The Palmyra School District's Director of Assessment, Accountability & Special Projects, Dr. Peter Lutchko, received a Fulbright Hays Grant to travel with TCNJ to Taiwan this summer. The exciting four week project, Advancing Core Taiwanese Values in Turbulent Times: A post-COVID Reflection and Curricular Exploration, aims to develop an understanding of Mandarin and Taiwanese culture and support efforts to infuse new information into various curriculum areas back here including art, social studies/history, health/PE, counseling, and nursing.
Here's what he has to share in his 2nd report:
Nĭ Hăo (Hello/How are you) from Taiwan!
My adventure here continues to provide the most amazing experiences. I was able to meet with a Public Intermediate School – that’s Grades 7-9 here- this one in particular was a technical school. These students focus on outdoor and project-based learning and learn about things such as tea making. Two students (pictured below) performed a traditional tea ceremony for me and two of my colleagues. The tea was grown locally and is affiliated with the school as many student’s parents own tea planting farms.
Another Public Elementary School we visited in the south of the country in Kaohsiung City actually has such a declining student population that the government intervened by purchasing a wing of the school and opening a Senior DayCare Center. The school now partners with this day care with the students and elderly actually learning from each other. While there (pictured below) I was excited to be able to do some arts and crafts with some of the seniors. The school itself is innovative with their approach to coding and using virtual reality in the classroom, it was great that we were able to see a sample of the projects that students work on.
Along with my TCNJ family, we have continued to learn in our daily Mandarin classes, and so much more. We met with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT- pictured below). This is essentially an American Embassy here, but due to the United States’ complicated agreement with Taiwan, it functions as a non-profit sponsored by our Congress.
We have also visited an equality coalition, a number of well-curated museums, and witnessed some lively local performance art. We were also able to get hands-on and complete some local indigo dyeing with a local artist- so many stunning shades of blue to remember this trip!
I am excited to keep you all up to date about the rest of my journey and continue these partnerships when I return to Palmyra. The Fulbright experience is really something completely immersive and this is fueling ideas for our future.
Dr. Pete