Taiwan Church News
3224 Edition
December 9 – December 15, 2013
Church Ministry News
Beauty and Sadness of The Aboriginal Tribal School
Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong
In the evening of December 5th, “Beauty and Sadness of The Aboriginal Tribal School”, a conference hosted by Indigenous Research and Development Center of National Taiwan Normal University, was introduced to the Taiwan public about the amazing birth and struggling problems of the aboriginal tribal schools. Representatives of three major tribal schools were invited to talk about the situation and challenges encountered during their daily run of the tribal school education.
Mr. Dilu, representative of Cilangasan tribal school in the Amis, remarked that tribal school whose education ideal emphasizing mutual respect would not classify students in performance or social class as the mainstream education got used to be. Nearly 60% students of the tribal school were deemed as problematic ones from the current education standard. Dilu commented that the development of tribal school would make up for the inadequacy of contemporary education in personal characters.
Mr. Yen Chen-ren, Principal of Da-Wu-San tribal school in the Paiwan, insisted his students use the indigenous languages to experience and learn from the elders at the outdoor environments. He pointed out, only through the subjectiveness of the aboriginal mind trained in the tribal school, that the advantages of the plural characteristics can be developed. And this would be beneficial for the children of the aboriginal tribe in promoting their social competition.
Akawyan Pakawyan, Principal of Wreath tribal school in the Puyuma, remarked the purpose of establishing tribal school is to revive the traiditoinal spirit and preserve the language assets. Especially, the aboriginal used to comply the codes of etiquette, the tribal school can help to restore a society of good manners. She also suggested the miscellaneous details of public administration, like official document, files and finance, could be committed to a professional council. And then, each tribe could focus on the proper education passing the correct knowledge of the forebears to the next generation.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
With the other two tribal school representatives, Akawyan Pakawyan, Principal of Wreath tribal school in Puyuma shared the story and expectation of her tribal school.
Photo by Chiu Kuo-rong
