Media Literacy Education through Broadcasting on Campus
Surveys in recent years reveal that there are around 1.75 million elementary school students, 950 thousand junior high students and 750 thousand senior high students in Taiwan. These future citizens spend more time on the media than in school. Other statistics also show that the most common leisure activity for almost 90% of people in Taiwan is "watching TV". Unknowingly, the content of TV programs affects our perception of things around us. Children and teenagers imitate and may even end up in accidents due of the influence of the media. Therefore, media literacy education for children and teenagers is of immediate importance.
Following the Ministry of Education's promulgation of the "Media Literacy Education Policy White Paper" in 2002 and the announcement in May 2008 of the addition of basic media literacy as part of the adjusted curriculum outline of 9-year mandatory education, media literacy education is expected to be officially included in school textbooks starting in the 2011 school year in the hope of training Taiwan's future citizens to learn to interpret and evaluate information from the media.
The Ministry of Education has taken proactive measures to promote media literacy education through compilation of media literacy education handbooks, training seed teachers and cultivating seed schools, as well as providing lectures at every school to reinforce media literacy education in junior high and elementary schools.
Among the eight schools selected this year by the Ministry as seed schools, the "Feng Dong TV Station" of Feng Dong Junior High School and the "Voice of National Taipei University of Education Experimental Elementary School" of the National Taipei University of Education Experimental Elementary School have enjoyed enthusiastic responses from the students.
Voice of National Taipei University of Education Experimental Elementary School - Establisher of Civic Awareness
The "Voice of National Taipei University of Education Experimental Elementary School" began broadcasting in 2006. Initially, Chief of the Life Education Section of the Student Affairs Department Teng Chih-che proposed the idea of setting up a TV station as a channel to announce school policies.
He felt that "letting children promote things they ought to be concerned about" might be much more effective than getting the information from teachers screaming their lungs out on the platform. Under the support of the school, he started the TV station with little help and recruited little reporters.
The "Voice of National Taipei University of Education Experimental Elementary School" offers a rich variety of content. All the people, events and affairs on campus are likely objects of coverage. The station even compiled the history of the school over the past century and made an anniversary special to celebrate the school's 100th birthday. The Ministry praised the achievements of the station and chose it to be a seed school for media literacy education.
Teng Chih-che said that becoming a seed school would bring more resources and assistance from experts to add media interpretation and media literacy education in the programs to teach the children how to evaluate media information. He plans to include some equivocal ideas in the programs for the senior students to judge and learn to understand that the media can provide wrong messages.
Another approach is to allow students to participate in public issues. The store in the school will close down, and the senior students using electronic media and junior students using print media will conduct public opinion surveys and ask students to comment on the topic. The purpose is to awaken the civic awareness of students.
Feng Dong TV Station - Broadcasting Love
The "Feng Dong TV Station" of Feng Dong Junior High School in Taichung County has been in operation for nearly four years. It is an important communication channel on campus. Programs are broadcasted during lunch break on every Friday.
Director of Student Counseling Tsai Chu-hung is the engineer behind Feng Dong TV Station. Being a volunteer worker at Bliss and Wisdom Foundation and promoting the spirit of "appreciating the help from others" over a long period, she helped created the campus TV station and trained junior reporters to cover stories about compassion in school to "broadcast love."
Feng Dong TV Station's programs are rich and diverse. They are broadcasted for 20 minutes each week to report on good deeds in school, promote environmental protection, as well as special occasions like Mother's Day, Teachers' Day, etc.
"The deeds of one individual can affect others," said Tsai Chu-hung. The reports of the junior reporters can convey love, and this love will extend and expand infinitely to soften the hearts of every child who in turn will also open his or her heart to care and give. This is the goal of Feng Dong TV Station.