Contents
Organizational News
Update: Integrative Rural Education Program
A summary of this semester's progress from the Executive Directors of RCEF.
Donor Update
We thank all the donors who contributed between March-May 2009.
Who's Who in the Field
Learn about RCEF's international team in rural China.
Teaching Improvements
Local Contest Highlights Guan Ai Teacher's Style
Ms. Lina Yang takes first place in the township's English teaching competition.
Education Reforms Through the Eyes of a Teacher
Third grade teacher& Mr. Weifeng Pei describes what it's like to work at Guan Ai School.
Curriculum Innovations
Students Investigate Smoking in Rural China
Cigarette smokers in the village received house calls from students.
Professional Development
Teaching Coach Pioneer Looks Back on the Year
Math and Science Teaching Coach Ron Sung says farewell to Guan Ai School.
Community Outreach
Reaching Out to Parents: Guan Ai Parent Meetings
The third parent training of the year focused on children's eating habits.
ORGANIZATIONAL NEWS
Integrative Rural Education Program
An update on the the last 3 months from the Executive Directors
With the support of donors around the world, RCEF has been running the Integrative Rural Education Program (IREP) in Shanxi Province since August 2007. Our goal is to develop effective school management and teaching practices that advance quality education for rural children. We are currently incubating our methods in a “laboratory school” – Guan Ai Primary School. Guan Ai is a boarding school of 180 students and 14 local teachers situated in a typical village in northern central China.
This is the only program of its kind in China today. RCEF and Guan Ai School represent a new experiment in developing quality education from the front lines of rural schooling. We follow the government’s national curriculum standards and test out practical methods by which ordinary local teachers and students can achieve excellent, authentic results. Best practices and lesson plans will be compiled in a "Rural Education Resource Pack" that will be used to spread our methods to more schools. Due to be printed in 2010, it is designed as a practical handbook for rural teachers to use as they work to improve teaching methods.
This newsletter provides examples of the progress made in the four main areas of the program from February 2009 through May 2009:
- Teaching Improvements
- Curriculum Innovations
- Professional Development
- Parent Outreach
We are greatly encouraged by the advances made by teachers and students this academic year and hope you will be too!
Sincerely,Sara Lam & Diane Geng
RCEF Co-Executive Directors
Donor Update
Thank you to all the supporters who donated to RCEF in March, April, and May 2009! (A complete list of donors from 2005 to the present is available here.)
Grants
The Global Fund for Children
Echoing Green
Staples Inc.
Bronze Sponsors ($100 to $999)
Judy Chow (Hong Kong)
Joy Geng (Davis, California)
Anthony Gooch (New York, New York)
Nikita Guo (New York, New York)
Hay Boon Mak (Kingston, Ontario)
Anne May (Aiea, Hawaii)
David Pho (Purmerend, The Netherlands)
Jean Tsao (New York, New York)
The Da Vinci College Kagerstraat, Venture Artistic Encounters (Leiden, The Netherlands)
Trinity School (Croydon, United Kingdom)
Supporting Sponsors ($10 to $99)
Owen Gibbins
Helen Kwan (Hong Kong)
Carmen Kwan (Hong Kong)
Hongzheng Lu (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania)
Annette Mackenroth (St. Paul, Minnesota)
Microsoft Matching Gifts (Princeton, New Jersey)
Yifan Shi (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Rongxun Wang (Redmond, Washington)
Stephen Potter and Ailin Zhu (Seattle, Washington)
Karen Yau (Hong Kong)
Who's Who in the Field
An inside look at the international RCEF team at Guan Ai School
RCEF was founded four years ago by three overseas Chinese students--one from Holland, one from the United States, and one from Hong Kong. Since then, it has maintained an international flavor, with 9 full-time staff who work on the ground working alongside rural teachers at our experimental school in China: Guan Ai Primary School.
RCEF staff composition in China is rather flexible, which is not strange for a young organization which is developing rapidly. In total, there are six people based at Guan Ai who can be divided into two types: Teaching Coaches and operational staff.
Teaching Coaches
Sara Lam from Hong Kong is the co-founder and Executive Director of Programs who oversees all educational aspects of RCEF. She supervises two full-time Teaching Coaches: Kiel Harrell and Ron Sung from the United States. Their daily routine is to observe and supervise the classes in their own specialized areas which are, respectively, English and Science/Math. Jiang Peng from China and Steven Liu from England do the same work part-time for the Physical Education and Math classes, in addition to doing I.T. and translations work for operations.
