The RCEF Blog 博客

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。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [...]

Seven teachers from the Yuncheng Preschool Normal School came to visit Guan Ai School on September 27th. (A “Normal School” means a school that trains teachers, in this case to teach in preschools.) They included several artists, a calligrapher, a singer and a professional emcee. The guests went to different classes to teach [...]

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 [...]

While visiting the United States this summer, Sara Lam and I had the opportunity to participate in a week-long training at the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center in Southern Appalachia. The center is located on Black Mountain in Mountain City, Georgia. Foxfire was originally the name of a class that was started in 1966 by [...]

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 Professor [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

A little while ago I had the privilege of taking part in one of Intel’s global education initiatives, Intel Learn. It’s a non-profit program by the computer processor maker that is run in cooperation with governments around the world. Its aim is to enable students in developing communities to develop not only information technology skills, [...]

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”). In [...]

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, [...]