Father unknown, a troublemaker at school, sent to a reformatory at 13 for stealing from neighbors, in and out of correctional institutions ever since; over half his short life has been spent in custody. . . . The most worrying aspects of Chen Chin-hsing's profile are not those that make it unique, but those that are all too familiar. But are hard-case delinquent children really "born bad," or even "devils incarnate"?

For front-line educators, the Chen Chin-hsing case strikes many chords. For example, Kuting Middle School principal Mai Jan-mei says that in her long teaching career she has seen many children reminiscent of the young Chen Chin-hsing.

Sorting them out with her fists

Sixteen-year-old Chang Li-ping (not her real name), now in her third year at the school, is an example: her close-cropped hair, rasping, boyish voice and large, rough hands with prominent joints all suggest an age and experience beyond her actual years-only her smile, which shows her eye teeth, still reveals a hint of girlish vivaciousness and gentleness.

But a year ago, Chang Li-ping never smiled. At that time she was so full of anger and hatred that she was like a ball pumped up ready to burst, and as touchy as an irascible porcupine, ready to start a fight at the slightest provocation, imagined or otherwise. Even in primary school, Li-ping was a gang leader feared by all the other children, with a long record of fights, troublemaking, running away from home and truancy. Anyone could easily pick out her sullen and prematurely old-looking face from among the other children in her year.

On Christmas Eve a year ago, someone went to the teppanyaki restaurant where she was working part-time and warned her they would "sort her out." Angry at them speaking like this in front of her boss, which she thought might get her the sack, Li-ping took a knife and some friends and went looking for the other person to have it out with them. In the ensuing fight the person hit Li-ping on the head with a motorcycle lock, almost killing her.

Wouldn't a girl be afraid to go looking for revenge armed with a long knife? When she had a big gash knocked in the back of her head, with her blood gushing out, the world moving in slow motion and the suddenly amplified sound of her heartbeat and breathing ringing in her ears, she didn't want go to a hospital because to save money she hadn't bought health insurance. Meanwhile her friends were trying to staunch her bleeding while at the same time shaking her and shouting at her for all they were worth so as not to let her pass out. . . . When Li-ping thinks back to that moment she still feels an icy grip on her heart. Nonetheless she says: "What's there to be scared of in dying? If someone hurt you or your family, wouldn't you put your life on the line?"

For Li-ping, her family is the most sensitive and painful of subjects. After she was born, her call-girl mother, who did not know who the father was, gave her to her own mother to take care of. As a small child, Li-ping lived with her grandmother, who looked after gambling dens. They lived first in Sanchung and then in Panchiao, and Li-ping passed her early childhood in dimly lit, rowdy places. She had no fear of the rough atmosphere of the gambling dens, but she could not abide the sneering looks of the neighbors, and their veiled or open taunts: "Where's your daddy then?" "Who's your mum sleeping with today?" "When I was little I could pretend I didn't understand or I didn't know, but once I was older I couldn't pretend any more, so I had to sort them out with my fists!"

Brought back by love

The change in Li-ping started after she was caught demanding money with menaces. Not long after the Christmas revenge attack, Li-ping's mother, who had been down-and-out since getting divorced, rang up to ask Li-ping's grandmother for money. Li-ping didn't want her Gran, who is in her seventies, to worry, nor did she want her uncle and cousin to have yet another reason to go listing her mother's faults, so she decided to raise the money herself. She tried to forcibly "borrow" from a schoolmate, but when she came to collect the money, the police were lying in wait for her, having been alerted by her schoolmate's father, and they took her into custody. The stir surrounding the affair alerted school principal Mai Jan-mei, and after learning the facts of the case, she tried to intervene on Li-ping's behalf. But the father accused her of taking Li-ping's side and trying to cover up the facts, and he even complained to his city councillor.

"I told him not to insist on his pound of flesh. This child already had a long history of trouble: was he really going to add another item to the list and get her sent to prison so that she would always have a criminal record?" Mai Jan-mei is distressed when children do wrong, but it grieves her even more that many adults are too mean to give a child a second chance. "I said: 'This child already doesn't care if she lives or dies, and if we give her another hundred demerits it will make no difference; but if we are willing to stretch out both arms to support her, then she'll be scared, and she'll start to rethink things.'"

Mai Jan-mei believes that beating, scolding and giving demerits only drives children further away. Only love can bring them back onto the right path. If you wait until they are fully grown, when their characters are set and their habits ingrained, it will be even harder to get them to change their ways. In the Chen Chin-hsing case, when she saw Chen's letters to the media, she was shaken.

"When Chen Chin-hsing was 13, he got into trouble with the law and dropped out of school. But look, in prison he practiced calligraphy and his handwriting is beautiful; what he writes is very clear and articulate too." Every child has some good points, and if we can guide their development, then even if they are no great success in life, at least they won't turn bad and be a menace to society. For instance, though Chang Li-ping has two major demerits on her school record, she also has two major merits and two minor merits, because she is captain of the school tug-of-war and athletics teams, and a very good athlete. Mai Jan-mei encourages her to do her best to develop this talent.

Who will take their burden?

