The RCEF Blog 博客

The last day was reserved for brainstorming and planning by school. Sara asked all the participants sit together by school. She then told everyone to close their eyes and listen to the sound of her voice…or rather her voice encouraging us to let loose our imaginations and visualize our “ideal school.” “It’s the year 2050 and your school has evolved very well over the past four decades or so,” she said. “All improvements you could have hoped for has come to pass. What does the school look like now? What do you see? What are the teachers and students doing? How is the teaching? What is life like there?” My head danced with pictures of underground eco classrooms,, local problem solving-based learning, students ranging from expectant parents to the elderly, and a museum with holographic displays of past teachers at Guan Ai that passed on their wisdom and displayed their best practices and lessons learned.

When Sara called us back into reality, we shared about our “dream schools” in small groups and then gathered into one massive group to put all the features of our dreams on the blackboard. They ranged from funny and futuristic imaginings to common improvements we would like to see now. (Examples: “aliens in the classroom,” “one computer per student,” “good manners in school,” “students have self-discipline and interest in learning.”)

These features were then collated into five categories: 1) Physical Infrastructure; 2) Technology; 3) Better Teaching; 4) Life Habits; 5) Lifelong and Community Learning. By vote, we decided that “Better Teaching,” and “Life Habits,” were the two most important topics to discuss presently. In small groups, we then talked about why these areas of improvement were important and what we could do to advance them in the coming semester. Sara had created forms that included a mission statement, goals, evaluation criteria, timeline, and division of work. I was in the “Life Habits” group and while we did discuss changes we hoped to promote in student and teacher behavior (i.e. regarding littering and school sanitation), the plans we wrote up did not seem ready to be used. I think considerably more time and the participation of more key players (i.e. all the teachers who would be involved in executing given steps) is necessary.

This concluded the formal part of the training and our time in Anhui. On the way back to Xi’an, we again routed through Nanjing and had a few hours to visit the Tao Xingzhi memorial museum and tomb at the Xiaozhuang Normal School (南京晓庄师范学校）. It was quite well done and gave us a much better picture of the remarkable life and work of this far-thinking, courageous educator and philosopher. Li Guangdui remarked to me that China’s experience of “educated youths sent to the countryside” might have been very different if Tao Xingzhi had not tragically passed away of overwork in 1946. His powerful philosophy of linking doing to learning may have added much-needed depth and educational value to the tumultuous building of new China.

Be Sociable, Share!

•