The RCEF Blog 博客

This weekend, I went with a group of Japanese and Chinese activists to a county in northern Shanxi that was a stronghold of the Japanese army during World War 2. We visited village girls, wives, and mothers who had been raped by Japanese soldiers. The girls are old women now. Every year more pass away, [...]

两天与市教育局的一位官员约好了一起去看看本市不同镇的几个不同的中学和小学，于是下午我们几个人便一同出发了。 路程不远，先到了××中学，这虽是一所小镇上的初中加小学，学生数大约不到200人，但宽阔的校园还是让我们“嫉妒”了好一阵。虽然有些破旧之处，但新盖的饭堂、学生宿舍、大面积的操场，甚至很大的教室，让人身在其中感到舒服自在。我们心想要是关爱小学放在这个校园里多好！ 之后的另一所中学更让我们跌破了眼镜片，真是蛮“奢侈”。整个学校扩建过两三次次，有很老的房子，也有新盖的漂亮的教学楼，房子数量和质量都很不错，看得出政府还是很支持这个学校的，投入了大笔的资金。但问题是现在这个诺大的校园里，只剩下了寥寥的6，70个学生，校园里显得冷清，而星星点点分散在各个角落的学生们更衬出了一份落寞。守着这么一片地方，却没有很好的将它利用起来，真是觉得很可惜。站在校园里，我们开玩笑说：“为什么开始我们会选了关爱小学这么个小地方？”我甚至拍着杨校长的肩膀：“怎么样？自卑么？” 说实话，在我们在当地只是听说过比关爱小学更小，硬件条件更不好的学校，但实际从来没见过。这里面有包含着一些问题，比如：现在因为学校的合并政策，很多以前建的很好的学校现在都成了“空壳”，造成了资源的极大浪费。而第二个问题是由于现在教育体制的局限，很多学校的校长能力都不甚突出，按照和我们一同的教育局官员的话讲就是“不得力”。所造成的后果就是即使是硬件条件很好的学校，也可以因为一届校长的“不得力”而面临全面的萎缩。上文中的第二所中学就是面临着这样尴尬的境地，而离关爱小学不远的一所镇级初中，校园环境极端的优秀，大的可以和一所大专院校相媲美。而且校舍，绿化，操场，宿舍一应俱全，黄金时期有一千多个学生，而现在却因为同样的问题，学生只剩下了约100多人，老师仍有很多，但因为是铁饭碗，在这种情况下，混日子的也开始居多了，形成了一个恶性循环，实在是很痛惜。虽然政府可能会有动作挽救学校，但体制上的问题还是明显的暴露了出来。 这些问题的出现，我愿意把它们称为“阵痛”，是中国发展当中所面临的诸多难题之一，需要一个长期的转变过程。每个人，包括我在内都有自己所想到的化解问题的方法，但是我们也都知道事情永远没有那么简单。总之，教育的投入已经在见效，但仍有很长的路要走，而我们大家则应该以平衡的心态面对现实中的不平衡，做好自己的事情是最重要的。

On August 24th, a new school term started at Guan Ai Elementary School. The textbooks didn’t arrive in time, so we spent the first week doing a public survey for our health education. The study was carried out over four days: on the first day, we went to the village to examine the problems of [...]

中文翻译在英文后面。这是在山西永济进行的RCEF 2008 暑期支教项目一系列活动之一。This is one of a series of posts chronicling the RCEF 2008 Summer Volunteer Program. One of the classrooms at Zhaizi Village Elementary School doubled as an art gallery this morning. The occasion was a visit from a venerable local artist—an elderly woman whom the volunteers had invited to display her mastery of [...]

中文翻译在英文后面。这是在山西永济进行的RCEF 2008 暑期支教项目一系列活动之一。This is one of a series of posts chronicling the RCEF 2008 Summer Volunteer Program. 中文翻译在英文后面。 Today, 38 sixth graders from the SVP at Zhaizi Village took a field trip to a place that is only five minutes away from their school. Despite its proximity, almost none of the students had even heard [...]

Sara recommended the following article. It reminded her of the 三下乡 activities that some universities arrange for their students to experience rural China. It also raises questions about our Volunteer Program. We try to prevent such exploitation by examining the motivation of volunteers during selection, but can more be done from the side of the [...]

Guan Ai Elementary School and Trinity School of Menlo Park, California piloted a pen pals project this year. Students from both schools have written each other letters introducing their lives and cultures. Most recently, students, teachers, parents, and friends of Trinity School traveled to China to visit Guan Ai School and a report is below. [...]

The annual Yuan Dan performance at Guan Ai School is one of the biggest village events of the year. It took place on December 30th, a cold but clear day. All of the students had the chance to perform on the school field with most of their parents standing around watching them. Teachers and students [...]

Holiday greetings have been floating around the RCEF email chain recently. But they’re not all about Christmas. Actually, Zhenzhong reminded us that December 22 was 冬至 （Dong Zhi), a very special day in Chinese culture because it’s “the day with the shortest time of sunshine and the longest night” in the Northern hemisphere. You’re supposed [...]