After teaching art at the Tainan School for the Deaf for 23 years, Pan Yuan-shih has earned a reputation among his friends for being reticent. He himself recalls how once after eating at a roadside noodle stall, he noticed the Proprietor gesture toward him with five raised fingers. Pan was puzzled for a moment until he realized he must pay five New Taiwan Dollars for his meal. Pan's apparent difficulties stem from the fact that as he taught deaf students over the years, his voice has gradually become lower and lower. In class, since the students can read his lips or follow his gestures, he only needs to speak loudly enough to hear the words himself. When he first started teaching, Pan was disturbed by the noise made by his deaf students. He could not sleep at night as it kept coming back to his mind. Now things have changed, and the noise even makes him feel happy. The transformation did not occur easily, however. Pan entered the field of teaching the deaf after he graduated from the Taiwan Normal School in 1955, as one of the best students, and with a top prize in a painting competition for senior high school students. When Chu Hui-sun, principal of his school and now minister for education, heard there was a vacancy at the Tainan School for the Deaf, he recommended Pan for the job. Today, he has become so engrossed in teaching deaf students that he fells ill at ease in a gathering of normal people. Pan explained: "A family with a deaf child changes in many aspects. If the parents spoil a child because of a physical handicap, it might become hot-tempered, selfish and aggressive. If they feel the child is a burden, and if it is disliked by brothers and sisters, it will become suspicious, shy, diffident and solitary.

Either development might lead to delinquency." In view of these problems, Pan takes pains to understand a deaf child's character, the things that cause distress, and physical and mental needs. This is the only way to win a pupil's confidence and friendship, and is the key to a teacher's success. The teacher's task is therefore not limited to imparting knowledge. He must also provide fatherly love and brotherly friendship. Pan likes to tell a story to illustrate his point. Once in his class, there was a pretty girl, whose father came to school complaining bitterly about a note she had left which blamed him for her condition. In particular she complained that her inability to hear would bar her from entering college. The father's tears revealed the hurt he understandably felt. Pan summoned the girl and assured her that any aspiring girl, whatever her handicap, could enter a college in Taiwan. The Ministry of Education holds special examinations every year to admit handicapped students to art departments of two colleges, hesaid ressured and full of remorse, the girl left another note apologizing to her father. Art lessons are very important to deaf students, who need to express their feelings, thoughts and emotions with drawings. The teacher, in turn learns to understand his pupils through what they commit to paper, and uses this insight to cultivate their imagination, observation powers, intellect and organizational abilities. These qualities are often not well developed in deaf students. One quality in which they do excel, however, is patience, and nowhere is this more clearly shown than in their artistic endeavors. They can concentrate on their work for one and a half hours without stopping. Nevertheless, Pan often changes his teaching methods and subjects to sustain this concentration. When deaf children finish the day's classes, they are free to go out and play. "Normal discipline is too harsh for deaf students. The teacher must be patient and retain his sense of humer at all times, otherwise the children will not trust him, and the communications gap will grow," Pan explained. Pan often enters his students' works in local and international art contests. His motive is not to win prizes or glorify his teaching methods, but only to show that handicapped students are in no way inferior to normal students, so as to build up their confidence. Nevertheless, Pan's students have won major prizes in contests held in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, West Germany, Venezuela, India, Italy and Hong Kong. One of Taiwan's most noted painters Lu Nan-chou, testifies to the success of Pan's methods. "I owe it to my teacher that I was able to overcome my inferiority complex. When I was studying under Pan Yuan-shih in Tainan, he entered one of my paintings in an exhibition, and I won a prize. This increased my confidence in my work and encouraged me to make greater efforts. As a result I was able to enrol in the National Junior College of Arts." During his 23-year career, Pan has always made a point of never losing his temper in front of his students. This is not because he is naturally cool-tempered but because he realizes that any show of anger or irritation would make the pupils feel he held them in contempt, and further erode their already fragile self-confidence. Recently, Pan has increasingly tried to interest his deaf students in the art of woodcuts, which he says is an ideal outlet for their emotions, and dispels the feeling of loneliness. He noted that the eye sight of deaf students is usually more well developed than that of hearing students, and they easily form the habit of noting facial expressions and gestures. As a result, their art often exaggerates these two aspects of human behavier. They have difficulty in expressing an imaginary subject, such as outer space adventure, however. Their imagination is inhibited by their lack of confidence, Pan explained, but they are bolder and more primitive in their use of color. Pan also discovered that deaf students have little concept of time, and have problems looking back into the past or into the future. They also tend to miss out such soundassociated things as ears, loudspeakers, radios, telephones and phonographs, which have little significance to them. Eight out of l5 pupils would forget the ears in drawing a human face, he estimated. Taiwan's schools for the deaf are well equipped. The music rooms are carpeted so as to deaden the sound deaf students unwittingly made with their feet. Of the 703 students in the Tainan school, only 158 were totally deaf, a survey conducted in 1976 showed. The school's music classroom is therefore equipped with an electric organ connected to earphone amplifiers placed on each student's head. The teacher nods his head every time a student makes a correct sound. In the school's kindergarten, special emphasis is placed on teaching children to acquire the ability toutter some kind of sound. This is because if a child is taught only with gestures, it will always rely on them. The child will therefore always be enclosed in a world which it cannot escape, and which no one else can enter. When Pan first started his career, he found education for the deaf and dumb was neglected, and that teachers and facilities were inadequate. Recently, however, the situation has changed, and the government has allocated more money and often sends inspectors to the school. Of the three schools for the deaf in Taiwan, the one in Tainan is the oldest, dating back 86 years. Pan also works at a rehabilitation center for the mentally retarded, some of whom suffer from Mongolism. The center, located in Tainan, is operated by an American Catholic priest, Father Brendan O'Connell. In spite of all his duties, Pan still finds time to spend with his family. Mrs. Pan is a devout Catholic who works hard to promote her religion, while their five-year-old daughter is planning to follow in her father's footsteps to serve handicapped children. The dedicated teacher once told visitors: "It is very important for a person to have a happy childhood. I intend to work hard to ensure that my students are not deprived, so they will have the courage to face the challenges of adult life.