Operations
Diane Geng from the United States is another co-founder and the Executive Director of Operations who oversees finances, human resources, communications and fundraising. Marco Flagg is the professional photographer who documents RCEF's work through multimedia video and slideshows.
You can read more about these staff members here and on the RCEF Blog.
TEACHING IMPROVEMENTS
RCEF helps teachers to adopt student-centered teaching methods. Below are two examples of teachers who have made great progress this semester.
Local Contest Highlights Guan Ai Teacher's Style
On the 13th of March, Guan Ai Ms. Lina Yang participated in the annual Puzhou Township English teaching competition. Last year, Ms. Yang was a township runner-up but this year she won the contest and moved on to the next stage.
Ms. Yang's lessons were very different from the other teachers. First, she extracted clear objectives even though the textbook did not state clear objectives for the lesson. Second, instead of drilling vocabulary words by dictation, she taught the students corresponding hand signals for each word and had students practice these in pairs and small groups. Ms. Yang learned this technique from RCEF trainings. She frequently employs it in her class and it worked equally well during the competition. After the students had mastered the hand signals, they worked on creating their own sentences with the new prepositions.
It was clear by the end of the short lesson that the majority of the students were able to synthesize this new knowledge into their spoken English with ease. Partly based on this success, RCEF Teaching Coaches were invited by local education officials to teach a bi-weekly course for other local teachers that will improve their teaching methods and English abilities.
Education Reform Through the Eyes of a Teacher
Weifeng Pei teaches Mathematics, Science and Physical Education at Guan Ai. Like many teachers at Guan Ai, he was born and raised in the region and graduated from the Yuncheng Teachers College about 100 km from here. He is a young teacher who had some teaching experience at another rural school before arriving at Guan Ai.
A new teacher develops
At first sight, Mr. Pei seemed to be a bit strict because of his piercing eyes behind blue glasses. Once asked why he wanted to become a teacher, he started smiling kindly. “I like children. I think I was 7 or 8 years old, when I realized that I wanted to become a teacher.” Mr. Pei has been teaching at Guan Ai for almost two years. What he likes most about this school compared with other rural schools is its innovative and student-centered approach. “Students are the most important”, he explains. “Guan Ai is a boarding school and both teachers and students eat the same food, which is not common in China. The students appreciate this and respect this.”
This is also reflected in the teaching style at Guan Ai. “Take the Science classes for example. Most rural schools don’t pay much attention to this subject, because it’s a non-core subject. We take this seriously, as with all our subjects, and we try to trigger the student’s curiosity and interest in a particular subject. For example, I used ice cubes to teach students about liquids and condensation. We don’t use ice cubes in daily life, and I don’t believe that many rural teachers would go through the trouble of making them like I did.”
Working with a Coach
Teaching coaches who observe and advise teachers in real time are not common in China. Mr. Pei had never heard of any schools that had worked with teaching coaches. “Usually rural teachers need to solve the problems themselves. It is even uncommon for teachers to share experiences with each other like we do at Guan Ai. I have many meetings with my teaching coaches and other teachers with whom I can discuss any problems I encounter. The advantage of this method is that it’s a good way to improve my teaching, since I receive feedback on my teaching. The disadvantage is that conflicts sometimes occur when we have different opinions about a certain class. In most cases, we manage to reach a compromise. If not, we consult other teachers.”
A love for students
“It’s not easy to teach rural students who are not always that easy-going!” According to Mr. Pei, “This is partly because many students at Guan Ai lack a stable family life.” He continued to explain: “Most of their parents work in the city and they are basically raised by their grandparents who can’t always handle them. Nevertheless, most of the students are very lively and enjoy interaction. They are not afraid at all to ask questions. This can be very tiring since we practically live with the students.”
But what does Mr. Pei enjoy most about his job? This is what he said: “Not the grades, but the students’ appreciation, such as a colorful drawing. I also feel proud when I hear them speak out loud in public, full of confidence. We encourage them to speak out, regardless of whether their answer is right or wrong. There is this tall and shy boy in the 3rd grade who was afraid to talk to anyone. You would always find him alone in a corner. He always began mumbling when speaking in public. So one day I gave him a book and asked him to read out aloud alone in a room. I pretended to leave but after a while, I went back and told him that he did very well and that I was able to hear him from outside the room. This gave him more confidence and we practiced regularly. Six months later, he had no problems in reading and speaking out loud in public."
