The RCEF Blog 博客

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”). [...]

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 [...]

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 Teach [...]

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, [...]

Sara Lam and I were recently interviewed by Fred Dintenfass of eChinacities. He had some very good questions like: “What can Americans bring to education in China?” “What kind of cooperation do you get from the government?” “Have you had problems with teachers who were resistant to your programs?” Below are a few excerpts from [...]

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 [...]

Ms. Wang is the first grade Chinese teacher. She likes to tell stories to students. Here is a blog post she wrote: Young faces, rising voices, enthusiastic hand movements. All of these show their happy and enriched childhoods, increased interest in reading, and improved speaking and presentation skills. A childhood without reading is a dry [...]

Every day, many things happen at Guan Ai Primary School. The usual day contains many different kinds of matters big and small. Once one task has been completed there is always another to do and, often, the more important goals and plans get pushed back. Only after a long day’s work do we finally have [...]

I brought lots of glass bottles to the science experiment class because I thought that plastics bottles would be easier for the students to knock over. Ron Sung watched the class and offered some suggestions for improvement. He asked me, “How do feel the class went?” I said, “Not too bad, though perhaps a little [...]

Several weeks ago, a few RCEF staff went to visit rural schools about an hour’s drive from our headquarters site, Guan Ai School. The facilities were impressive: buildings in stable condition, spacious walkways, lots of room for running around. Coming from Guan Ai, which is bursting at the seams, we felt a bit envious! But [...]