彩虹妈妈 (Rainbow Mummy)

I've decided to dedicate a post to a group of people known as 彩虹妈妈.

So who are they and what do they do?

They are basically a group of mothers from church getting together and conducting classes for students in the form of story telling sessions which focuses on the values and the upbringing of the children. For the past 3 weeks that I've been here, I've sat in for 3 lessons with these mothers watching them conduct their lessons.

I'm not too sure as to how big the group is but during the third time that I sat in for their lesson, I was told by a 彩虹妈妈 from the group that they aim to reach out to all schools in Taiwan, be it elementary school, junior high or senior high school. However, they had been facing the problem of  not being accepted by some schools as they see them mothers as preaching/ forcing their ideology on the students.

During the very first lesson that I sat in for, I was having mixed feelings. I am definitely not up with the idea of using such a platform in recruiting more students' into converting into Christians but yet at the same time, I feel that there is definitely no harm in children having a belief if it means that they are well guided during their growing/ learning process.

彩虹妈妈 uses the form of story telling sessions to drive learning points into them. Each story will bring across to students certain values. For the first lesson that I sat in for, the mothers were talking to them about learning to appreciate what their mum/ family have done for them and to show their appreciation to them. So the students were tasked with observing the everyday movements of their mothers and to think about what their mothers would like/ need the most and to give it to them. Students can either make it or buy it. After a week, they were asked to share what they have observed and what did they give them. Some students gave their mothers a massage, some bought flowers while others helped out with house chores. The usual form of learning through listening to stories is further enhanced by the fact that students are tasked with follow ups, enabling them to remember better the lessons learnt.

Story telling session by Rainbow Mama

Sharing things they observed from their mums

Students eagerly wanting to answer questions raised

After getting to know about 彩虹妈妈, I started comparing how different the education system is in Singapore. I feel that schools in Taiwan, apart from focusing on the academic aspect of students, they also focus more on character building of students than as compared to Singapore. Although the schools in Singapore do have lessons like 好公民，I honestly don't remember (blame it on my bad memory maybe) attending any lessons that actually touched so much on character building of students. Or maybe it could be that I do not have much opportunity in learning about the curriculum of Singapore's education. Whichever the case, I feel that this is another takeaway that maybe the education system of Singapore can learn from.

PS: Rainbow mummy comes to each class only once every 2 weeks as they enter classes of the same school on a rotational basis.