The RCEF Blog 博客

Merrybelle Guo, a student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, received a grant to travel to China and create storybooks with students and teachers at RCEF’s Guan Ai Elementary School. This is the second in a series of posts about her experience. The first part can be found here.

I suppose I should begin this post with an apology in the dearth of posts I’ve completed. Internet access in the library (my unofficial office for the week) has been made troublesome, though not impossible, since a very loud overnight thunderstorm a week and a half ago. Since then, much has happened.

Since the last blog, I have entered my third week here at GuanAi school and both the 3rd and 4th grade classes have already finished their respective batches of storybooks, but I suppose I should back up just a little bit. My first week in this outpost of incredibly lively children was officially spent listening in to other teachers’ lessons, trying out exercises that would be able to be built on by the curriculum I was planning for the following week, and teaching english children’s songs including “I’m a little teapot,” complete with dance moves. It was unofficially spent by impromptu art/drawing lessons, mass tickle maulings and being chased, tagged, saved, chased, tagged, saved again and again.. and again in games of freeze tag on the dusty play field behind the two story school building.

I began the second week by starting off my newly formed storybook curriculum with Sun laoshi’s (Ms. Sun) 3rd grade class. Both Sunlaoshi and her class (clearly this goes for the rest of the school and people who daily devote their time to this wonderful place) are special. Sun laoshi is incredibly creative and particularly open to new types of learning activities and ideas. For this reason, the kids in her class had already had vast exposure to working in groups, which is not really a traditional classroom concept here, and even in story telling. We spent the first day looking at other stories, going over some of the essential components to writing a story, and even creating some of our own (performance and cheesing included!).

The second day, I asked the children to create name tags/cards, however, these name tags could not be their own but another student’s. The name tags were required to have the other student’s name and visual representations of the student’s personality, likes and dislikes etc. They were supposed to encourage both creativity but also exercise skills needed for interviews or even for conversation; the kids were forced to talk to one another and learn something from their classmates.

After the name tag exercise, there was a scavenger hunt! All of the check points were centered around the school, the people that make up its contents and the surrounding community. Among the requests listed for the hunt were: the recording of a laugh, finding a piece of trash/something that had “no worth” anymore and turning/brainstorming/recycling it into a new item with new importance, finding a teacher or other GuanAi authority figure and asking them four questions about their life (encouraging the students to see their teachers as people with their own lives while also working on interviewing skills and learning about a grown up who lives in their community), and drawing a place at the school that held a special memory for them. Unfortunately, the laugh recording had to be put off due to technical difficulties.. along with the fact that the group of 36 very excitable kids learning to use a recorder for the first time was less than orderly. When we returned to the walls of the classroom, the students presented their transformed pieces of trash and shared what they had learned about their teachers.

Day 3 (each day consisted of three 40 minute periods with 10 minute breaks scheduled inbetween that more often than not were not utilized) was the official book making day. It was exciting, it was creative and it was also chaotic. I hadnt thought this day through thorougly enough, and though Sun laoshi and myself tried to check every story before allowing it to go to “print,” this became a hectic process when groups of kids were hoarding around you. Also later when it came to the binding process, I had planned on having the kids simply tie their books together in different sorts of patterns with ribbons. It would be simple, clean and colorful looking and it would also be an arts and crafts activity that would encourage the kids to use their own creativity by making their books unique and their own design through and through. However, as I had to ask the children what colors they wanted, the materials had to be prepared during class and it was hard to fend their vivacity off as they had no other assignment to preoccupy themselves with.

At (semi) long last, the children finished their books with all fingers intact and they looked great. Though in many ways the project was much different than I had planned, or imagined, it was a wonderful learning process. I took all the books and took pictures of every page of every one of them. After this, I sighed appily in reflection, knowing it would begin again with a new bunch of kids the next day. Little did I know that it would all be happening the next day..

