The Teachers' Revolution

"According to the Ministry of Education, there are too many teachers. Say what? Too many teachers?"

By Andres Chang

On Sunday, June 12th, I took a journey beyond Taichung and into the Taipei Zone. When I heard what was happening here, I thought it was too weird to be true. I had to check it out for myself.

“It’s a social problem, not just an education problem,” says Mr. Chen, a middle school teacher of literature here in Taiwan. He’s talking about a problem that many American inner-city schools wish they had: too many teachers.

I met educators from all over Taiwan, who gathered to march through the streets of Taipei to demand more teaching jobs. Why don’t they have jobs? According to the Ministry of Education, there are too many teachers. Say what? Too many teachers? I used to be a substitute teacher for West Contra Costa Unified School District in California’s Bay Area, where the backdrop to a student's education is a little different.

In West Contra Costa Unified, they are in desperate need of teachers. And though my classrooms were overcrowded with students and lacked in supplies, the schools still found a way to afford metal detectors. And to top it off, the head of the district, Dr. Gloria Johnston, still makes $100,000.00 a year.

The march began with a gathering of teachers at Chiang Kai Sheik Memorial Hall. Chanting “Unfair!” the students, teachers, and hopeful teachers marched down the streets to the headquarters of the Ministry of Education.

“There shouldn't be this many teachers out of work,” said Luke Chen. Luke wants to be a teacher, but he’s afraid he won’t be able to. And he’s not alone. Cindy Wang also wants to be a teacher. She addressed the crowd while they sat down next to the Ministry of Education building, and began to cry as she talked about her dreams of becoming a teacher, dreams that may never be realized.

“People aren’t having children,” says Mr. Chen, the middle school teacher, and he’s right. Taiwan, like Japan and Europe, is facing a population shortage. As a result, this year there are 8,000 qualified middle school teachers in Taiwan, but only 479 available positions. There are also 10,000 qualified elementary school teachers, but only 1700 available jobs. Each of these teachers had to pass a qualifying exam before they could be permitted to teach, and now that they have, they can’t because the jobs aren’t there.

“Ten to one,” says Ms. Lue, describing what she thinks is the ideal student to teacher ratio. Ms. Lue is an organizer of the march, and has been a teacher for thirty years. She, like the teachers at today’s march, believes that the solution is to create more classrooms with smaller amounts of students. Thus, these qualified teachers will have jobs.

What’s most surreal is the fact that this situation is occurring at all. See, for Taiwanese people, education is very important. They actually value it. Here’s an example of what I mean: while there are typically thirty students per classroom, discipline is seldom a problem. Parents in Taiwan have jobs that actually allow them the time to instill education as a value onto their kids. Furthermore, a respect for teachers is not only part of the culture, but the language as well. The Taiwanese word for teacher is literally “Old teacher”, “old” because elders are respected in Taiwan. The Taiwanese word for “teacher” is not just a job, but a title. In my case, I’m not “Mr. Chang,” I’m “Teacher Chang,” kind of like “Dr. Chang”. And I’m paid well! Teachers in Taiwan get respect and money? Weird. And they got teachers out of work? I’m starting to trip out here.

Here’s a crazy idea Taiwan: if your schools are so good with big class ratios, imagine how awesome they’d be with small class ratios! And with Windows XP! And America: why don’t you take $99 billion away from the military and put it into public schools and universal healthcare? Don’t worry, we’ll still be spending more than four times what the next big spender spends.