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Lin, Terry (林泰立)
The quiet pause of the staunch classroom air. I wait. She opens her mouth slightly but immediately catches herself. She can do it, yet she does not want to. The vein on her throat throbs intermittently, resonating her unabashed fear. I wait. A guttural sound rips through the quiet repose bringing discord and heightening the anticipation of the others... The others. Countless days of being shunned by the others have relegated her to this state. Yet, I believe she can do it. The mouth opens again, willful to speak. I wait. "Platypus" oscillates throughout the classroom, chilling the dark smirks of her classmates. I allow myself a gleeful smile to celebrate- she had finally done it.
When I first began my registration for AID, I honestly did not know what to expect. Looking through the website, it seemed like something out of a Taiwanese movie. A group of kids going rock climbing, a group of kids going to the zoo, a group of kids going to the night market. Coming from a more "white-washed" background than the traditional Taiwanese American background, I generally was more used to a demographically white environment. But all of this changed when I joined AID. I began a journey back to Taiwan to help develop my student's grasp of English, yet also to understand my Taiwanese ancestry.
Arriving in my classroom early for the first day of school at 8:30, I was surprised to see that all of the students were already in the desks chatting with each other. Within seconds of my arrival, I was greeted with a reverberating wave of "Good Morning Teacher". A rare sight to be found in America. A quick round of Icebreakers followed and slowly established a harmonic classroom dynamic between the students and the teachers. Then she walked in. A quiet girl of small stature, Sandra, was escorted in by the local teacher who explained that she was late due to car problems. Who knew what a wave of problems would wash in with her. During the next few days, she promptly refused to talk to anyone, teacher or student. The class quickly cast her off from the rest of the group, and she remained in her own corner of the room. However as the program moved into the second week, I began to see a gradual change within her as if a beautiful miracle was at action. With my continued advances, she began to talk and even open up to me. The rare smile from her kept me going through difficult moments of teaching and made me feel that volunteering here was worthwhile. And when she finally spoke the answer to a simple review question on the test, the program's benefits reached a peak. One simple little answer captured the complex answer that I had been looking for since the program started.
So if you are thinking of applying to AID, open your mind and I promise you will discover things you had not known before. So thank you AID for all of the life lessons you have taught me.
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Wu, Patrick (吳柏杰)
In the beginning, when I signed up for the AID Summer 2012 in Taiwan, I expected a good time but what I received from these four blessed weeks in AID Summer 2012 was more than a good time, it was one of the most profound, invaluable, exceptional experiences in my life that I was grateful to partake in. The first week staying in Chientan Youth Activity Center was both informative and pleasant. I learned many new tactics to teach my students and also formed many everlasting friendships with the other counselors, teachers, and staff there. The second and third week involved my teaching at Da-Xi Elementary School in Yilan. I taught first graders at the elementary school. Not only did my first graders learn many English words and other essential things, I also learned many things from the first graders. The administrators at the school were both benevolent and helpful to guide us through our two weeks. The last week at the AID Summer 2012 camp was bliss. I was grateful to visit many renowned locations in Taiwan. Leaving the AID Summer 2012 was one of the hardest moments that I had to endure, I missed the wonderful times I had during my stay and I will never forget the impact that this camp has made in my life.
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Lin, Julia (林竹俐)
Going into the program, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I was really hesitant at first. Was I going to be able to survive so long away from my family in rural Taiwan? I thought that AIDSummer would be just another summer program, but it has made one of the biggest impacts on my life.
The first week at Chientan was interesting to say the least. I met so many new friends, like my roommates, teaching group, and table teacher. Although we were from different places, we bonded right away and had so much fun getting to know each other.
Despite all the jokes and laughing, we were soon faced with the challenge of teaching english to elementary kids. During the first week, my teaching partner and I worked to create a suitable teaching plan. Luckily, my teaching partner had done the program the year before so we had a better idea of what level of english to expect from the kids.