Merrybelle的故事书课程：第二篇

Merrybelle Guo来自北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校，她获得资助来到中国，和RCEF关爱小学的师生一起完成一项特别的教学–故事书课程。本文是她一系列经历中的第二篇。其他部分见下列链接，第一篇

我想首先为没能及时更新博客说一声对不起。大约一个多礼拜之前，这里经历了一场持续了一整夜的暴风雨，那以后，学校图书室（我的临时办公室）的网络连接就出现了问题，上网非常不便。不仅如此，这一段时间，也发生了很多事情。

自从上一篇博文之后，我在关爱学校已经度过了快三个星期。三、四年级分别完成了故事书创作，在这里我把情况稍作回顾。第一周里我的工作是听其他老师讲课，为接下来几周的教学做一些有益的准备和练习， 教孩子们唱英文儿童歌曲，比如”I’m a little teapot”（我是一只小茶壶），并且配上了舞蹈。工作之外的时间，偶尔会上几次临时的艺术/美术课，再就是和孩子们一起玩”木头人”游戏，在二层教学楼后边的尘土飞扬的操场上，一次次地被追，变成木头人，然后获救，被追，木头人，获救……这里的蚊虫较多，我被咬得很惨。

第二周，故事书课程正式开始，首先是在孙老师（孙女士）带的三年级进行。孙老师和她的班级很特别（显然学校里的其他人也是这样认为的）。她富于创新精神，对于新的教学活动和理念抱有特别开放的态度。她的学生有着丰富的分组活动经验。在当地，这是非传统的教学理念，即使对于讲故事课程也是如此。第一天里，我们组织孩子们阅读了其他的故事，讲授了故事写作中的基本要素，甚至还创作了几个故事（包括表演and cheesing ）。

第二天，我让学生们做一张姓名卡，不过不是给自己，而是给别的同学。姓名卡上要有这位同学的名字，以及性格介绍，喜欢什么和不喜欢什么等信息。这个活动的目标是鼓励学生的创造性，练习采访和谈话的技巧；孩子们必须互相交谈，以获得同学的信息。

姓名卡活动之后，是寻宝游戏（scavenger hunt）。任务项目都分布在学校周围，包括工作人员和附近社区。具体的任务是：记录一段笑声；找一件废物或者没用的东西，把它变成新的物品，赋予它新的用途或意义；向一位老师或学校工作人员询问四个有关他生活的问题（鼓励学生们把老师看成有着各自生活的普通人，学习采访的技巧，了解社区中的一位成年人）；画出学校里一处具有特别纪念意义的地方。不幸的是，记录笑声的任务由于技术上的原因不得不取消–让36个兴奋异常的孩子学习使用录音机并不是一件简单的事。当我们再次回到教室时，孩子们纷纷拿出了经过改造的废物，并分享了从老师们那里获得的信息。

第三天是正式制作故事书的日子（每一天包括3节课，每节40分钟，课间有10分钟的休息，不过很多时候孩子们都不想休息）。这是令人兴奋的一天，充满创造力的一天，也是忙乱的一天。我对这样的忙乱并没有足够的准备。尽管孙老师和我试图在定稿之前审查每一个故事，但是当一大群孩子围在你身边，这几乎无法办到。之后是装订过程。我计划让孩子们用各种样式的带子把书系在一起。这样看起来会很整洁，色彩也好看，同时也是一次手工活动，可以让孩子们发挥创造性，亲自设计和动手。可是，由于必须先询问孩子们喜欢的颜色，然后在课堂上准备材料，这段等待的时间里，如何让无事可做的孩子们平静下来成了一个大问题。

终于，孩子们完成了他们的故事书，看上去好极了。尽管这次教学与我的设想有许多不同，但却是一次美妙的学习过程。我收下了所有的书，为每一页都拍了照片。做完这些之后，我下意识地长出了一口气。明天又将要面对另一群孩子，完全不知道会是怎样的情形。

Be Sociable, Share!

•