Yuguang's little hosts
The study-tour students clearly benefit from their visit to Yuguang, but what about the school's own students and teachers?
After allowing for free visits by academics receiving training and students from special schools, the program's 40,000 participants over the past four-years have generated surprisingly high revenues of NT$6-7 million. But once you deduct the cost of faculty and staff salaries, souvenirs, lunches, and the tea museum's entry fees, little of the tuition money (NT$300 per person) remains. Nonetheless, this has been enough to compile course materials, construct the school's ecology classroom, maintain the footpaths, and build wood-floored dormitories, making Yuguang's own students the program's biggest beneficiaries.
The process of systematizing the curriculum and leading the groups of visiting students has been a spur to teachers who previously lacked a sense of achievement. Huang Hung-chih, a graduate of the Institute of Marine Resources at National Sun Yat-sen University, taught for a time at a well-known urban cram school, but strongly disliked its exclusive focus on getting students promoted to the next level of study. After receiving his teaching certification, Huang visited a number of innovative small schools before finally choosing to put down roots at the pastoral Yuguang.
"If there's even just one or two kids in a tour group whose eyes shine with curiosity," says Huang, "you feel as if your every sentence takes on greater meaning."
The study tours also give local kids and visitors a chance to check each other out.
"One time, a Public Television Service crew was out here taping a show," says Huang, "and when the host went to rest his hand on a student's shoulder, I noticed that the student dodged away." Huang realized that the paucity of kids at the school and their limited contact with the "outside" world had made them shy and reserved. Since the study tour program has gotten underway, Yuguang's students have become so much more comfortable greeting guests that they now boldly introduce themselves with name cards. Scrambling along the old footpath talking about the insects, the kids have discovered something they're good at and gained confidence in themselves.
"The city kids are like chickens raised in a coop," laughs one of the children bouncing down the slope on the old footpath leading down to the creek. "But we're local free-range chickens!"
Yuguang has won any number of awards over the last few years, including MOE awards for the effective use of resources and for being a national leader in campus innovations, as well as two major educational awards in 2004, one for additions to the curriculum and the other for educational excellence.
This September Yuguang, which is hardly more than a ten-minute drive from Pinglin Primary, will enroll only two new students. In consideration of this, the Taipei County Department of Education has decided to incorporate Yuguang into Pinglin Primary. When all of Yuguang's current students graduate in six years, the school will close.
Parents and the local township representative have reacted sharply to the news. Yuguang PTA chairman Liu Chih-shih brought his two children back to Yuguang from Taipei because he approved of the school's educational philosophy. Now, alarmed and reluctant to see the school closed, he says, "Pinglin's population has been moving away. If the school goes, young people are going to be even less interested in moving back here."
"In any case," says Huang Hung-chih, "we'll continue to promote the study tour program." Huang, who came to Yuguang filled with idealism, says that the teachers have gotten past the question of whether the school remains open. With Yuguang entering its twilight, they want to be sure that the memory of its light lingers on in the hearts of its students.
In spite of its wide renown, Yuguang Elementary is to be closed in six years. In the brief time left to it, the school's students and teachers will do their best to ensure that its memory lingers.