The next two weeks at An Si Elementary School were full of challenges but were also two amazing weeks. When we first arrived, we were in for a huge culture shock. The first night, we did everything from joking around and getting to know people at our school to screaming our heads off from seeing lizards, frogs, and bugs everywhere! However, after several days we learned to deal with things and became accustomed to the living arrangements. The teachers and students at the school were amazing. They were so welcoming and made us feel at home.
My teaching partner and I faced a lot of challenges when it came to teaching the kids. It seemed like everything we taught was going in one ear and out the other. At first the kids were so unresponsive and we had to continuously come up with new games and songs to keep our class interested and to get them to participate. After a few days, we got to know the kids better. They became much more comfortable around us and began coming up to us during breaks to ask us how to say various things in english.
It seemed like we had finally gotten used to teaching and being with our kids when the two weeks were over.
Being given the chance to teach my kids for two weeks was an unbelievable experience.
Looking back at the last month, I was able to learn so much from not only my teaching group and the teachers, but most importantly my students. All of the people I worked with over the last month were so amazing and this program has become one of the best experiences of my life.
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Wang, Christina (王詩婷)
I am Christina Wang from Houston, Texas. I am currently 16 years old and I loved AID Summer. Despite being one of the youngest volunteers in the program, I felt like I blended right in with the other volunteers. Everyone here is so friendly and talented, and over the course of the program I have created a strong bond with my teaching group and many other volunteers. During the 2 weeks of teaching, I made a difference in the children's lives even though sometimes I felt as if what I was teaching went in one ear and came out the other. I thank AID Summer for opening my eyes to Taiwanese culture and giving me everlasting friendships.
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Chow, Sabrina (鄒佩吟)
Before coming to AID summer, I was extremely terrified of the conditions I'd be in. Would the schools have air conditioning? Where would we shower? Where would we sleep? Who would take care of us at the schools? I was in a huge frenzy and actually dreaded the camp. However, much to my favor, the hospitality was extraordinary. From the teaching classes and orientation at Chien-Tan to the actual teaching process at individual schools, we volunteers were treated with benevolence and respect. Everyone was so welcoming and kind, it was obvious that the counselors and teachers truly cared about our stay. With such great hospitality, it was easy to enjoy the experience without worries. As the orientation went on, the volunteers were able to bond with their groups and I especially loved how our teaching group eventually become so comfortable with each other. We became a family. From then on, we were always together; whether it was practicing for the opening ceremony dance or planning our teaching sessions, we were able to constantly form more ties with each other. As the days went by, it was finally time for us to go to our school. There, it was yet another heart-warming experience. From the children to the school's faculty, we were welcomed with such radiance and love that it was terribly difficult to leave after two weeks. Even though teaching had its ups and downs, it was extremely satisfying just knowing that I made a difference in the children's English learning experience. Eventually, it was time to leave. Even though it was hard to leave the children, the hardest part was leaving the school itself. We had just started to call the school "home", and a sincere attachment was formed with the teacher and soldiers who had taken care of us. With tears and goodbyes, we left the school with fond memories. Finally, during the one week tour, our family was able to spend even more time together. The tour also brought us to many places I've never been to before. I think the camp has enabled me to open my eyes and experience my own culture through first-hand encounters. I have made friends and memories that have changed my outlook on life. I have also had one of the most eventful summers of my life, thanks to AID summer.
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Tu, Chia-Lin (涂嘉麟)
I had no idea what to expect of the trip before July; I had never lived together with 7 other strangers for a whole month before, and I didn't have any experience with teaching kids for a whole day, for two weeks. Sure, I had gone on a few mission trips before where I helped teach kids, but never had I ever been a main teacher before or spent so much time trying to control a classroom. My kids at Da Ping Elementary School, though they didn't listen to us all the time and they often chose being rowdy over learning English, made my two weeks of teaching there tiring but memorable nonetheless. And all of my team members (the 7 other strangers I was talking about earlier) became my family during this trip. We had times of laughter, times of drama, times of craziness - so many memories that made us close like family. The new friends I met on the tour also made the whole experience even better.
