Comments on: Who are the rural students?

By: Yu Xiaoqi

Yu Xiaoqi — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:36:25 +0000

Dear all,
I am so thrilled that my paper provoked discussions. Thank you guys for your insights, which will facilitate the revision of my paper.
I doubt whether it’s proper to draw a distinctive line between the answers of the two groups. However,the first group of answers were from students from urban regions. The second group of answers were from student from rural regions.
The results/findings were interpreted by me after focus group interviews and coding with those 20 college freshmen (12 urban, 8 rural). Due to the limitation in study sample size, it is unreasonable to claim that the findings reflect the overall students opinion in China.
I was born and raised in Shanghai. I could not actually visualize the disparity of education between urban and rural regions untill listen to those students stories about their teachers. One point need to be pointed out is that students responses reflect the reality they have experienced as well as their expectations–an ideal type of good teacher in their head. These 2 aspects of “characteristics of a good high school teacher” make it interesting.
Those 8 students from rural area did from boarding schools system. They spent large proportion their life at school with their classmates and teachers. To them school is an extended family,teachers are fosters. While study extremely hard is already out of question, the selfless devotion of their teacher, therefore occur to their mind at first before the actual teaching skill their teachers revealed. A few students shew me pictures of their classroom took one week before Gao kao, classmates were like friends, standing in front of the chalk board filled with words that encouraging each other, it blew my mind away. Just speak from my own experience, my classmates were having all kinds of tutors, every body is helping themselves.
For urban students, there is an rising consumer mentality. I go to school, you better help me to achieve my goal of getting a high score. If we take the social setting–market economy into consideration, the pace of a cosmopolitan like Shanghai is nothing but rapid. The cohesion among people in the urban regions depends on the interdependence of one and another, this mechanic cohesion does not necessary require envolvement of emotions. And certainly, urban students go back to home every day after the school, which may also explain why there is not so much “touchy” feeling established between their teachers and them.
I also want to mention that my interviews with those students revealled a distinction of a good teacher and the popular teacher. A popular teacher possess charisma in thir language and appearance, but not necessary know how to deliver the curriculum. I am sure we all have similar experience—”you know, he is interesting person, but he does not know how to teach this.”
Here above are some of my thoughts along the line, when I finish my final paper, it shall provide you with more details and interpretations. Feel free to let me know your questions, concerns, and critics, certainly.

By: Sheng Yin

Sheng Yin — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:44:44 +0000

I think the first group is from rural China because they focus on the original purpose of school which might be more about learning knowledge, getting better in exam, and at same time, it will be great if teacher will make lectures sound more interesting.

For similar reasons, I think second group is from urban China. They have access to the learning sources, so they just need to know which one to pay more attention. On top of that, they also need a good listener.

By: Lan Xuezhao

Lan Xuezhao — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:49:33 +0000

First RURAL, Second URBAN.

I am willing to bet with you guys on this.

Lan

By: W Chang

W Chang — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:41:04 +0000

For those of you who didn’t attend the conference, the topic was “What are the Roles of a Good High School Teacher in Urban and Rural China – Students Perspectives”

That should help clarify the questions earlier.

By: Annie Zhou

Annie Zhou — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:40:27 +0000

My guess:
First group – rural
Second group – urban

Although there are many similar characteristics of both populations of students, the second group seems to focus more on interpersonal relationships and development, a concept that is still fairly new to rural areas but may be more developed in urban areas. The first group seems to be catered towards a more traditional curriculum, which is still dominant in rural schools.

By: Sophie Sun

Sophie Sun — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:57:31 +0000

First group is more Urban, second group is more rural. But teachers from rural and urban share some common characteristics which describe in both groups:)

By: Haili Cheng

Haili Cheng — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:47:58 +0000

My guess is:
First group urban.
Second group rural.

Reasons:
In the second group there is a response as “professional who provides resources for learning”. Rural students are lack of most kinds of resources.

And another response from the second group is “friend who shares my emotions”. Rural students tend to experience more difficulties, both financially and emotionally.

By: Qian Xiao

Qian Xiao — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:58:32 +0000

hah…………..interesting!!!!
hmmmm, it is hard to guess, especially when lack of infomation about how Xiaoqi conducted the survey, but I am going to give it a try anyways.
It seems to me that the first group of children emphasis more on learning vs. personal issues (1. 3. 4. 5. are all about learing, only 2 is about personalities or personal issues), however the second group of children showed different focus. They focus on people-people interaction with teachers and take a broader and also more general view of teacher’s roles. To me, knowledge delivery and personal development are both very important characters of teachers, and a good teacher should be good at both. However it is very interesting to do a little analysis of why different group of children emphasis on different things.

Hmmmm, I still havn’t made a guess yet, and I don’t feel confident about my guess. It seems that I can immediately come up with explanations for either group to be rural students….My analytical tendency is so strong that it holds me from being decisive. OK, let me be frank here and give my would-be explanations for either option:

1) if the first group of children turn out to be rural kids:
I won’t be surprise because in my view, rural kids are very eager to learn things and the tough environment they live in makes them more mature or more purposeful/goal-driven compared to their lucky urban counterparts. If this is true, we should pay even more attention to our curriculum(especially in last year), which used to be focus a lot in FUN, but didn’t focus on knowledge delivery and formal learning that much.
However I will have little concern for them if they emphasis “short-cut to passing exams”. In one hand, this shows how eager the kids are to change their situation and to move on to higher education. But as we’ve discussed enough in RCEF, though understandable and natural, exam-preparaion is really not going to help them to learn life-related skills or help them to succeed in future career, if they failed to pass.

2) if the second group of children trun out to be rural kids:
I won’t be surprised because rural kids, expecially those 留守儿童, must be very eager to receive careness, friendship and mentorship from people they respect, their teachers. If this is the case, I think our RCEF volunteers should pay even more attention to emotional needs of rural kids, conduct more interaction and communication with them, be careful to not to hurt their feelings and to educate them how to grow mentally healthy.

Well, no matter which one turn out to be rural kids, I think we should pay attention on both effective learning and emotional growth. As I said before, both are important to be good teachers.

Ok, so I am not making any guess…because I got really confused by myself, as always, hehe. Eager to know which one is right!

By: Steven Liu

Steven Liu — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:22:10 +0000

My cynical bones say that that’s a characteristic of both rural AND urban school students. And urban students are in a much better position to find cram teachers because they have the money to pay them.

By: Marco

Marco — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:18:35 +0000

I agree with what Vivian says. Looking for shortcuts on tests seems like a characteristic of urban school students.

First group urban.
Second group rural.