新作坊 Humanity Innovation and Social Practice

The emergence of competitive project is one of the main changes of the recent transformation of Taiwanese higher education. The Ministry of Education has continued to push educational experiments by providing competitive grant. It changes the distributive measures of educational resources within universities, which requires teachers to apply for teaching funds. Moreover, the contemporary educational experiments also emphasize on trans-disciplinary teaching, and university social responsibility and community engagement. Trans-disciplinary teaching refers to interdisciplinary teaching or teaching outside the classroom. The projects of University social responsibility and community engagement require teachers to cultivate students’ civic consciousness by collaborating with community organizations. Although these normative concerns regarding higher education are very important, it makes teachers burden a lot of uncertainty and frustration when struggling to carry out the educational experiments. While some of them may be attributed to personal factors, others may reflect on the daily routine of contemporary Taiwanese higher education or the unexpected consequences of competitive projects. This paper intends to share my experiences and reflections based on stories from a three-years collaboration between a local heatre and me.