You’ve got to explain that. A rug?
They sweep it under the rug. Hide it or deny it. They don’t want to upset or offend their customers (parents).
Ok, you can see how else one might read that. I could imagine they beat kids with a broom. I thought maybe they rolled them up in a rug, or gave them carpet burn or something.
So, that sounds like public schools in the USA. When I was in the States, I came to prefer the problems with private over the problems with public schools. Mostly because private teachers got paid during government shutdowns and we had electricity every day.
I don’t know if this assessment is true in Taiwan… but in the States, I couldn’t push a public school class just because we didn’t have the resources. We lacked books or even paper to print. During a government shutdown, I couldn’t turn on a projector. Does that happen in Taiwan?
I would say this. I’ve been to both public and private. I know the really rich private schools schools get a bad rep for being entitled spoiled asses. But I found the kids there to be extremely polite overall. Yes there are certainly those spoiled entitled pricks, but there are still those in public schools. Public schools have their share of pricks and can be really rude to teachers and even other kids. Of course there are also good kids. Discipline starts at home. A lot of public schools I went to, I had to fight the first day and for those who didn’t stand their ground. Their life was miserable and bullied daily. But in the end I preferred private because they do offer more advanced course and even some courses public schools don’t offer. No way I could have took a rhetoric class or a greek language class in public school.
Not all private schools are wealthy as well. I went to one where donation funded a giant turf stadium that’s probably the best for HS in texas and well as one of the nicest baseball fields that’s as good as any AA baseball fields with people taking care of the field. Not all public schools are poorly funded either. I went to one where it was extremely well funded .
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Hmm quite a lot of misinformation about Kang Chaio here. My son (who is white) attends the international school at the Xindian campus. There are two schools there, one bilingual where the students study the public school curriculum and also study classes taught in English, and the international section where the students are mostly taught in English. The qualification taught at the international school is the Middle Years International Baccaluareate and the International Baccalaureate for university entrance. Kang Chiao has a bad rep and in some ways it’s justified. Certainly the racism scandal is terrible, but then I doubt that attitude is rare in private education here. I also have a teacher friend who resigned his position and successfully sued the school for their employment practices afterward, so I know both sides.
However, I’m a teacher too (or was), and I brought up two sons in the UK and I’m almost entirely satisfied with the quality of education my son has received. Most of his teachers are native English speakers who are qualified and experienced in teaching in their own countries, they use English in class and they do a great job. From memory the only classes taught in Chinese are Chinese, computer science and swimming. My son is in grade nine and started Kang Chiao in grade seven. I’ve been to all the parent days and I regularly see the same teachers, so I don’t think the turnover is particularly high. But then some turnover is to be expected given that we’re in Taiwan.
We picked Kang Chiao because we wanted my son to maintain his Chinese he’d learned at Elementary and because the school offers an extensive physical education program. The level of Chinese taught is the same as in public schools, and the kids speak Chinese outside of class because they’re mostly Taiwanese, so my son’s Chinese is still pretty good. The physical education side has been great. Every kid at the school swims every week and my son has two PE lessons per week as well. On top of that the kids can choose a sport as their enrichment class. Also, they do a physical challenge every year. In grade 8 it’s climbing five peaks of He Huan and in grade nine it’s swimming Sun Moon Lake. I think in grade ten they cycle around Taiwan. The kids also go hiking and camping.
What we didn’t know about but has been positive has been the extra-curriculur opportunities. My son has got heavily into Model United Nations events and does two or three a year. This year he’s doing the Yale one that takes place over several days and he’ll be staying at a hotel in Taipei. He’s also doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and last year he was a member of a team representing Taiwan in the History and Geography Olympiad in Berlin. There are plenty of other things the kids can do too.
On the downside, the school’s communication with parents is poor. My son’s home room teacher doesn’t speak English and the parents and teachers communicate in Chinese. There’s little to no effort to keep us in the loop about things and they all rely on my son to tell me. If he’s even listening he has a brain like a seive so there’s no point in that. The school aren’t sympathetic to the problem, and it isn’t just me. I met a couple of Russian parents who complain about the same thing. We also had a bad experience with a teacher this semester and ended up moving my son from an Honors class because of it. But having been in education and put two kids through the British education system I know these things aren’t endemic to Taiwan.
Overall, my son’s experience has been good. He’s had many great teachers who clearly really care about the kids and teach to a high standard, and he’s had some amazing experiences. I would recommend the school to other parents with the caveats that it helps if your child speaks Chinese so he/she can make friends, and if you’re prepared to be frustrated by poor communication from the school.
