I’ve been here a LOOONG time, many years. I’ve worked for close to 70 - 80 kindergartens all over northern Taiwan. Most of them will use old fashioned methods (shaking the children, screaming at the child until they cry). My boss at my last school told me “Well, that’s what the parents want.”
If I have my own school where I’m the boss, can I use methods that have been used in Western schools for 40 years? Or, when parents ask questions about signing the children up for my school maybe they will want the old fashioned methods.
Should I … can I have my own kindergarten with modern methods? Teacher Veteran from USA
2 Likes
Um… shaking the children is an old fashioned method? That’s called abuse.
2 Likes
How would you like your children, Mr. Bond?
4 Likes
I looked up the rules once. I dont remember which section of which law stated it or how it was worded, but basically if you have the same qualifications as would be required for a local + open work rights, you can do pretty much whatever you want. The big sticking point for me and starting a day school was that you need a board of directors and you need to switch over leadership within the board every three years or something too short. I suppose their logic is that they dont want one person in control of everything, but whatever the timeframe was, it seemed like just enough time to really feel like “we got this!” before you were required to be replaced.
Now, opening a cram school and calling it a kindergarten has less hoops to jump through and is “legal” as long as you dont have the kids napping at the same address as you’ve registered your school at and some other “legal gray areas” to skirt around 
. So you can play that game. But im sure the inspector people would be more strict with you than they are with Taishan that come over and open fake kindys or cram school kindys that drug children.
3 Likes
Maybe this thread
1 Like
Yes, please open one. Please don’t be like many here that pretend to use modern methods but don’t.
You’ll find it hard against the large chain schools but I wish you good luck. Go for it.
Early Childhood Education and Care Act
The Statute for Preschool Educators
Measures for the Establishment, Changes and Management of Kindergartens and Their Classes
Implementation Regulations Governing Early Childhood Educare and Childcare Services
if your choice is a half day cram school,
Short-term cram school establishment and management guidelines
Hmm
Yeah, uhm. I’m not sure how not keeping a stable job for any apparent length of time makes you a veteran or a teacher. But I think you’re taking the piss, so get some, yolo bro. Go for it.
2 Likes
Hello, thanks for replies from those concerned. I am NOT concerned with the legal complications of opening a school. Whatever problems I’ll have my Taiwanese wife and I will deal with it. My question is will the parents support me? Or will they say "No, we want the old-fashioned (physically abusive) method?
If you’re really concerned about this, then just don’t bring it up. Punishment methods don’t usually come up in normal conversation with parents.
How good is your network of parents of young children? A few years back, I started a tutoring group of 4-7 year olds. There were maybe five or six kids. They had tons of fun and learned a lot, but my focus was on singing and games and storytelling/reading books. Every three or so weeks we had complete turn over minus the same two children — parents needed their little prince/princess to start passing written tests soon, so these methods weren’t going to work. But sometimes they’d come back! Of the 20 or so total children that had come and gone, only one mother of two children (the person who’d put this whole thing together in the first place) was a constant. Shes contacted me many times since the year+ that we did that to thank me for the fun times that her children had. She told me her kids still spontaneously burst out in songs I taught them. Meanwhile, every other parent I worked with the child of almost certainly has dismissed that time as a waste; they didn’t produce anything concrete to show off, after all. So unless you’ve got parents asking you to please open a kindy that isn’t abusive, you will probably have a lot of parents that are, at minimum, expecting their child to be able to put on elaborate dance performances and recite Shakespeare for the graduation celebration.
Thanks HongKonger!