Some kept their wishes as top secrets, and some generously shared them with others. Su said that he wanted to become a computer engineer. Liu did not know what to write, but he enjoyed the activity and looked forward to the happy reunion ten years from now.

Director Chien said that planting a graduation tree was meant to bring us a feeling of belonging to the school even after we graduated. We planted the first tree this year, and the fifth graders will plant a second tree beside ours next year. The fourth graders will then plant a third tree when they graduate. Year by year, there will be more and more trees on the campus. Ten years from now, alumni will begin to return every year to dig up their bottles and see if their wishes came true.

We all transferred from other schools

Our Tzu Chi Elementary School, located in Hualien City in eastern Taiwan, is near the Central Mountain Range, where we can easily see green mountains, blue sky and white clouds. We have a wide view and fresh air to breathe all the time. I liked my campus because I had enough space to run around freely after classes.

There were seventeen students in our class. Kuo's father said that small classes could create more interactions among students. Liu's mother thought that small classes achieve higher learning rates, since students receive more attention from their teachers.

We could speak to our principal and counselors easily. Li's mother appreciated such an open, democratic education, and therefore she asked her daughter to transfer to our school for sixth grade. Except for Li, most of us transferred here from other schools when we were going into the fifth grade.

Li's mother mentioned that our school wants to provide as many opportunities for students to develop their talents as possible, and the teachers tend to nurture our confidence by praising us generously. Take Li for example. She had studied in the United States for three years and could speak English fluently. Therefore, she played an important role in an English play performed during the commencement and was encouraged to write the scenario for the drama.

In the flower arrangement class, our teacher, Master Te Pu, showed us how to plant the seeds and observe their growth process, including sprouting, blooming and fading. With this experiment, we learned to appreciate each stage of the life cycle and respect people at all different ages, such as children, pregnant women, and senior citizens.

Join the chorus, even if you don't sing well

We had many extracurricular activities that varied from day to day. No special activity on Mondays, though. Tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and science activities were on Tuesdays, flower pressing and clay-throwing on Wednesdays, tae kwon do on Thursdays, and chorus on Fridays. It depended on us to decide which ones to take.

Kuo did not sing well, but the teacher still allowed him to join the chorus. Kuo said he appreciated the teacher's tolerance. Although his father remarked that he could tell his son enjoyed singing very much, even though he was merely an ordinary singer. "It is because the school puts a lot of emphasis on encouraging students' motivation to learn and on their personal development," Kuo's father said.

Director Chien also said that the school expects students to grow gradually and avoids discouraging their interests at the beginning. He kept giving all of us a lot of encouragement in his painting class. No matter whether we were good at painting or not, he kept encouraging us to do our best. He would frame our paintings and replace them with a better work as soon as we produced one--we were competing against ourselves. A school, in Director Chien's opinion, is a place to create happiness and to provide an appropriate education based on the aptitude of each individual.

Restroom cleaning for good students

Tzu Chi Elementary School puts a lot of emphasis on life education, in which we learn how to serve others. Students are taught to serve other classmates cheerfully and willingly. Unlike other local schools that often regard cleaning the restrooms as a punishment for students who behave poorly, at our school only those who perform well are given the right to clean the restrooms. [Ed: In Taiwan, students do the cleaning in their schools, including mopping floors, washing windows, and cleaning restrooms.] Likewise, those who take charge of serving food to classmates at lunchtime think of themselves as really fortunate volunteers.

The educational goal that our school sets for students is to nurture our learning capacity, which will enable us to do better in the future when we deal with challenges in our lives. The education we are given at the school improves our trouble-shooting capability and creativity as well. Take performance evaluations as an example: student evaluations are carried out in a variety of forms, including activity participation, assignments and papers. Those who evaluate student performances include their teachers, classmates and parents. Anyway, a student's appraisal is not determined by test grades only.

