The RCEF Blog 博客

Guan Ai’s annual New Year’s (Yuan Dan 元旦） Celebration took place yesterday on a chilly but clear day. After breakfast, motorbikes started piling up outside the school gate as students’ guardians arrived. Some of the them had just returned from working in cities and hadn’t seen their kids in weeks or months. Each class set [...]

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. [...]

Christmas isn’t usually celebrated in rural China. However, the Guan Ai students and teachers remembered the Western holiday was coming up and went all out to make it special for the RCEF staff here. Last night (Christmas Eve), I walked on to campus surprised to see a lighted up tree! It had the students’ cardboard [...]

Last year, construction at Guan Ai Primary School began with the building of two new wood buildings donated by Canada Wood, a non-profit organization. The two buildings are being used as offices for the teachers and RCEF staff members so they have space to design lesson plans, attend trainings, and reflect on their teaching. This [...]

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文. An English translation will be updated soon.

After a busy week promoting RCEF in the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York City, Diane finally had some time to catch up with old friends and volunteers, as well as meet new friends who are interested in RCEF’s cause. Jean and I organized a small gathering at Congee Village in Chinatown for [...]

I finally saw Michelle Rhee! She spoke on a panel about “Improving Quality Education” with two women from Mali and India–places that seemed worlds apart from Washington, DC but actually face very similar root problems in their schools. 50% of fifth graders surveyed by the NGO Pratham in India could not read simple sentences. The [...]

The 2008 Clinton Global Initiative starts in New York City tomorrow. For the second year, RCEF has been invited to attend, which is a big honor and unique opportunity to network with the likes of President Clinton, innovative NGOs, corporate heads, and influential people in many fields. Last year, Wei Ji Ma represented RCEF and [...]

As you’ve seen from the previous post, last Wednesday was Teacher’s Day here in China. Each member of RCEF’s staff was responsible for helping a grade prepare ways to thank their teachers for their hard work. I was responsible for fourth grade, and together we decided to act out dramas to show situations in which [...]

顺便提一下，平民学校的饭菜伙食真是不错，每天都有各色可口的菜肴，还外加清甜的绿豆汤。让人每顿饭都食欲大开，塞满整整一肚子；但也不知道是否人在南方新陈代谢就加速，总之中午才满头大汗地干掉一大顿，下午没怎么动，晚上还不到饭点肚子就又叫了。那几天我感觉到自己真的成了大号饭桶，塞了填，填了塞……日复一日的机械式循环重复着。 饭好吃，平民学校的老师也很好。在第一天简单的认识后，两所学校的团队就充分的融合了。大家都积极地参与讨论，积极地分享自己的经验。而两所学校最充分互相了解的一天当属第四天的“经验交流会”部分了，两边都把自己学校的理念、想法与经验做了报告。其中平民学校的各种培养孩子生活习惯与劳动习惯的做法给人以不少的启示，现在农村孩子大多都是爷爷奶奶来管教，由此而引发的问题也不在少数。而平民学校的生活教育与劳动教育为孩子们在童年时代就打下了良好的习惯基础，这为他们以后的修身立业有着莫大的帮助。在随后的主题讨论中，我参加了“劳动教育”一组的讨论，边听边想着，也许真的现在孩子们出现的诸如斤斤计较、懒惰等等的问题，都可以通过良好的劳动教育来改善。可惜的是，似乎现在“热爱劳动”这个词已经成了古董级的口号，取而代之的是各个学校里惩罚的手段都是“扫地、扫厕所”，于是在惩罚的同时给所有的孩子们的头脑中都烙上了“劳动是犯错的人才做的”、“劳动是可耻的”的印记。 有了涌动的思绪，最有效的方法也许就是趁热打铁，把它缕清、整理成为实际操作的方案，而这也是培训最后一天的内容。当天每个小组都递交了可操作的目标与步骤，我所在的小组制定了“由学校引领社区环境改善”的计划。从让孩子们自己制作垃圾箱、并对垃圾分类开始，到对社区道路的清扫，水沟的清理等等，到最后形成爱护社区环境的氛围，学生之间互相监督自治，并由学生自己给家长与社区成员以环保知识的讲授。最终五年之后，整个村庄社区的环境都会有大的改善。这种目标虽然看起来过大，但事实上是已经有前人进行过类似的实践的，并证明可行。所以我想，只要整个学校齐心协力，脚踏实地的去做，其实没有那么难。 左老师在他演讲当天的晚饭过后与我聊天时曾说过这么一句话：“只要在座的每位老师能够吸收我所讲这么多内容的其中一句话，我就谢天谢地了。”这其实并不是说老师们不愿意接受，而是改变自我都是很难的。我相信这次培训对老师们思维的冲击和帮助是不小的，但我更期待的是开学后我们每个人都以探索的态度去面对自己的工作，也同时去试着改善自我。也只有如此，才能对得起我们每一位童真的孩子。