I was a student in the first cohort of the nine-year integrated curriculum, called a 'lab rat' from first grade until high school graduation.
On my first day of elementary school, I was shocked because the textbooks I received were one-third thicker than my older sisters', and each book had a different cover. I held them and asked my mom at home, "Why are my books different from my sisters'?", but my mom, busy with factory work, didn't know either. Turns out I was the first generation of the new curriculum, and the first in Taiwan's educational history not to use textbooks from the National Institute for Compilation and Translation, but my family didn't know until we encountered it.
A few years later, my oldest sister took the second cohort of the Junior High School Entrance Exam. Before that, our family had no reference point. When the school teacher said "fill in the schools you most want to attend," no one could explain what that meant. My mom had my sister fill in schools from Taipei First High School for Girls, Zhongshan High School for Girls, and NTNU High School all the way down, and they all got rejected. There was no school to attend. In that era, failing to get into high school was already rare, especially for a student with county chief commendation. Eventually, she could only get into a private high school in Linkou through independent recruitment.
Throughout our K-12 education, because of our social class, "insufficient educational knowledge" and "closed information channels" meant that while other families and students had already done their homework—knowing common knowledge like "the nine-year curriculum would replace National Institute textbooks" and "the entrance exam required filling preferences based on scores"—we became orphans under the education system.
These events taught me that inadequate initial environment and insufficient effort in education create gaps and misconceptions. This closure only ended after I pursued graduate studies and needed to conduct extensive independent research on papers, which finally sparked my interest in reading.
The real turning point came when I covered education news for TVBS.
"Education is really cold! There's nothing worth reporting," this was what all my seniors told me before I actually covered the beat. They almost all gave up the education beat after just 2 to 3 months because they couldn't find hot topics in education, switching instead to finance and transportation. But education for me was different—through interviews, I frequently encountered students from top universities and high schools, or students from schools about to close, so-called diploma mills, which gave me entirely new insights and shocks.
"I've already finished all the books that Taipei Tech seniors need to read in sophomore and junior year," when an 18-year-old Jianguo High School student casually told me this, I was so shocked I stepped back. Reflecting on my own 18-year-old self, I was immersed in club activities, neglecting the chance to truly explore myself. I deeply understand how students below top schools, student council leaders carrying NT$800,000 in loans after graduation, or I myself have lost from the starting line in mindset, and that may truly be impossible to overcome in a short time.
I believe education is about knowing more, which grants more perspectives and cognitive foundations to judge whether values align with oneself and what is correct or not. This has nothing to do with credentials, but everything to do with resources. Education can now use technology to let people from different fields share their thoughts and perspectives; to give learners seeking knowledge immediate channels to repeatedly watch and absorb knowledge. Educational exploration is no longer confined to schools, and can even break through class mobility, allowing people to choose what they want to learn.