Ceremony for teenagers

In order to hold a special graduation celebration for us, Director Chien studied a lot about how people in different cultures, especially local aborigines, hold rituals for their children who are about to enter adolescence, and came up with a program entitled "Ceremony for Teenagers."

The ceremony consisted of a series of activities, including a two-kilometer race, wild vegetable recognition, house building, visiting aboriginal elders, and exploring the interactions between man and nature on the eastern coast of Taiwan.

We had group discussions about the content of the whole program and then divided it into three parts: outings, ecological preservation, and native culture. Our teachers helped us examine and delete certain activities that might be dangerous or too hard for us. We then went to Kangko Elementary School and did the program with the graduating students there.

We started with house building on the first day. It was raining, but we put on our raincoats, got our tools, and went out to look for building materials such as bamboo, wood, and straw. Teamwork was necessary, because we could not achieve anything unless everyone worked at the different tasks. After putting a lot of effort in building a somewhat unstable little hut, we finally understood how hard it was for our ancestors to build their own houses.

The following day, we ran a two-kilometer race on a beach. It was much more difficult to run in sand than on solid ground. Everyone was exhausted after the race. Chen's knee was uncomfortable, but she still finished the race with a knee brace.

After the race, we picked up garbage on the beach. Then we visited an aboriginal community, interviewed the local elders, and studied their culture. We needed an interpreter to talk with them. Listening to the elders' explanations, we learned much about the aboriginal culture. We all felt it was great to learn many of their legends and life habits.

Discovering the treasures of nature

Then came the most interesting part of the day's activities--discovering the treasures of nature. It took everyone to contribute his or her intelligence and ideas to solve the problems. We had some really hard problems to do. For example, we had to find a rock arch and then describe what it looked like and measure how high it was. We had a hard time doing that. Some boys suggested we do it by forming a human tree, but it did not work! Observing the semicircle of the arch, we came up with the idea that we could get its height as long as we measured its diameter. This solution was a result of our brainstorming! We also had to find a plant in a coral reef and look up its name. We had to find a special mountain which was regarded as a landmark of the Kangko tribe. We needed to take a picture of it by following the instructions in the textbook, and again measure its height. Then we had to find a cow and take a picture of it. It required a lot of perseverance to finish this task. The cow kept running away unhappily and we tried to chase after her. Some of my classmates even shouted at her, "Please stop running, we won't milk you!"

The highlight of the activity was to measure the length of a span bridge. We tried to remember what we had learned in math class and applied it to this task. First, we counted how many spans the bridge had when we crossed it by car. And then, we measured how wide a single span was. The total spans multiplied by the single width would be the length of the bridge. This idea was so bright that the principal and teachers praised our intelligence.

To solve these problems, we needed a lot of references, such as textbooks, personal experiences, or other information. Li was so diligent that she had downloaded information from websites on geographic structure, local diet, and even the Tropic of Cancer.

After resolving all the difficulties and challenges, we held a campfire party in the evening. The principals, teachers and students from the two schools lit the campfire together and had an aboriginal dance. A good time was had by all.

Joy and glory for the graduates of 2002

Principal Yang said that organizing a cross-cultural program with the two elementary schools was a present to us. We had a good time together and our parents thought that it was very meaningful. Many parents came with us and were surprised by our outstanding performances. They attributed our success to good teamwork and smart application of what we had learned in class.

Some parents were still concerned about their children's intellectual performance. They thought it was important to have a good grade in math, no matter what other important information their children had learned at school.

Kuo's father was happy to see that we enjoyed learning in an open educational environment such as the one we had at the Tzu Chi School. The heuristic method of teaching and the concern that the school shows to human beings and other living creatures may serve as good sources of learning for students' future development.

The school was established two years ago. I had a good time and learned so much during my two years at the school. All of us felt honored to be the first class of graduates of the Tzu Chi Elementary School, since it was not something that could be arranged or made possible by our own choices. It can only be possible when various kinds of conditions come together. How special it was to have such an honor!