The RCEF Blog 博客

Teachers should provide students with opportunities to complete tasks independently so that they build self confidence. Students will be more active and take the initiative more frequently when they receive attention and appropriate encouragement from the teacher. Their confidence accumulates gradually.

Around noon on May 20^t, we observed an Integrated Practice Class at Xiaochao Primary School. It was the third part

Rehearsing the phone call.

of a project called “Hand in Hand, Heart to Heart” and the theme of this particular class was “The Relay of Love.”During the class, each student wrote a letter to a student from a school in Chaijia Village located in an impoverished area of Gansu Province. They also planned to send the money they had fundraised to help the school.  However, as the exact address, zip code, and recipients’ names were still unknown, it was necessary to call the school in Chaijia first. Normally, it would be the teacher who makes the call. However, Xiaochao Primary School is one of RCEF’s partner schools and they share our value of student-centered education. Not only is the development and personality of every single student emphasized, but practical experiences are promoted as a valuable source of knowledge and skills. Therefore, during the group lesson planning time, some of the teachers suggested that the students might simulate making the phone call first. During the simulation, they could learn important tips for calling a stranger and what to say during the call. In the end, the students with the strongest oral skills would make the final call. Sara Lam, RCEF’s Co-Executive Director, did not agree with the plan. Her reason was that students with better oral skills were the same ones who had already made the presentation during the fundraising campaign. They already had plenty of opportunities to practice. Instead, students who are relatively shy or who have not made speeches before should practice the phone calling situation and other students could then vote from among them who would make the final long distance call.

Actually, we were worried about Sara’s plan at the very beginning. It is not an easy task for a primary school student to explain him or herself clearly to a teacher far away who is a complete stranger. The teacher, Ms. Zhang Li, began the lesson with doubts. After Ms. Zhang announced that those without speech-making experience should come to the front and act out the phone call simulation, those students who had speech experience seemed dissatisfied, while the other students were too timid to go to the podium. Finally, after continuous encouragement from classmates and teachers, eight students stepped to the front hesitantly. Read the rest of this post

Selling eggs may just be an ordinary thing in the eyes of villagers but it can be an exciting learning experience for the

Students and their eggs attract attention at the market.

students from Guan Ai Primary School. Five of our students, Sara Lam and I (Principal Sun) went to the marketplace as an out-of-school educational experience to sell the eggs from the chickens that students have been raising in their extracurricular elective class. Half of our eggs were green, which were apparently rare and drew excitement from the teachers and other villagers. The students did research on them and wrote the information on a piece of paper for potential customers.

As we entered the market, we were dazzled by the huge variety of delicious snacks that made our mouths water. We continued to walk around the market searching for a place where people sell eggs. First, we wanted to know what the going rate for eggs was. Second, we wanted to find a suitable place to set up shop. At last, we found an old lady by the market exit with approximately 5 to 6 catties of eggs for $5 RMB/catty. However, we thought we might cause too much attention so it was best not to set up right next to the old lady and we went to look for a site elsewhere. At last, we found a more crowded area and began our business. Read the rest of this post

Rural Chinese teachers ask questions of American librarian Becky Zeren.

On April 7th, RCEF was fortunate to invite 26 teachers, students, and parents from Trinity School in Menlo Park, California to the city of Yongji to visit Guan Ai School and Xiaochao School. The experience that made the deepest impression on me was my discussion with Librarian Becky Zeren. From that conversation I gathered some key lessons about book management and reading methods. I hope to share these with my fellow educators.

1. A School librarian should have a strong sense of professionalism and a progressive educational philosophy.

Ms. Becky did not like reading when she was young. In attempt to encourage children to read, she began reading and started to enjoy it. She eventually became a librarian and stayed as one for 30 plus years. She is 69 years old now and is still managing the library. She is an excellent librarian and I greatly respect her professionalism.

Her work reflects a “child-centered” education philosophy. She likes to have students asking questions because these questions can stimulate changes and new ideas at work. The library is open everyday so that the students can come and read anytime. Even if the librarian is not around, students can leave a note on the table and Ms. Becky will deliver the book to the student’s classroom according to the notes.

If a student accidentally damages a book, she will not use fines as punishment. Rather, she will tell the student: “Everybody makes mistakes. If you can change your attitude and put in the effort in to make up for the mistake, then you are a good child.” Therefore whenever a student makes a mistake, she would guide the student to volunteer in the library (such as helping to organize books or clean) to make up for their mistakes. Read the rest of this post

Recently, the principal of Guan Ai School, Sun Huimiao, started a blog for Guan Ai! It’s a great idea and the teachers have taken to it with enthusiasm. The account is shared by all the teachers and each teacher posts on it at least once a week about any topic related to the school. Some have shared stories about students or how they deal with problems in teaching or thoughts about education in general. The blog can be viewed here. There’s some great stuff on there, including this impassioned defense of rural teaching as a career and this funny story of how two third graders compete to finish their homework and hold each other accountable with methods of their own devising.

