The RCEF Blog 博客

中文翻译在此处

The next morning we took a bus to the Desheng Common Peoples School (德胜平民学校）, the site of the training. I’ll write a blog post later specifically about the Common Peoples School to give more information about this very interesting model. After a delicious lunch prepared by the school’s cooks, the training officially began. During the introductions and name games, Guan Ai and RCEF participants had a huge advantage because we already knew each other. However, the 8-10 teachers from Desheng School put in great efforts and were wonderful hosts throughout the week.

Sara Lam, RCEF’s Co-Executive Director, did a superb job designing and leading the training. She started off by setting the tone and purpose for our gathering. We are all here because we’re progressive educators (教育先行者), she said. As workers at Guan Ai and Desheng Schools, we are all engaged in advancing rural education quality and striving to better meet rural students’ needs. To show that we are not alone in upholding this kind of mindset and action, Sara described the inspiring efforts of rural teachers in Chiapas, Mexico. These teachers recognized that the national education system ignored and even oppressed some of the needs of their rural indigenous minority students, thus making it hard for these students to learn well and prepare for success in society. Many of their problems were similar to those we face in rural China, including inappropriate textbooks and mainstream values that bred a disdain for rural lifestyles. In response, the Chiapas teachers wrote their own teaching materials, taught useful life skills, and lobbied successfully for education policy changes. Their achievements were largely teacher-initiated and they effected widespread improvements. To prove that this is not only a foreign phenomenon, Sara then described the Hunan Miao Support Network, an organization started and run entirely by a group of rural teachers on their own. This year, RCEF awarded them an Innovation Grant to fund a teacher training that they organized themselves for their own professional development. (Click here to read about Sara’s visit to them in March 2008).

After hearing these examples of educators taking action, we returned to the fundamentals of why we were engaged in this work in the first place. In small groups, we examined the basic needs of rural students and how well current education was serving those. Each group had a piece of poster paper split into three columns: 1) “Possible paths for rural students after finishing 9 years of compulsory education”; 2) “Skills needed for each of those possible paths”; 3) “What we can do to foster those skills.” After brainstorming the skills needed in column 2, we underlined those which regular, current education was able to fulfill and put check marks next to those we felt our school already fulfilled. The framework was useful for thinking through the needs systematically but because of time pressures, not every group was able to fully flesh out the discussion. Afterwards, each group reported on their analysis.

The next activity was designed to help teachers talk about their closely held but not often articulated educational values. RCEF staff and some Guan Ai teachers had brainstormed and created hypothetical scenarios around common dilemmas met in daily teaching. Each group then got one scenario with discussion questions. Here is one of them:

潘老师教六年级数学。他的学生脑子不笨，但是基础薄弱，所以每年班上只有大概四分之一的学生真的能赶上进度。其余的学生上课的时候听不大懂，潘老师看到他们渐渐地对数学失去兴趣。潘老师认为对于拿四分之三的学生来说，一定要从基础抓起，要不然他们会产生厌学心理，而且上了初中更没法跟上。但是如果这样做他没法完成教学任务，会拉低整个班级的成绩，也担心会耽误好学生的学习。所以，他每年还是一样的赶进度。Mr. Pan teaches sixth grade math. His students are not unintelligent but they have weak foundations and as a result, only one fourth are able to keep up with the regular pace of the curriculum.The other students can’t understand what’s said in class and Mr. Pan sees that they are gradually losing interest in math. Mr. Pan believes that for these students (three fourths of the class), focusing on the basics is the most important. They are in danger of starting to dislike school and once they advance to middle school, may not be able to catch up. But if he did this, he would not be able to finish teaching all of the regular curriculum. This would pull down the entire class’ average score and negatively affect the strong students. As a result, each year, Mr. Pan continues to teach at the regular pace to keep up with the curriculum.

• 你认为有哪些可能的客观和主观的因素促使潘老师这样做？What subjective and objective factors influence Mr. Pan to take this line of action.
• 你认为他这样做对他有什么利弊？What are the pros and cons for Mr. Pan?
• 他的做法对学生有什么利弊？What are pros and cons for his students?
• 你认为潘老师可以如何更好的面对这个情况？How do you think Mr. Pan could better handle this situation?
• 你认为学校或社会可以做出那些改变或给以那些支持，让潘老师更好的教育这些孩子？What kind of changes do you think could happen in the school or society to allow Mr. Pan to better educate his students?

Afterwards, each group reported on their thoughts and there was time for others to give their own opinions as well. Other scenario topics included: “Disobedient students,” “What to do about students who may not be headed for university,” “Teachers who lose motivation,” and “Conflicts between the standard curriculum and student-centered methods.”

