but they have only finished with the first grade so far. The teachers at Yung'an, however, started working long ago to create an integrated curriculum of their own. Using existing textbooks as reference, they have already developed several integrated textbooks for the second and third grades.

At the second-grade level, for example, teachers last semester used three different textbooks (When We're Together; Teacher, I Blew Up the Money; and Whiz Kids) compiled at Yung'an for thematic teaching involving entire class groups.

Teachers spent six weeks and 30 classroom hours using a thematic approach to present When We're Together, which cleverly blends many different subjects into a single lesson plan. Math was presented in such units as "Count 'em Up," "Adding and Subtracting," and "I Know How Many Fives There Are Here." Science came out in "The Sun's Shadow" and "I Heard a Noise." Social studies were covered by "When We're Together" and "Which of These Are Organizations?" The information presented in these fun units was the type that students could go out and find useful in their daily lives. And final tests took the form of fun challenges, in which kids were required, for example, to deduce the shape of an object from its shadow, encode and decode messages sent to each other on their own handmade cup-and-string intercoms, etc.

With this kind of integrated curriculum, the teachers in a class group can decide for each unit whether it is best to teach to classes separately or to use team teaching. Each of the four teachers has the option of designing special activities to take advantage of his or her expertise in a particular subject.

The nine-year curriculum stresses the importance of diversity and integration. As mentioned above, to give schools and teachers an appropriate degree of input to curriculum development, the Ministry of Education has decided to leave 20% of the curriculum for schools and teachers to develop on their own. Yung'an has responded with units entitled "Learning About Yung'an" and "Mingshui Time." They are something that Principal Hsu takes special pride in.

Putting kids in the driver's seat

"Learning About Yung'an" encourages students to go out and learn about everything in the school's vicinity. They can choose one of four categories: stores, buildings, plants, and logos. Once they have made their choices, the teacher provides them guidance, giving tips about good ways to research their subject. "Mingshui Time" does basically the same thing, but gives the students complete freedom to learn about whatever they want, wherever they choose.

Says Hsu: "Teachers in the past have always had complete control over the learning process. The student was simply expected to shut up and passively absorb whatever was presented." Time is now arranged more flexibly, however, and Yung'an allows children to make their own choices. At certain times of the day, if they just want to draw comic strips or practice the high jump, that's okay. The teacher just roams the class space offering comments and suggestions. At the end of the semester, each student shows the others what he or she has achieved. Hsu adds with a laugh, however, that some students have gotten too accustomed to the old passive style of learning, and can't think of anything to do. Teachers have to give encouragement and suggestions in those cases.

Parents are thrilled to see their loved ones learning in such a happy environment. A Mrs. Li, who has kids in the second and fourth grades, reports that after her fourth-grade son transferred in from another school, his attitude toward school changed dramatically once he discovered that at Yung'an he would be allowed to choose what to study and present reports in front of the class. The days at his old school, by contrast, were an endless succession of tests.

Of course, the top priority of education is learning, not being happy, and Mrs. Li was not sure at first that her son was getting the best education. She wondered what in the world he could actually be learning as he ran around with a big grin on his face taking classes outdoors, baking waffles, and cooking soup. But she eventually discovered that while her son's reading ability was a bit weak, he showed much more creativity in his personal affairs, and had developed a pretty good sense of rhythm.

Mrs. Li has become a true believer, and perhaps it is true, as she now says, that "in teaching children, you have to focus on their long-term development, not worry yourself to death over their latest test scores." Her main headache now is what she's hearing from recent Yung'an graduates who have just entered junior high school. They complain that all they do now is take tests every day and memorize things. It seems a great shame to her that students who have known the quality of Yung'an will end up going back to the old system.

"I just wish the happy atmosphere of Yung'an could also be integrated throughout the nine years of compulsory education," says Mrs. Li. Amen, brother! She is probably speaking for parents everywhere.

p.027

Fun learning activities with a connection to real life can prompt children to show initiative. These children have done some major brainstorming to put on a fun "koala bear party."

p.028

Some "class groups" combine four classes into one big group, freeing up teachers to think outside of old boxes and teach more creatively.