Reflections on Exchange with American Librarian
On April 7th, RCEF was fortunate to invite 26 teachers, students, and parents from Trinity School in Menlo Park, California to the city of Yongji to visit Guan Ai School and Xiaochao School. The experience that made the deepest impression on me was my discussion with Librarian Becky Zeren. From that conversation I gathered 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。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [...]
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 [...]
Guan Ai Adult English Class
Since the beginning of the school year, Sara Lam and I have been leading an adult English class every Tuesday and Thursday at Guan Ai Primary. The class was created because teachers at Guan Ai, English and otherwise, expressed interest in improving their English skills. From the beginning, seven teachers, or half of the teaching [...]
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. [...]
Art in Village Schools: A Trip to Hunan
RCEF provides opportunities for rural teachers to broaden their horizons by visiting innovative education programs in other parts of rural China. Last week, I traveled to mountainous western Hunan Province with Ms. Xie, a teacher from Guan Ai School. We visited sites of a rural art education program called 蒲公英行动 (here translated as “Dandelion Action”). [...]
Reflections on the Winter Teacher Training
We invited some teachers from Dulangkou School to come and give some training to our teachers. We really appreciated them giving up their precious holidays to come, and we benefited greatly from their instruction. Firstly, we witnessed the admirable cultivation of a famous school’s teachers: their bearing was unified, graceful and cultured; it mixed modesty, [...]
Guan Ai Launches Parent Training Program!
Teachers at Guan Ai School strongly believe that parents and home education play extremely important roles in the education of their children. However, in the countryside many parents are not conscious of this. On our visits to students’ home, we almost always hear problems about communication between parents, their children and their views on education. [...]
Things I Could Have Done Better
Classes at Guozhuang have actually finished now and I’m now back in the safe confines of Guan Ai School in Shanxi. I do miss the students at Guozhuang though, as they really were a great bunch. Throughout the course and, I dare say, wherever and whenever I teach I try to teach students how to [...]