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So…what was the misinformation?
The teacher turnover rate?
You are aware of what is going on in the Junior High because that is where your son is. But what about the Kindergarten, Elementary and Senior High? The school I teach at gets applicants migrating from KangChiao every hiring season.
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BTW, the turnover rate I posted in the parallel thread came from Kang Chiao’s official announcement. That’s not my personal assessment. So, it might be biased.
I agree that the school’s communication is poor. Even as a teacher, I’m the last to know when my classes are cancelled. The school is managed by two different departments. There is a lot of in-fighting between these two departments because both think themselves more important than the other. So, not a lot of communication between them. And communication with teachers and parents is, as a result, poor as well.
A few things mentioned here, such as a counterfeit curriculum, not being an international school, graduates not being eligible to apply to a Taiwan university and poor educational standards. These aren’t true by any means.
Kang Chaio’s educational attainment compares well with other international schools in Taiwan. I would also take issue with the statement that the teachers don’t care about their students or education. I have met more dedicated teachers there than at schools in the UK.
Those comments were directed at all private schools in general. Not specifically KagChiao.
Counterfeit curriculum was regarding other schools copying KangChiao’s system thus making other systems counterfeit.
That may be your experience meeting dedicated teachers, and good for you. That is good news. Unfortunately I have not had the same experience as you. From the 15 years I have been teaching, the majority of teachers I meet are not passionate about what they are doing and it shows in their performance.
No, they weren’t, though I accept I misread your statement about counterfeit curriculums.
Have you taught at Kang Chiao?
She was a student, as she said earlier in the thread. I doubt she’d teach there based on the experience she described.
The comments she and others made are based on different experiences in different grades possibly at different campuses and certainly at different points in time. As has been said, the school has changed from being a bilingual school to an international school. It’s an old school. Some things change, but it seems like a lot of things stay the same.
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When it comes to mass education, some students will be left behind. Kang Chiao primarily targets honors students. Students who work hard but don’t quite make the cut too get into honors get the worst deal.
Brilliant students will have a plethora of advanced courses open to them… but students who just barely don’t qualify will find themselves stuck with no options. They’ll be disgruntled… and with good reason. The whole reason parents are willing to pay the high tuition is precisely for the IB and AP courses. Students who are just as smart as their advanced peers but just didn’t make the cutoff will feel like they’re trapped and wasting their time.
The question was intended for SuiGeneris. The quote was to show that the statements in the thread that were inaccurate were referring to Kang Chiao.
It’s been a while since I was on Forumosa and I’m not familiar with the posting method.
No.
And in my previous post talking about differences between public and private schools, I never said anything about KangChiao specifically.
My comment was in part responding to this. I am only trying to correct misinformation in the interests of clarity as people read these threads years after the posters have moved on.
As someone from Taiwan. Kang Chiao usually gets high praises from parents, but the students either hate it or love it. They have a good rep in Taiwan…but hearing from students gives another impression. Even those who love it have to add “but” at the end about problems
Yup! In a pool with other 80/100 kids at the same time. It’s so gross. The whole year group is in there at the same time. I think for them is normal though so not much surprise there. In all honesty though my parents were paying for a private school that told them all the great thing I could be doing there and later they figure out that very few of the things were done and it was mostly for show and keeping up the reputation. They though I was getting that great education and great facilities when I really wasn’t getting more than mediocre teachers that gave us sheets to fill out and chilled during the class and some stupid extra curricular activity once a week that was mandatory that I was forced to take because I was signed up directly to violin class ( which I did not play and everyone was advanced in) and later all the other classes were full.
I was living in my apartment with my brother and was not a boarding student luckily but some of my classmates that were boarding started school at 7.30 and were only allowed to return to the dorms at 8 pm at night, take a shower and be in bed by 9.30.
I’ve been to quite a few international schools and this was by far the worst experience I had. You also might not know the real experience your kid is going through because all you know is what the school promised and you are not there to experience it.
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I am a former student from KCIS
So you were a student there? I had to leave because of some of the issues, like some other students had to do so too. Do you know how many international students that are sons of embassadors in Taiwan leave within the first few month of enrolling? I know quite a few.
Also do you know what kind of test they make you take to prove your English speaking abilities? I had to take a one page test where I had to tick the box where the cat was “in the box” or “on the box” or “under the box”. Should have took a hint of the level back then. Some students in the international section can’t even speak English, how are teacher supposed to teach when students in a class have completely different speaking/writing and comprehension abilities
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