CURRICULUM INNOVATIONS
RCEF develops curriculum suitable for the rural context. Here is an example of the community-based topics we focus on.
Students Investigate Smoking in Villages
Anyone who has spent time in China knows that smoking is a huge health problem. Most men smoke and it is considered socially acceptable to smoke anywhere, including in enclosed spaces and in front of children. Mr. Pei, a Guan Ai teacher who is himself a smoker trying to quit, launched an anti-smoking project with the help of RCEF's Sara Lam and other Teaching Coaches. He wanted to prevent Guan Ai students from “naturally” becoming smokers and hoped that they could even have an impact on adults in their homes.
Interviewing villagers
The project took place in Social Studies class. The first step was to develop an understanding of the problem. Four classes from third to sixth grade went to different villages to interview villagers about their smoking habits. After the interviews, students summarized their findings with reports and graphs. This was a chance for them to put what they learned in Math class about statistics into practice. The students’ research confirmed that the percentage of village men who smoke is indeed very high. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that most smokers have either tried to quit before or desire to quit.
Researching health effects
In the second phase of the project, students learned about the hazardous effects of smoking. Teachers provided information such as newspaper articles, statistics and photos. The school also invited a local doctor to come and talk to students about the issue. The students were asked to synthesize and summarize all of this information into their own reports. After this, students took action to educate smokers, not only about the negative effects of smoking, but also about methods and resources for quitting. They produced publicity materials, gave a presentation to adults in the village, and drafted recommendations to the school for creating a smoke-free campus.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
RCEF Teaching Coaches work side by side rural teachers to improve their practice and strengthen their confidence.
Pioneering Teaching Coach Looks Back on the Year
RCEF Teaching Coaches work closely with Guan Ai teachers to improve their lessons and develop innovative new curriculum. They observe the classes and its students, and give continuous feedback to the teachers, students and each other. They document everything related to their subject matter and hold many meetings with teachers. In the afternoons, each Teaching Coach leads an extracurricular activity class, like Chinese yoyo, jump rope, English Corner, or computer class.
Ron Sung, originally from Texas, USA, has worked as a teaching coach at Guan Ai helping math and science teachers. We asked him to share some of the things he's experienced over the year.
Looking back at your previous experiences at the Teach for America school in Oakland, California and at Guan Ai, what were the main differences and similarities of the role of teachers and their interaction with students in the United States and China?
In comparing the role of American and Chinese teachers in the classroom, the most striking difference to me is the sheer amount of time that teachers in China spend with their students. Students here at Guan Ai board and receive the attention of mostly two teachers, their language and math teachers, from sun up to sunset. Teachers naturally develop a parental-type relationship with their students. In the US, students, parents, and teachers form a triangle of trust and interaction in which the teacher must rely on the parents to develop the student.
The main similarity between teachers in rural China and teachers in low-income areas in the US is, unfortunately, their expectations of students. In many ways, teachers in both places do not believe in the ultimate potential of their students. Teachers in low-income areas in the US will write off poor-performing students, blaming cultural, social, and family factors for their lack of interest in education and inability to achieve at school. In China, teachers refer to these students as “different” in the pejorative. Both teaching environments and mindsets fail to offer much interest and effort toward poor-performing students. This situation allows them to slip through the cracks of caring and into the zone of neglect year after year.
Give us some examples of ways that you have you seen Guan Ai teachers change their practice.
The most important change I have seen in the classroom is how teachers interact with students organized into groups. After trying student groupings within lesson plans the first semester, Guan Ai instituted a school-wide policy of organized seating patterns for every classroom to form student groups. The efficacy of the student groups differs with each teacher, but the notion of using student groups is now inherent in every class. In these groups, students have the opportunity to discuss ideas and to help each other with class work, as well as form teams for activities and projects. Teachers also use groups to monitor classroom behavior, such as handing out positive feedback in the form of group points.
Group points is another practice introduced by the teaching coaches and widely accepted by the teachers at Guan Ai. Many of the teachers this year had little teaching experience, and even some of the older teachers struggled with classroom management at the beginning of the year, especially 1st, 3rd and 5th grades. Group points for good behavior allowed the teacher to award visible, tangible positive feedback when students did what they were supposed to do. At the same time, this gave the teacher a tool to correct unwanted behavior without harshly criticizing students, as is the norm in rural China. By giving and taking points, the teacher could allow the students to track their performance at the end of each day. Later on, some teachers instituted both group and individual points in tandem.
