My review of "Experiencing Leaning" course
When I first heard the course name, 'Experiencing Learning', I really wondered what I would learn. This course was a lot different from my experience of learning before. It took place outside of campus every two weeks and the following week we discussed our exploration in the classroom. It is a great idea to explore the world outside the school and to understand the world through our own experiences. This way of learning itself created a great fun of this course.
From the first section of this course, I learned how to use a simple tool for measuring the water quality of a river and I practiced it. As learning about water quality measurement, we were introduced the impressive story of the Erren River in another course, Introduction to Taiwan. The Erren River was one of the most polluted rivers in Taiwan. Many villagers worried about the environment and voluntarily organized a team, together with CJCU, to clean up and monitor the rivers against pollution for more than fifteen years. As a result, the river today is completely different from just 10 years ago. Many fish, birds and animals that have left in the meantime returned to the river. Although this class is over, I often go to the village to do volunteer work. Looking at the fish jumping high above the river surface, I realized that since the pain is caused by human, human have the responsibility to heal it.
The second subject of this course was 'Bamboo and local communities'. We visited a village where we cut timbers and processed bamboo to make furniture and products in a traditional way. Unlike other raw materials, bamboo is a sustainable resource in Taiwan for growing so quickly and broadly in most of the countryside. Since most of the woody furniture in our house cannot avoid cutting tropical rainforests, developing the usage of bamboo instead of wood might be a way to reduce global warming. On the other hand, the way to make furniture from bamboo in a small rural village in Taiwan is one of the sustainable alternative way of local living that we found in this class. The furniture we made are wonderfully used in our agit, Eco Studio. Sometimes we are surprised at the fact that we truly made it when we use the furniture.
The third section of this course is about local culture. Taiwan is not a land with a single ethnic group and I got great inspiration from indigenous people, including their ways of living and the cultural heritage they preserved. Why is it important to find, to know, and to preserve our "Roots (origins)"? I think that the identity of ourselves is a fundamental desire of human beings and if we do not know about our origins, we would become anxious and unstable. The place where I found this answer was in an indigenous village called 'Kabusua' and villagers there invited artists to record the stories of their village. I realized that the unique identities of every ethnic groups provide society as a whole with various ways of livings. A culture preserving the old way of living becomes the foundation of a new culture. I think this kind of cultural layers and diversity is especially valuable in modern society.
After finishing the course, I looked back and realized that this process left us a lot of experience, like its name. We learned in the field what 'sustainability' is. It is not a huge concept, but the nature and people living together in a sustainable way is the implementation of sustainability. The wisdom of the aboriginal people, the impressive story of the Erren River and the story of a town that traditionally making bamboo-processed products all became inspirational and precious experiences. This unique course of our department, Experiencing Learning, was truly a good step to start our first semester.
Mingyu (South Korea)