I'm really glad that I made the choice to go through with the program because the times I spent together with my teammates and my new friends on this trip have been unforgettable.
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Yau, Albert (姚天翔)
I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived in Chien-tan. I never had any teaching experience before, and I was going to be teaching students who I could barely communicate with. Even after the training week I was still anxious to be venturing into an isolated school on top of a mountain. I ended up being assigned to teach the 3rd and 4th grade class at Yo Mu.
The first day of teaching was overwhelming. Our first task was to assign a pretest to assess the skills of the student. What should’ve been an easy task turned out to be a difficult struggle to communicate and interact with 15 hyperactive students. It was expected for the class to be noisy and not very enthusiastic about learning. After all, they were elementary school children on their summer break. However the kids were more advanced in English than we expected, so we ran out of things to do on the first day extremely quickly and we spent most of the day getting to know and playing with the class.
Over the next two weeks we found that the main problem wasn’t communication but getting the class to pay attention and having control over the classroom. We found that we had to use games and activities to teach the kids, as they took competitive games pretty seriously.
I eventually came to enjoy teaching many of the kids and come to laugh at many of the things they say and do. In a way the immaturity and massive amounts of energy the children had made me feel more excited and eager to teach. The most touching moment was the goodbyes and crying up as we all said goodbye. In two weeks you come to grow really close to the kids and genuinely enjoy teaching and interacting with them.
The Aidsummer program is tiring and requires a lot of energy put into it. But the amazing people you meet and the crazy amounts of fun made this one of the most positive experiences in my life.
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Chen, Megan (陳怡安)
Before going to the AID program, I wasn't sure what the teaching experience would be like. Would the kids know any English at all? Would they know basics like "How are you?" and "I like to learn English"? Or, would communicating with them turn me into an alien in their eyes, relying on miming and acting to communicate a martian language called English?
When I arrived at Daping Elementary School in Miaoli County, I only knew two things for sure: first, my school was located on top of a mountain, and second, I would be teaching 4th and 5th graders (the most advanced level offered). After prepping intensively for two days over the weekend, Day 1 of teaching arrived. I was shocked. The kids knew more than what the Chientan lecturers had prepared us for; instead of having a lackluster grip on the ABC's and a limited knowledge of conversational skills, my students understood most of my classroom instructions and demonstrated knowledge of subjects that my teaching partner Melody and I had planned for the next few days. Thus, rather than relying on the teaching plan we labored over during training week, Melody and I scrambled to come up with new ideas. Traditional topics like
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Chung, Mandy (鍾文迪)
Taiwan was a place unknown, foreign to me 87 days ago. The language was strange, a fickle skill of the tongue; the people were different, a change in demeanor and attitude as compared to those of my motherland, Hong Kong; and finally, the environment was different, a combination of cultures and peoples. To this second, memories of the summer passed still linger on my mind.
I can still hear the song my fifth and sixth grade students sang as they cleaned up the rooms or ran down the YouMu Elementary School hallways: “Please listen to the words we say. Hey! We cannot hear ourselves…because the class is getting loud, please quiet down, so we can learn again.” When the classroom situation seemed bleak and the students’ attentions were more captivated by their pet beetles than on our lesson, this song would never fail to bring their focus back to us. Having the opportunity to teach them English will always be one that I will never forget. Forever will remain their names on the tip of my tongue, a simple good morning exchange or the answering of our questions in the classroom; forever will remain their laughter in my ears, a captivating and contagious sound that would never fail to make me smile; and forever will remain the memories we shared and created together, we the students and teachers of YouMu Elementary School.
