The RCEF Blog 博客

Over the course of this school year, fourth and fifth graders at Guan Ai learned all about sweet potatoes. Past lessons in this year-long unit included explorations into the history and culture of the sweet potato and how it is eaten and used in the village: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]. Principal Sun of [...]

Teachers should provide students with opportunities to complete tasks independently so that they build self confidence. Students will be more active and take the initiative more frequently when they receive attention and appropriate encouragement from the teacher. Their confidence accumulates gradually. Around noon on May 20t, we observed an Integrated Practice Class at Xiaochao Primary [...]

Selling eggs may just be an ordinary thing in the eyes of villagers but it can be an exciting learning experience for the students from Guan Ai Primary School. Five of our students, Sara Lam and I (Principal Sun) went to the marketplace as an out-of-school educational experience to sell the eggs from the chickens [...]

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 [...]

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。 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]