by Sophia Jy Chen Lin Among about 2700 qualified NTU faculty members, only 27 received the Distinguished Teaching Award last year. Professor Hsu Jia-Ling is one of them. Upon sitting down for the interview, Prof. Hsu’s first words gave me a glimpse of how she wins over students’ hearts: “My students? They are my sweethearts,” she smiled. Bespectacled, dressed in a beige sweater and faded jeans, Hsu looked just like another ordinary mother who eagerly wishes to give everything she has to her children. But Hsu is not just a mother of one or two; she is a mother of all the students she has taught over the past 13 years. “My job is to enlighten, and to teach them lessons about life, like what a mother would do. That’s why I always like to preach,” she said, “Since they are the best student in Taiwan, I have to give them the best.” This is why Hsu always assigns a heavy workload, for she would rather have her students to complain of having too much to learn than not enough. Convinced that students learn the most effectively when they are focused, Hsu tries to counsel her students with issues such as love problems, career decisions, or family disputes. “It seems that I have a bumper sticker plastered on my face that says: you are welcome to bother me,” she teased herself. Busy as she is, she never hesitates to offer her love and time—the most precious resources to a NTU professor. The present NTU evaluation system compels each faculty member to publish academic papers. Suddenly, being a conscientious teacher who spends a huge amount of time with students seems like nothing compared with a teacher who has many publications. “This sacrificed our students. We spend less time on students to save our job,” Hsu said with a deep concern. “But this isn’t right. This is a university. Our most mission here is to teach, and we should always keep in mind that it is because of the students that we have our positions here. How can we push for our publications at the expense of our teaching quality?” Hsu inverts the way I think about teachers. She not only appreciates being given the opportunity to teach, but also enjoys teaching and she says that students are her elixir. “Teaching Freshman English every year keeps me young, because my students are always 18. I have to keep up with them.” A broadcaster at BCC As enthusiastic a teacher as she is, Hsu wasn’t engaged in teaching in the beginning of her career development. After her graduation from our department (DFLL, NTU) she tried out several jobs, including a sales assistant in a trading company for a week, a privately recruited English secretary at NTU hospital for ten days, and a part-time English teacher in an adult education school for three years. She even took the test for a certified tour guide license. While she almost succeeded in obtaining the license, she was recruited as a news interpreter and editor in the News Division of the Broadcasting Corporation of China. However, as an interpreter, she was also requested to broadcast sports programs. Her very first time on the air was to broadcast a live basketball game. Knowing nothing about basketball, her debut performance turned out to be disastrous. Numerous audience phoned in their complaints to the office of the News Division while the broadcast was undertaking. Yet she was not defeated. Later she was assigned to conduct in-depth interviews with celebrities. With her folksy charm and a special humane approach deriving from her four years of literature training, Hsu successfully interviewed some guests who would not have otherwise appeared. During her three years at BCC, Hsu interviewed more than 200 celebrities, including Wu Ta-You, the then president of the Academia Sinica. This job also opened her eyes from the simplicity of college life to the reality of a much bigger world where people try to knock each other down and walk over each other for a higher position. “That ugly reality made me consider giving up,” she admitted, “but another voice also rang in my head: why should I give up because of the mistakes made by others?” With a belief in the power of perseverance and conscience, Hsu dealt with the problem with a perennial smile and steely resolve. The outcome proved her right. The show became widely successful and developed a faithful following. A prestigious senior colleague of hers commented, “Judging from the quality and success of the program, I thought you must have majored in journalism. What I didn’t expect is that as a graduate of English, your professional performance is much than that of those journalism graduates.” Nevertheless, although it launched her to some stardom, the interviews of big names also made her understand the evanescence of fame. After three years at BCC, Hsu realized that being a reporter, no matter how famous she would be, was about repeating what others had said. She wanted something of her own, something that would truly last through time. Therefore she quit her job and embarked on a ten-year journey to America to study Teaching English as a Second Language and sociolinguistics, a field that corresponds to her passion for human beings. DFLL trains attitude rather than job skills I took the chance to ask her what advice she would give to students like me who worry that the training in the department is not “practical” enough to find a good job after graduation. She told me to believe in myself. “The training in DFLL offers not a key to your future, but an attitude,” she said, “a humanitarian attitude will help you to understand—others and yourself.” It is the lack of such humanitarianism that results in the present exorbitantly demanding NTU evaluation system. Hsu said she always tells her students that they should not worry about what they can become, but about who they are now. “There’s no easy way out! No Mickey mouse courses,” she raised her voice. “They might feed you with a good grade, but never a fine knowledge.” She told me what we should do in our halcyon days of college is to prepare ourselves for the future, so we have to learn, and learn hard—the only way to be competitive enough to face the world. In addition, despite the current bandwagon of applying for graduate school right after graduation, Hsu suggested that students find a job first if they are not sure of what they want to do. According to her own experience at BCC, working helped her to come to an understanding of her own potentials, capabilities, and interests in her career development. “Working experiences help you know better. After working for a while, you’ll understand the books you’ve studied might really help. Working provides you a chance to put what you’ve learned into practice.” “Also, it broadens your vision as to what the world really is like.” She told me that even though we will get hurt in this brutal world, we have to push it through. Eventually, the wound will make us mature and strong. “Such is life!” – No regrets During the interview, I was beguiled by her infectious, childlike joy at the gift of life – as she kept telling me how grateful she was for her students, her job, her family, and for all of life’s good and bad. Asked if there is anything she would want to alter if given the chance, “No, I have no regrets,” she said to me firmly. Looking back on what she has gone through, Hsu admits there has been many difficulties, and a lot of time reality did slap her in the face, and barriers have been piling high. Yet, as her college professor said when commenting on the life of every protagonist in great literary works who had gone through life’s hardships, “such is life!” “Every step you take is a part of life. With perseverance and a conscientious heart, life is very beautiful,” she beamed in delight. a
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May 2024
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