The Curriculum Renewal at Mt. Dadu

From the university, the community to integrated operation, three faces to promote The Curriculum Renewal at Mt. Dadu. Continuously bonding Tunghai University and Dadu community’s cooperative relationship. Also, by connecting Szu-Chen Junior High School, Long Fong Elementary School, and Ruei Fong Elementary School, combine with nonprofit organizations and local businesses, based on develop local innovative teaching activities.

Local artisan Expo is how we connect local resources, start up new milestone for junior high school and elementary school. The first Expo was on May 2019, we already had 3 sessions, and every session we had around 400 people participating. The goal for the kids on Dadu Mt. is through actual teaching and participating, which provides more chances for them to increase their interest for their future development and career exploration. The Expo invited all the local craftsmen include shadow puppet, woodworking, pottery creation, instrument performing, clay art, brass products, flower art, tea art, coffee making, and local rice products, all kinds of professionals as one day teacher. Together, they lead the students to experience local businesses, and also share their skills and life attitude to them. Many of the craftsmen already participated many times, they are very supportive about the concept of this event and willing to continue participating in the future. While the craftsmen sharing their experiences to the kids, it also inspired them. Learning is not just rigid knowledge; the professionals’ interest and skills are also the key to their success. We believe if we keep the Expo going, it would change the kids and their parents thinking, not just focusing on the knowledges but combine with interest and skills.

Director of academic affairs from Szu-Chen Junior High School once said, ”Tunghai USR is building real bond with local craftsmen. Let the school teachers realize maybe it’s not that hard to join the local community. By having new connections and views, revisit their classes, and identify local value, it’s a gentle but firm energy to spawn the School-decided Curriculum -- Sizhuang story, a course that connects our students to the land they live in.” As you can see, through the Expo, the local resource network that we built impacts the course creativity among three schools. Moreover, we witnessed the local professionals, who located in the same area but not knowing each other’s existence, by participating this event, they start to know one another’s specialties and values, which also established a consensus on local development, and even stimulated an innovative idea for cooperation and alliance. Holding on to this point encouraged us to dig deeper and wider about local values in the future.

Images can concatenate individuals and groups’ lives and memories. We encourage the elders to share their memories by conducting an event “Our Home: Mt. Dadu – The Series of Old Photos” We hope to collect old photos that have histories, cultural customs, and special meanings to gather up memories about Mt. Dadu for the record. We went to several local activity centers, collected over 200 old photos, letting the elder’s become storytellers. There are ancestors wearing costumes in the early years sitting in front of the temple and taking pictures, little girls were riding bikes passing through traditional old clay house, and workers working in the sugarcane field. The buildings, landscapes, costumes, and events we see via the photos, brings them back to the Mt. Dadu they used to live in. Which also took us back to their memories. The storytellers sometimes show delightful tone while sharing, sometimes whispering with regret, and our mood gets up and down with it, this was a very beautiful, and very emotional collecting process. We plan to continue collecting these stories from the community and via sharing sessions. Also, keep cooperating with local schools to design relative courses, letting the kids appreciate the engraved timeline in the past on Mt. Dadu, and leading them to create their own future chapter.