WEBVTT

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Good morning, kids.

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Good morning, teacher.

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Have you finished reading the Journey to the West?

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We have.

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Are there lots of demons in the Journey to the West?

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Yes.

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What demons do you remember?

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Six Eared Macaque.

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White Bone Spirit.

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Yellow Wind Demon.

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Bull Demon King.

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Monkey King.

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Monkey King is a demon?

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He is.

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Is he?

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He is.

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Today we talked about

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the Journey to the West in the class.

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After the kids finished reading the book,

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ｗe began to study

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the demons in it.

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There are many demons in the Journey to the West.

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It's kind of like

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a house of demons.

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The book has all kinds of demons.

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The book has a mixture of two elements.

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One is imagination

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and the other is character.

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The reason he wants to marry Princess Baihuaxiu

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is because he's lonely.

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He's so lonely.

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He's lonely?
Which one?

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Are being solitary and loneliness the same?

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They're the same.

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Actually, they aren't quite the same.

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What is being solitary?

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Being solitary is being alone.

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How about loneliness?

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Loneliness is when you feel alone

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even when you're with other people.

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We're almost at the sports field, right?

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Yes.

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Let's find a demon in the sports field.

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Come on, follow me.

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Our class today is sitting in the sports field and observing.

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Since this is a natural science class,

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we should observe animals.

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In the Journey to the West,

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a lot of demons come from animals.

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I hope the kids will use their imagination

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when they see the grasshoppers

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and butterflies in the sports field.

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And create a demon

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that is powerful,

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and good at running and jumping,

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based on its characteristics.

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My cicada

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can shed its skin when it runs into an enemy

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and is captured.

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What do we call that?
A crafty escape.

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You all know this proverb.

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Apart from shedding its skin to escape,

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what else can it do?

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Its call can brainwash people.

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What is it called when you're brainwashed?

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A demonic sound piercing your brain.

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Actually, imagination comes from observation.

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If you observe enough,

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your imagination will guide you.

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I wanted to combine my class with different fields of study.

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Monk Tang Sanzang went on a pilgrimage for Buddhist scriptures
with his disciples and a horse, right?

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Yes.

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Use your fingers

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and show me the number of people

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who go to the Western Paradise?

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Those who show five, hold still.

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How smart you are! Five is wrong.

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Those who show four, hold still.

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Four is also wrong.

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One!

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Why one?

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Because only the monk Tang Sanzang is a person.

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Tang Sanzang is a person.

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I'll take you to Sun Moon Lake today

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to find monk Tang Sanzang.

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Tang Sanzang is in Taiwan.

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Many people in Taiwan don't know

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that a relic of Tang Sanzang's is at Sun Moon Lake.

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The class was designed to allow the kids

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to learn about Tang Sanzang from Xuanguang Temple.

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I then led them through Tang Sanzang's journey.

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Right here.

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What journey will

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we start in a while?

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Tang Sanzang's journey.

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How far is the journey?

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850 meters.

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The students completed the simple pilgrimage

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after reaching Xuanzang Temple.

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Although it was an exhausting process,

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it left a deep impression on the kids.

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Second bow.

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Third bow.

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Do you see it?

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For this class,

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first, the kids must be good at Chinese.

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Their Chinese must be good
in order to finish the Journey to the West.

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Second, they must know their history

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to know Tang Sanzang was from the Tang Dynasty.

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When we read the map,

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we learned geography.

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The kids were doing math

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when they were on the 850-meter journey.

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The class also challenged the kids' physical strength.

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They must do well in PE as well.

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So, you see,

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the class has a mixture of math, history, language, and PE.

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Isn't it just interdisciplinary study?

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This pavilion

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shows what Tang Sanzang

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had done in his life.

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Do you see the Buddha?

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We do.

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How many Buddhas do you see?

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Many.

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Do you see Mazu?

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No.

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Why isn't Mazu here?

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It's because she wasn't born in the Tang Dynasty.

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She wasn't born and hadn't become Mazu yet.

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Mazu didn't show up until the Song Dynasty.

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When I read the Journey to the West before,

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I thought Tang Sanzang was cowardly.

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But after my trip to

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Sun Moon Lake today,

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I realized that Tang Sanzang was a real person.

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He was a very brave person.

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I'd rather to die moving forward

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then to live turning back.

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He said he rather move forward and die

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because he was close to the Western Paradise.

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He refused to retreat.

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Even if he could go home alive,
he refused to turn back.

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I think he was amazing

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because his journey lasted 19 years.

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He even learned Indian.

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I think it'd be very hard

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for people nowadays to do that.

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Our school is on the outskirts of the city.

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So our kids don't have much cultural stimuli.

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During this teaching process,

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my ability has improved,
so have my students' ability.

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Teaching and learning indeed go hand in hand.

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That's why I love doing this kind of activity with the kids.

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The reason I started to write

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the Possible Elementary School series

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was because a kid in my class

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told me that

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he always dozed off in social studies class.

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Personally,

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I had a great time in social studies.

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When I studied it,

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it was like reading stories.

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So I was perplexed

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when I heard him saying that.

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I then flipped through their textbook.

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I found that it's very hard,

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because it's written in adult language.

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I then wondered if I could make it simpler.

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I thought

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maybe I could turn textbooks into story books,

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on their own

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so the kids would want to study the stories
on their own

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after reading my books.

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If the kids wanted to know more about the content
after finishing reading,

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their motivation would be activated.

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This is more important than teachers

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telling kids what to mark for an exam.

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And the knowledge will stay with them forever.

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I used to hate history.

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I felt that some history wasn't real

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so I didn't want to know it.

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But under our teacher's teaching,

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I began to feel history is very important.

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The authors of children's literature are very important.

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If you know how to make

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books enjoyable and educational,

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and to be accepted by the kids,

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you'll be able to teach many wonderful things.

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Learning doesn't only exist in the classroom;

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instead, it exists everywhere in our lives.

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As long as you're willing to find it,

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everything is possible in the future.