It’s really exciting for us to see the teachers writing and sharing about their work. For the last two years, RCEF has worked to help rural teachers feel more comfortable and capable of doing exactly this and now the team of Guan Ai rural teachers have created a platform all their own. Far from dying out or being a stagnant blog (like RCEF’s sometimes is!), their platform is going strong, refreshed by the joys, pains, and insights gained in their daily lives of teaching.

This post was written by Xiaochun Li, a first grade teacher at Guan Ai Primary School. She is part of a team of teachers and RCEF staff who work on the library and reading program at the school. 以下的博客是关爱小学的李晓春老师写的。她是学校图书和阅读项目的一名负责人。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2009年11月19日孙传美老师.小朝学校的尚好看老师.和我三个人,一行去了杭州,这是我第一次带着学校的期望与任务参加了这次会议,我既感到兴奋又感到责任重大,同时我对这次会议也抱有很大的期望.

在这次的回忆中我接触了一个新鲜的东西: 班级读书会,这是我们关爱学校乃至于整个山西所没有接触过的一种新型的阅读讨论形式，会议中展示了三种不同的班级读书会的形式与样本，使我们对班级读书会这个新的概念有了一个大致的认识与了解，但是在专家的解说与自我感觉中，班级读书会还可能有其他多种形式，在这里只是展示了三种:阅读前的阅读推荐班级读书会(学生对所推荐的这本书一无所知,老师通过让学生看书的封面或读书中的精彩片段或者是让学生读梗概等方式让学生猜测与预测这本书的内容,从而感染学生的阅读兴趣);\阅读后的读书分享讨论班级读书会(学生已经读了这本书,然后让学生重新回到这本书上,老师采用阅读情节单,角色日志,心情日志等来共同分享这本书);\阅读后的对比阅读班级读书会(这中形式也属于阅读后分享讨论会,只是这 Read the rest of this post

Students examine a honey comb

Guan Ai has a group of very inquisitive and energetic fifth grade boys. Last semester, they took an interest in the bees which buzzed around the school yard and crawled around water droplets on the faucets. For several days in a row, one or more of these boys would rush into the RCEF office, exuberant, bearing the latest live specimens they had captured and put in “habitats” fashioned out of discarded bottles, tape and wooden chopsticks. “What kind of bee is this?” they wanted to know. “Is this a wasp or a bee? How can we keep it alive?” Seeing that their curiosity was not just a passing fad, we decided to take the students to learn from real beekeepers. Utilizing the recess time before dinner, we walked through the fields to a village about fifteen minutes away where an elderly couple raised bees in their backyard. Read the rest of this post

Emcee demonstrates how to deliver lines with emotion.

Seven teachers from the Yuncheng Preschool Normal School came to visit Guan Ai School on September 27th. (A “Normal School” means a school that trains teachers, in this case to teach in preschools.) They included several artists, a calligrapher, a singer and a professional emcee. The guests went to different classes to teach students about their own artforms. The artists demonstrated to the fourth and sixth graders how to draw portraits using Kiel as a model, the calligrapher taught the fifth graders techniques for writting different strokes and words, and the emcee taught students how to recite passages and poems with emotion. The calligrapher also wrote beautiful banners for the school, the teachers’ office and the library.

Artist draws a portrait as students gather around.

Calligrapher made signs for the school.

Developing and teaching a bookmaking class at Guan Ai School this past summer was an incredibly rewarding

Students hold up their finished books.

experience for me. I love teaching and took advantage of the summer vacation to develop a ten day activity class at the school. Though I developed the curriculum, most important to the class was my partnership with two local Guan Ai teachers: Ms. Xie and Principal Sun.

I have learned through previous work in America and China that education is a truly collaborative experience. It is really a game of constant adjustment as you and your partners try to find how to apply an idea on paper to the reality of twenty young minds sitting before you in a classroom. Because of this you are only as good as the people you work with, and I was fortunate to work with two talented teachers who were eager to give suggestions and to share their expertise. This is especially important to me since I am a foreigner in China who is using my ideas to teach a class abroad. I find that when working with Chinese teachers and students, it is always so interesting (and sometimes a bit frustrating) to discover the new ways of thinking that they share. Read the rest of this post