Serving Christian Education at the Elementary and Secondary Levels:
A Review of the Process of the Educational Reformation of Arco School
Dr. Der-Jen Sun
Christ’s College
Taipei, Taiwan
ABSTRACT
Arco School, one of the four alternative schools during the period of Educational Reformation in Taiwan, was founded to enhance student’s learning ability and motivation. The purpose of this paper is to review the process of educational reformation from theory to practice and to discuss its successes and limitations that may bring about suggestions for educators and policy makers in the future.
The vision of Arco was to create an elementary school that would satisfy students, teachers, and parents simultaneously. The founder sought to reunite trust among these three groups and make it a win/win situation for all stakeholders. In order to reach this goal, the school had to make students capable of and willing to, learn. For this purpose, the learning environment had to help all types of learners to excel, and the curriculum had to inspire every student to explore a vision for his or her life and create a desire for its fulfillment.
The environment was based on a Multiple Intelligence School model that included: mixed age classes, the use of Suzuki violin method, a project approach, whole language learning, equal time given to all subjects, and humanity based theme cycle. The curriculum was based on character education as its core value, applied art education as its tool of learning, and encompassed humanistic education as its goal. The students were involved in the development of the school through which they learned how to solve problems. The relationships among teachers, students and parents were full of trust. The highest penalty for students who offended school rules was to stay home for a day.
One of Arco’s traditions was a formal performance of The Small Pond Kingdom, a children’s musical about the transformation from a tadpole to a frog. Through the preparation of this play, the entire school developed a model of an interdisciplinary curriculum.
After 10 years, Arco developed a high reputation for student achievement both in academics and character. In 2004, Professor Huang Kuang-Kuo in his “Ten Thousand Words about Taiwan’s Educational Reformation” named Arco as a school that “really knew how to effectively do school reform” at that time. Nevertheless, the school also was suffering from the lack of legal land and registration. In 2002, Arco was given a public school, Da-Pin Elementary School, to operate and it merged with that school.
Key word: Multiple Intelligence Theory, Mixed Age, Character education, Art and Humanities.
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