Overall, teachers at Guan Ai try harder than before to engage students. Rural China teachers rely almost completely on rote learning; student-centered ideology is not encouraged. At Guan Ai many teachers engage students by planning classroom competitions and allowing students to use individual blackboard space in math and hands-on experiments in science classes. Science teachers have been particularly willing to try out student-centered methods in the form of experiments to supplement the science curriculum, sometimes even deviating from the science textbook in order to plan science experiment lessons for students.
Which Guan Ai student and teacher has left the deepest impression on you and why?
One Sunday afternoon, I was biking toward the township when I just happened to see Qi Kanglong going back to the village. As we approached each other on bike, he yelled at me to get off the bike. In front of him on the road was an elderly woman lugging a cart uphill full of junk to recycle for a bit of money. I had seen carts and people like these on the rural roads all the time, but I had never really noticed them before, and of course I never cared about them in the past. But that day, Qi Kanglong and I got off our bikes and helped that elderly woman push her cart up the hill. Afterward Qi Kanglong asked me how much an automobile would cost so that perhaps the students at Guan Ai could fundraise to buy the elderly woman one; that way, she wouldn't have to tire herself out to reach the top of the slope, and her life would be so much easier. I will always remember the generous spirit displayed by this twelve-year-old boy that Sunday afternoon.
I know I will remember every teacher at Guan Ai, but I will especially miss working with Mrs. Sun Huimiao, principal of Guan Ai and 4th grade science and language arts teacher. Not only does Mrs. Sun manage the classroom well and treat her students with dignity and respect, she also dares to try innovative teaching techniques at every turn. Never settled with the regular, rote-memorization curriculum at the school, Mrs. Sun continues to find new ways of engaging students while trying her best to prepare her students for the stale examinations. She reminds me of great teachers I worked with last year in Oakland: those who stay for the long-run and who work for the best of every single student in the classroom.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
RCEF believes that increasing rural parent involvement in their children's development is critical to long-term success. Below is a description of the outreach events at Guan Ai this year.
Guan Ai Parent Meetings
RCEF helps to organize Parent Meetings at Guan Ai Primary School. This year marked the first time that the school has actively and structurally involved parents in their students’ education. These initiatives allow parents to keep track of their children’s educational and personal developments. So far, three parent trainings have been organized on the following topics: “How to Communicate Better with Children”, “How to Help Children Make Better Use of Holiday Time” and “How to Limit Children’s TV Watching Time.” Last week RCEF organized a Parent Meeting at the school, with a focus on another common parenting challenge: “Limiting Children’s Intake of Junk Food.”
Ms. Huiguo Sun was one of the Guan Ai teachers responsible for organizing the event. She has over 10 years of teaching experience and teaches Language Arts to 3rd graders at Guan Ai. Sara Lam from RCEF aided her in the preparations to make sure that everything went as planned. Here is brief report based on Ms. Sun’s feedback and interviews with 2 parents who attended.
Long-distance parenting
Parent meetings are actually quite common in China. However, they are still not a standard practice in rural schools simply due to lack of time and resources. Often, principals and teachers know many parents personally and exchanges take place on an informal basis. This is obviously also effective, but it does not allow all parents to obtain an in-depth understanding of their children’s behavior and needs in school. Rural parents usually do not have time to raise their children since most of them are migrant workers and rarely come home. If the children are not boarding at their school, the task of raising the children is handed over to their grandparents. Ms. Huidie Li is one such grandparent. She lives in Houjia Village and takes care of her grandchildren—first grader Chenxi Li and a baby boy. Chenxi’s parents work in a restaurant in Inner Mongolia. They come back home only once a year.
Ms. Sun explains: “Most parents do business in the city and the grandfather and grandmother take care of the children but also need to do some farming. It’s very difficult to get in touch with both the parents and grandparents. Because we spend so much time with the children, we discovered that the children have some problems partially caused by being spoiled by their grandparents. In addition, it is difficult for grandparents to educate their grandchildren well because of the generation gap and lack of understanding of children’s needs. This causes the children to develop bad habits. It’s only through talks between the school and these guardians that we can help the children to correct themselves.”
The use of Parent Meetings
The recent meeting consisted of three parts: 1) A presentation by Principal Huimiao Sun explaining the goals of the school and the efforts that the school has made towards these goals in the last few months; 2) A discussion between teachers and parents about how to encourage children to eat fewer snacks and waste less money on junk food; 3) An English class that parents sat in on so that they could see the educational approach of the school in action for themselves.
