The RCEF Blog 博客

The first RCEF teacher professional development training has just concluded! It was part of RCEF’s Integrative Rural Education Program which works year round to support rural teachers in experimenting with new curriculum and teaching methods. 19 rural teachers from Guan Ai Elementary School (RCEF’s main program site) and 5 RCEF staff and volunteers traveled from Shanxi Province to Anhui Province for 8 days of team building and educational discussions. We were joined in Anhui by Ron Sung, a new RCEF teaching fellow, and about a dozen teachers from Desheng Pingmin School, the site of the workshop. The entire trip was 8 days long and included three days of field trips to broaden teachers’ horizons. This was the first time most Guan Ai teachers had been away from their home districts, much less out of Shanxi Province.

The training had several goals. One was to help the teachers and RCEF staff to get to know each other better, especially since new RCEF staff members are moving to Guan Ai and the school just hired 3 new teachers. Another goal was to discuss problems with rural education and common educational values that motivate and underlie our work. Experienced educators were also invited to share their expertise and inspire the teachers with new ideas and concrete examples of innovative, student-centered teaching. Finally, the training provided time for teachers to brainstorm improvements they would like to see at Guan Ai. They also made some initial plans for taking action on these issues in the coming semester. I will post more about the training in future blog posts.