What are the worst things and the best things about local schools?

Dear friends. Where are you originally from and do you like what are the worst things and best things about local schools?

This might be an over discussed topic, but the public schools let your kiddo experience a real life in Taiwan, as opposed to a stupidly rich people bubble in the private and international schools.

Keep in mind there are few schools with CSL and, (unlike in the US and other countries where kids at schools where there’s no ESL support are at least pushed into things and more or less forced into a submersion program) kids here that don’t have Chinese don’t always thrive. I’ve heard from a lot of foreign parents that teachers made no effort to include a non-Chinese speaking child (especially already not-speaking in sentences in any language five year olds because that’s child language acquisition 101 for you). Something to keep in mind. I feel like quite a few posters here have sent their kids to the public schools and liked them. I worked in the public schools for a few years and I am currently at a private one. I will probably go back to the public schools next year as they push a much higher degree of responsibility on the kids and the adults are not expected to micromanage every aspect of the children’s lives to meet the parents’ desires. That does mean pushing and shoving at recess isn’t necessarily addressed, but I’ve observed some great conflict resolution from young children in the public schools that I never see from private school kids (and I’m at an experimental school that is supposed to center around that sort of independence)

Public school kids get out at noon in G1 and 2 all days but Tuesdays and then slowly the full days become longer until I think G6 is full day every day. I would say reasonable on the academic time if you or a caregiver is taking them to parks and museums in the afternoons, though that obviously becomes less possible as they get older. And cram schools begin to invade life.

To quote a foreign friend I knew that raised their kids in public schools here though G5: “homework exists to make sure there is something for the kids to do at anqinban so that the anqinbans don’t have to actually entertain the kids. There needs to be enough to make sure they are never finished with it, which is why it is almost all busy work and the kids are just handed the answers to copy if they’re not done”. I mean, Chinese characters take a lot of practice, but most of the homework I see kids doing is an absolute waste of paper. So there’s that. If I were a parent I’d follow in the footsteps of other foreigners and make sure my child only did meaningful work. But I’m a teacher and I have a lot of training in alternative education and assessment, so I have strong feelings about wasting a child’s time.

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They open to the public in the evenings. Great on a summer night. Grab some beers and head over with the mates to hang in the school yard.

the worst thing about local schools is that they are local. the best thing about local schools is that they are local.