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Abstract
In the past, there was not enough documentary studies that explained the school developmental process. This cannot satisfy the new needs of current educational community that emphasizes understanding the process of educational activities in schools. This research made use of the interview and document analysis methods to explore the developmental history of the Te-Lung Elementary School in Taoyuan Hsien from 1957 to 1995. The major subjects of this research are the principals, teachers and students of this school. The main purposes of this thesis are listed as follows: 1. To preserve some historical witness for the educational practitioners that dedicated their lives in the school. 2. To investigate the developmental context of the school, the developmental bottleneck faced by the school, and the coping strategies used by the school in each stage. 3. To discover and analyze the factors influence the growth of the school in order to provide some useful suggestions for the school or other similar schools in the future. In the process of the research, an experienced teacher that taught for twenty years in Te-Lung Elementary School said "I never expected that someone would noticed me in twenty years since I began teaching. To my surprise, I*m so important. These words also do the best annotation for the first purpose of this thesis. The Te-Lung Elementary School was first established as the "Ba-Te Branch Class" in 1957 because of the government policy to increment schools and classes.Since then, because of the local prosperity and the increasing population, under the demand and assistance of local people, the school became "Te-Lung Branch School" in 1975. And then in 1982, it became independent and renamed as "Te-Lung Elementary School ". In order to enable students to have good learning environments and processes, every principal and teacher made great effort to improve teaching facilities, teaching quality and the relationship between teachers. In the aspect of teaching facilities, the school had faced some problems, for example, the lack of school land, classrooms, playgrounds etc. They were solved by the principals gradually. In order to overcome the lower status of local cultural development and the deficiencies in school budget, the school worked very hard in increasing books and teacher-made teaching aids. In the aspect of improving teaching quality, the principals would directly try to collect teaching aids and strive for obtaining community resources. There had also been many teaching innovations, for examples, changing student assignments in winter and summer vocation to reciting good works of literature, the unique ways of leading sports teams etc. Experienced teachers would make remedial instruction for the students after class free of charge. Teachers and students would beautify the campus together. There had been many factors of improving the relationship between teachers, for examples, the employment of democratic ways of selecting good class heads , the staff working together in school like a family. The students in Te-Lung Elementary School, under the great efforts of the principals and teachers, had happy learning experience in the school and setup a strong foundation for the future, even though the learning environment was not very good. Evidences revealed that the alumni also demonstrated good achievements. In summary, from the developmental process of Te-Lung Elementary School, we can understand that although the inside and outside conditions were very tough, the school can still rely on the energetic efforts by the teachers and students to overcome many unfavorable factors. Therefore, the major implication of this research is the educators working in the schools need to be appreciated. As long as they are willing, they can still do a great deal in overcoming unfavorable situations.
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