But bad luck always to seems to follow Li-ping. With the extortion case only just behind her, in March of last year at a Taipei City middle schools' sports meet, she was hit full in the face by a discus, which broke her nose and tore the muscles in her face. The blood covered Li-ping's eyes and at the time she was terrified she had been blinded. During her two-hour operation, Li-ping was worried and apprehensive, praying and even wondering if this was retribution for her evil ways.

This injury gave Li-ping the time for some quiet reflection. Her teachers' concern and visits, the way they took her to the hospital for her checkups, the NT$2000 a month they gave her to help her get by, and the way even some schoolmates she hardly knew came to visit her at her home, a rented sheet-metal shack on the roof of a five-story building, gave her cause to reflect on things and to be grateful. "With so many people helping me and taking care of me, I mustn't go causing trouble again."

At 16 she is still a child, and this kind of warmth was enough to soften her heart. In the hope of getting back to school a little sooner, Li-ping put ice on her swollen face all day. Although she now had scars on her face, what people noticed more was the smile they had never seen before. Since then she has spent less time with the friends she used to knock around with, and even sometimes tells them: "Never mind if you don't go to school, but at least you should get a job!" She herself finds this rather ridiculous: "My friends all say, 'Do us a favor! When did you start being so sensible? It's frightening!' But I say only a real friend would tell them that."

But Li-ping's injury dashed her hopes of getting into senior high school on the strength of her athletic achievements, and recently she has been thinking of dropping out of school to get a job. "I might as well start earning money as soon as I can, so in the future I can open my own business"-this is what she thinks about all day.

"This society is very materialistic. If you have money they don't care what you did before, they're just jealous of the money you have now." Li-ping, who despite her young years says she "used to be so thoughtless-always asking Gran for money to buy food," long ago realized how shallow human affection can be. But if she drops out of school and goes to work, what will she be able to do in life with only an elementary school certificate? How will she earn all that money? At these words from Mai Jan-mei, Li-ping answers drily: "Miss, if you had so many things on your mind, would you be able to go on studying?" "This child is so outspoken!" says Mai Jan-mei with heartache.

Adapt the school to the child!

Li-ping would not be the first child Mai Jan-mei has seen drop out of junior high school to go to work. On the bus during the pre-graduation trip last winter holiday, a worried teacher told her that a child in her class named Kai-hung (not his real name) skipped school so often that he was going to get a negative score for behavior. Kai-hung's father had had a stroke, his mother had walked out, and every evening he went to work in a KTV parlor, where he earned NT$8000 a month. Immersed in a nightlife of singing and dancing, he had no interest at all in his school work.

If a child doesn't want to study, how can he be attracted back to school? Later Mai Jan-mei found out that Kai-hung liked to play the guitar and sing, and it so happened that the chairperson of Kuting Middle School's parent-teacher association owned a musical instruments shop. So Mai asked him if he couldn't come up with something. Soon afterwards a guitar club was started up at the school; this gave Kai-hung somewhere he liked to go, so he gradually became more willing to come to school.

Mai Jan-mei recalls that at the time she urged Kai-hung to give up his job altogether to concentrate on his studies, but Kai-hung said: "Miss, it's not worth it. My grades are so bad I'll never graduate. Why should I go to class?" But to give him some encouragement, Mai Jan-mei told him that under Ministry of Education regulations, any pupil who gets an overall pass grade in the second semester of third-year junior high can graduate. Kai-hung got the message and worked hard for a whole term. When he received his junior high school graduation certificate, he was over the moon.

"A certificate may not mean so much to most children, but to many kids who believed they were certain dropouts and failures, it means a great deal, and it can change their whole outlook on life!" says Mai Jan-mei.

Turning back the tide

To bring children back to the straight and narrow, an educator must be able to use both gentle and firm methods. Some years ago, Mai Jan-mei was director of guidance at another Taipei middle school, located in one of the city's most infamous criminal areas. At that time some pupils formed a gang and began causing trouble. They padded their left shoulders up high and went around the school terrorizing the other children; even teachers didn't dare mess with them.

"But something had to be done," so Mai Jan-mei asked the principal and the director of discipline to get the local neighborhood chief to invite a gangland boss and some of his men for a meal. These were all frightening-looking characters with scars on their faces, but after the teachers had told them what they wanted, they were moved by their sincerity and agreed to make sure that "on the school grounds, school rules apply." Not only would they give no support to the troublemaking pupils, they would even help to bring them under control. The gangland boss said something which Mai Jan-mei remembers to this day: "If we'd had a principal and directors who cared so much about us back when we were at school, we wouldn't be where we are today!"

Some say that with families and society in such a mess, if outside conditions are not improved, then just educating children at school is no use. But Mai Jan-mei does not agree.

"However bad things are outside, when my pupils enter the school grounds I want them to have the loving care of their teachers and have scope for development suitable to their needs. If we could do that, how would there be any Chen Chin-hsings?" she asks.

p.127

Beating, scolding and demerits only drive children further away; only love can bring them back onto the right path. Li-ping is grateful for Mai Jan-mei's loving concern.

p.129

Can the sun shine into the darkness of the back alleys? Children growing up in a difficult environment need the care and concern of their teachers even more.