We did not have mandatory activities in the evening and people spent the time watching the Olympics or viewing movies like Freedom Writers, a film about teaching very challenging students in the United States.

教师培训第一日：教育先行者

翻译：王晓峰  校对：华振宇

第二天清晨，我们一行人乘客车前往培训地点–德胜平民学校。稍后我会写一篇文章对这所平民学校做一个专门介绍，以便大家进一步了解这一特殊的模式。学校的厨师为我们准备了非常可口的午餐。午餐之后，本次培训就正式开始了。在介绍和姓名游戏中，来自关爱学校和RCEF的人员表现出了巨大的优势，因为我们彼此之间早就认识。德胜学校的大约十位老师也积极努力地参与其中。作为东道主，在随后的一周时间里，他们的表现都非常出色。

林治美，RCEF的联合执行总监，为本次培训的设计和实施作出了卓越的工作。她在发言中点明了这次培训的目的和意义。她说，我们相聚在此地，因为我们有着共同的身份–教育先行者。不论是来自关爱还是德胜，我们都致力于推动农村教育质量的提升，更好地满足农村学生的需要。我们的想法和做法并非孤立的现象，在世界其他地区，有着与我们志同道合的教育者。治美介绍了墨西哥恰帕斯州的乡村教师所取得的令人鼓舞的成绩。那里的老师们认识到国家教育系统疏忽甚至压制了农村少数民族学生的需求，使得这些学生得不到良好的教育，很难在社会上取得成功。他们遇到的许多问题与中国农村十分相似，比如教材不适用，主流价值观念对农村的轻视。为了解决这些问题，恰帕斯的老师们自己动手编写教材，教给学生实用的生活技能，并且成功地游说了政府官员，使教育政策得到改进。这些改革很大程度上是由教师发起的，进而带来了教育状况的普遍改善。不仅在国外，中国农村也发生了类似的情况。治美接着为我们介绍了湖南苗族教育支持网络。这是一个完全由农村教师创立的组织。（治美在2008年3月曾经对他们进行访问，点击了解详情）

在听取了这些有关教育改革和探索的事例之后，我们回到起点，围绕最根本的问题展开了讨论：我们为什么做这些工作？大家分成小组，分析农村学生的基本需求以及目前的教育对这些需求的满足情况。每一组都获得一张招贴纸，上面分成三个问题版块：

（1）       农村学生在完成九年制义务教育后可能的去向；

（2）       每一种可能去向所需要的技能；

（3）       我们能为这些技能的培养做哪些工作。

大家集思广益，首先列出了问题2中所需要的技能。这些技能中，有一些是目前的常规教育能够胜任的，我们用下划线标出，还有一些在我们的学校里已经能够培养，我们用打勾的方法标示。这个问题框架对于系统地归纳出各种需要很有帮助，但是因为时间紧张，有的小组没能完成全部问题。随后，各组分别报告了分析结果。

接下来是一个特别设计的活动，目的是通过讨论，帮助老师们把头脑中已有但很少表达的教育观念阐述出来。RCEF的工作人员和关爱学校的一部分老师把日常教学中的两难问题编写成一些虚拟情景，并提出若干问题。每一组对其中一个场景进行讨论。其中一个情景是这样的：

潘老师教六年级数学。他的学生脑子不笨，但是基础薄弱，所以每年班上只有大概四分之一的学生真的能赶上进度。其余的学生上课的时候听不大懂，潘老师看到他们渐渐地对数学失去兴趣。潘老师认为对于那四分之三的学生来说，一定要从基础抓起，要不然他们会产生厌学心理，而且上了初中更没法跟上。但是如果这样做他没法完成教学任务，会拉低整个班级的成绩，也担心会耽误好学生的学习。所以，他每年还是一样的赶进度。

• 你认为有哪些可能的客观和主观的因素促使潘老师这样做？
• 你认为他这样做对他有什么利弊？
• 他的做法对学生有什么利弊？
• 你认为潘老师可以如何更好的面对这个情况？
• 你认为学校或社会可以做出那些改变或给以那些支持，让潘老师更好的教育这些孩子？

讨论之后，每个小组向大家介绍本组的场景，问题和观点看法，其他小组的成员也可以发表自己的意见。另外一些讨论情景包括：”不听话的学生”，”怎样对待那些不会上大学的学生”，”失去了动力的教师”，”正常课程与以学生为中心的教学方法之间的冲突”。

晚上的时间没有活动安排，大家或是观看奥运比赛，或是看电影。其中一部叫 Freedom Writers，讲的是美国一群十分难教的学生。