On January 25, the DENER service team came to Tan Nan Elementary School in Nantou County for teaching services. Tan Nan Elementary School is surrounded by mountains and located in a tribe in Xinyi Township. Most of the children belong to the Bunun tribe, and the school was full of traditional totems. The children’s enthusiasm and liveliness were all on their faces. In this sunny morning, the world cultural exploration was kicked off by teacher Liu Peng and teacher Wei Chen. A series of games allowed the children to quickly play with the seed teachers, everyone was immersed in this joyful atmosphere.
In the first class, teacher LIU PENG led the picture book “A Busy Santa Claus”. The book introduces Santa’s one-year schedule. Teacher Liu Peng also shared unique animals from all over the world in addition to the reindeers and reminded children to protect and love animals.
The afternoon was the world exploration class; the children were divided into northern and southern hemisphere teams to explore their respective national cultures. This experience was divided into food culture and dance style. We hope through different aspects of activities, children would have a deep understanding of foreign cultures. Teacher Yi Ting led the Northern Hemisphere team to tour United Kingdom, explaining in detail to the children from the geographical location, the composition of the national flag to the representative costumes. Then teacher Yi Ting led the children to dance traditional British highland dance.
Teacher Jing Rong took the team from the southern hemisphere to the Brazilian rain forest. After a brief introduction of Brazil history, Teacher Jing Rong let the children to experience Brazilian food culture. In the class, we learned how to make coffee by hand and made burritos.
The picture book “Green Festival” was led by teacher Hui An. Teacher Hui An introduced the special festivals of countries around the world to the children, and the children seemed to be very involved in it. In addition, the teacher also taught the importance of environmental protection. Encouraged the children express their creativity by using torn paper paintings, but also understand the meaning of re-use.
The next class was led by teacher Wei Chen. The main reading for this course was “OLYMPICS”. In addition to teaching Olympics-related knowledge, teacher Wei Chen also arranged physical education classes for the children.
In the afternoon’s world exploration class, the northern hemisphere team made their own fruit cakes; the southern hemisphere team danced samba with feather crowns.
On January 27th, we were temporarily notified that the Xinyi Township would experience power outage. Living in a remote mountainous area, we could only adapt and adjust our teaching strategies. Even the environmental conditions are not so convenient, the children’s reading was still in order. Their laugh and applauses were the most powerful electricity. The morning’s class was led by teacher Yi Ting and teacher Zhi Ping, they teached the picture book “MISS RUMPHIUS”. From the terms in the book to understanding of national flowers of various countries, the seed teachers used clever phrases to help children.
The last class was led by teacher Zi Hua, she shared Western table manners with the children. Teacher led the picture book “French Queen’s Dinner.” She used the special knives, forks and plates made by cardboard to learn the different dining cultures, teaching them how to fold paper towels. In this way, we spent a day full of energy without lights and multimedia equipment.
Finally, at the end of the teachings, two teams took to the stage. The children would express what they have learned in an image and a few short sentences. In just twenty minutes of sharing, although the children seemed a little timid when they were on stage, we all knew that they had taken a lot of courageous to step toward the future.
In addition to sharing the knowledge that they learned in the course, there were also true confession from children. “Teacher, I hope you can come back to see us. We will not forget you, and you must not forget us. You should come back again and you should miss us!” Many seed teachers’ eyes suddenly reddened and forgot the tiredness felt during these days. We knew the children now had a broader vision; we also believe they have drawn the world in their minds.
Education is so marvelous. It allows two groups of people who did not meet before, come together and have a brilliant experience together. We were teachers, but we too, were learning all the time.