Surrounded by the serene hues of the mountainside, our conversations echoing out to the verdant trees in the distance, I was the teacher and I was the student. Amidst the incessant chatters and scrambled syllables, I helped many students through the tricky jungle of English vocabulary and grammar. We would navigate through the 26 letters until words were articulated. I remember teaching them the tricky plant name of “Arctic moss”. Rather than enunciating the ‘c’ sounds and the correct ‘o’ sound in moss, my students pronounced it as “Ahh-ti moose”. As we clapped our hands to a beat, focusing on every syllable per clap, we’d make it through the tricky word, often resulting in too much articulation. However, the newfound mastery of the word would soon be found on their tongues, reiterated time after time to be followed up with a satisfied grin. Laughter followed us wherever we went, even to the pastoral rice paddy field behind the school. At one such place during a bright Wednesday morning, we the teachers became our students’ students. Observing their activity unfold before me was truly a sight to behold. Students grabbed handfuls of rice stalks in one hand as they swiftly harvested the plant with a clean swipe of the sickle in their other hand while others carried the stacks of harvested rice to a machine, where the final group of students used the “rice gin” machine to separate the rice kernels from the stalks. Persistent and cohesive, they acted as a whole, 朋友. Students to the left and right of me demonstrated how to hold the sickle and cut the rice--not too high, not too low. They patiently guided me until I accumulated my own pile of rice stalks. They beamed at my work and applauded their 老師. As I put up my sickle and took my rice hat off of my head, I surveyed the scene before me, feeling more of their student than their teacher. A city girl, never once did I ever need to cut rice, to harvest it, or to handle a sickle—this was their life, and I was lucky enough to be able to catch but a mere glimpse of it.
Departing the mountainside of YouMu Elementary School was a sad day to behold. As if a sign from the clouds themselves, rain had fallen from the sky our second-to-last day of teaching, nostalgic of our first day of arrival when water droplets framed the organic school and its mountainous background. 78 days ago, I walked up the stairs to the school expecting nothing and gaining everything. Taiwan welcomed me with open arms, introducing me to her culture and people, and gave me a summer I’ll never forget.
Never will I forget the conversations of the stream, the mountains looming majestically in the distance, the feel of tea leaves in my palms, and the smell of nature’s freedom.
Never will I forget the people that made such impressions on me that I still see traces of them in my daily life. I see my school in all the green trees around and about; I see YouMu’s wonderful staff: Ms. Ping, Mr. Principal, Ms. Jina, Dennis, Xavier, and Frankie in my own teachers and mentors; I see my teaching group at YouMu: Joyce, Albert, Jason, Chebon, Jessica, and my fellow teachers Angela and Hanson in everything as general as an ice cream cone, a bowl of rice to something as specific as a shared bracelet. I see my students in the kids I mentor, in my ukulele that they all loved to play on and in the bugs that continue to give me the chills today. I see the people from AID in the neon orange polo we all received that first day at Jientan, in the tea cans we all painted together, and in the simple card game of “Pulse”. I see Taiwan, 大家, and my summer in the photographs forever taken in my heart, replayed as memories from time to time, forever now a part of me.
Never will I forget those 30 days in the land East of here, the land 7709 miles away, but still so very close to my heart. If I close my eyes, I can still hear my students singing the “Quiet Song”, saying “ArK-tiK Mahss” and calling me “Teacher Ashley”. If I close my eyes, I can see my students waving goodbye and saying: “老師再見, 朋友再見, 大家明天見”, a memory and part of a summer in a place no longer so foreign, whose language is no longer as fickle and whose peoples have touched my soul.
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Wu, Chung Yin (吳忠穎)
The AID Summer Program has, hands down, made this summer one of the best in my memory. From the initial week-long training to everybody finally leaving ChienTan Youth Activity Center a month later, everybody here has bonded. From the work that we all shared, our mission, to teach local children English, was fulfilled. I will miss the people I've met and worked with dearly, the counselors, my table teacher, and the fellow volunteer teachers at my school. The entire experience was definitely worth it, and it was really enjoyable. I will be replaying the memories I've made here in my head for years to come. Anyone who finds enjoyment in helping those in need should definitely apply for this program.
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