Guan Ai Teachers Start a Blog
Recently, the principal of Guan Ai School, Sun Huimiao, started a blog for Guan Ai! It’s a great idea and the teachers have taken to it with enthusiasm. The account is shared by all the teachers and each teacher posts on it at least once a week about any topic related to the school. Some [...]
Reflections on a reading conference in Hangzhou
This post was written by Xiaochun Li, a first grade teacher at Guan Ai Primary School. She is part of a team of teachers and RCEF staff who work on the library and reading program at the school. 以下的博客是关爱小学的李晓春老师写的。她是学校图书和阅读项目的一名负责人。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [...]
Beekeeping Journals
Guan Ai has a group of very inquisitive and energetic fifth grade boys. Last semester, they took an interest in the bees which buzzed around the school yard and crawled around water droplets on the faucets. For several days in a row, one or more of these boys would rush into the RCEF office, exuberant, [...]
Nature Camp for Children of Rural Migrant Workers
In the mountains of Miyun County outside of Beijing, there is a nature retreat which serves as the base of operations for the Peasant’s Children Cultural Development Center, a NGO that pioneers nature education in China. Every summer a group of children from the dusty, crowded migrant neighborhoods in Beijing get to go to this [...]
How I Prepared for the Start of School
Xiaochun Li is a teacher at Guan Ai Primary School. She is in her early 20s and has taught for a few years. Last year she taught second grade math and this year she is teaching first grade. RCEF organized a training for teachers before school started this year. It involved teachers analyzing the curriculum [...]
Musical Experimentation
Music class, like art class, is a rarity in rural China. The Guan Ai School students are lucky to have music class once a week. However, with little exception, teaching does not address any music concepts or learning beyond singing. The textbooks are basically “song books”. That’s why we welcomed the chance to have Music [...]
Creative Tests for Creative Students: Part 2
This post was written by RCEF Monitoring and Evaluation Summer Intern Shang Xinyuan, a master’s student at the University of Pennsylvania School of Education. At the end of June before the government’s final exams, RCEF administered special tests aimed at evaluating students’ skills in critical thinking, communications, and creativity. To prepare for traditional tests, the [...]
Third Parent Meeting at Guan Ai School
David Pho, RCEF’s Communications Consultant, wrote the following article, which was part of our June Newsletter. RCEF helps to organize Parent Meetings at Guan Ai Primary School. This year marked the first time that the school has actively and structurally involved parents in their students’ education. These initiatives allow parents to keep track of their [...]
Talking about Rural Children’s Education
In early June, Sara Lam, RCEF’s Executive Director of Programs, spoke about the Integrative Rural Education Program to around 60 students at Shanxi Agricultural University. The talk was enthusiastically received and many students participated in a lively question and answer session afterwards. The seminar was organized by a student rural volunteer group called Peasant’s Children [...]
Pilgrimage to Dulangkou
Dulangkou Middle School is located in a rural township but is one of the most-visited schools in the world. Ten years ago, it was a failing school in grave danger of losing students. Facing possible closure, it embarked on an education reform effort to raise students’ test scores with a radical new way of teaching. [...]