Archive for the Personal Impact category

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。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [...]

Bookmaking Class Reflection

Developing and teaching a bookmaking class at Guan Ai School this past summer was an incredibly rewarding
experience for me. I love teaching and took advantage of the summer vacation to develop a ten day activity class at the school. Though I developed the curriculum, most important to the class was my partnership with two local [...]

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 [...]

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 Professor [...]

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 [...]

4th Anniversary of RCEF: Dispatches from the Field

Four years ago today (April 28), RCEF was incorporated as a nonprofit organization! Much has happened since then and the dedicated RCEF staff and volunteers continue to work towards improving rural education in China.
Our newsletter and annual reports provide an overview of this work but to give you a more up close and personal view, [...]

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”). In [...]

Teaching Coach Profile: Ron Sung

Ron Sung is a full-time Teaching Coach at Guan Ai School. He is from the United States and earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. After graduation he held a position as a middle school math teacher in Oakland before deciding to join RCEF. He now works with the Science and [...]

Teaching Coach Profile: Kiel Harell

Kiel Harell became a RCEF Teaching Coach at Guan Ai Primary School in September 2008. He is from the United States and graduated from the University of Minnesota, Morris with degrees in political science and anthropology. For two years, Kiel worked as a special education teacher in the Rio Grande Valley as part of [...]

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, [...]