Traditionally, teachers in China are not only responsible for teaching the standard curriculum, but are also expected to contribute to the moral upbringing of their students. This is especially true in rural China as parents expect teachers to do a large part of the parenting. A 61-year-old grandmother said: “We sent my grandchild to Guan Ai School because the education quality is good. Students learn well and teachers are very responsible. My girl eats well and she likes to come to this school. I expect that my child will perform well and not fight or scold others. I hope that the teachers will be stern and keep her on a tight leash.”
Ms. Sun adds: “It’s only through these parent meetings that we can understand the real situation at a child’s home situation which allows us to take the right action towards him or her. To give you an example: the mother of one of my students is never at home and his grandparents spoil him too much. His mother told me at the meeting that I should teach him well. This gives me permission to do my job well.”
At the meeting, both parents and teachers spoke up about the need to work together to solve common problems like children eating junk food. On the one hand, parents agreed to give their children less pocket money and only enough for school supplies. On the other hand, with the parents’ approval, teachers are happy to assist students in managing their pocket money and keeping an eye out for how it is spent.
Ms. Li found the parent meeting useful because she received a lot of practical tips about how to raise her grandchild. “I learned a lot about how to deal with her habit of eating a lot of snacks and ice cream. It’s bad for her health and it’s a waste of money! Now the teacher can help me to manage the pocket money so she doesn’t ask me for money as often. She now understands things very well and knows how to use reasoning!” she remarked. She looked surprised as if she did not expect this from a little girl. Another grandmother from Hanyang Village, Ms. Zhang, added: “After the parent meeting, I was able to have discussions with my granddaughter and didn’t hit her anymore.”
Reaching out to parents
It is still hard to reach most parents so RCEF’s strategy is to involve the most active parents or grandparents from different villages. These representatives can then explain what is going on at the school to their neighbors and spread the word about effective parenting strategies that they learn at the meetings. Ms. Li suggests putting good manners and hygiene on the agenda of the next meeting. She explains: “Village children are often bad-mannered and should learn good manners like talking politely and greeting elderly people in a proper way. It would be useful to discuss this at the next parent meeting and talk about what the school could do to improve this. Also, hygiene is an important topic.”
Reaching out to the students’ guardians is a huge challenge, since the parents are never at home and many grandparents are illiterate. Sending letters by email or post mail is not very effective, so the school relies on contacting them through the phone or home visits. RCEF recently tested out an online text message service which can help the school to regularly contact and update parents using messages to their mobile phones. More needs to be done to reach other parents and to obtain their active support for the school and RCEF’s work but we are hopeful that this can be achieved.
The RCEF Highlights is a quarterly publication about the educational initiatives being carried out at Guan Ai School in rural Shanxi Province, China.
Read more about RCEF's mission and program site Guan Ai Primary School.
Contact Us
Donate
You can help rural Chinese students reach their potential. Contributions are 100% tax-deductible in the U.S.
Checks payable to "Rural China Education Foundation" can be sent to:
PO Box 92424
Rochester, NY 14692-0424
Donations can also be made online!
From our Blog:
Guan Ai Adult English Class
Since the beginning of the school year, RCEF's Sara Lam and Kiel Harell have been leading an innovative adult English class every Tuesday and Thursday at Guan Ai Primary.
Art in Village Schools: A Trip to Hunan
RCEF takes rural teachers on field trips to broaden their horizons. This month, Art Teacher Xie visited an innovative art program in the mountains of Hunan Province.
Pilgrimage to Dulangkou
Dulangkou Middle School is located in a rural township but is one of the most-visited schools in the world.
Creative Testing
Last month, in addition to their regular mid-term exams, Guan Ai students took special RCEF tests to assess their skills beyond the textbook. See the kinds of questions RCEF designed.
Click here to read more
Hands-on Technology for Rural Children
RCEF's Steven Liu reports on an Intel Learns curriculum that teaches computer skills in rural schools.
RCEF History Slideshow
Four years ago, RCEF was incorporated as a nonprofit organization. This slideshow marks major milestones in our development.
Dispatches from the Field
A special collection of blog posts gives an up close and personal window into our experiences on the ground in rural China.
Return from Waldorf
Reflections of the RCEF Physical Education Teaching Coach after attending a workshop on children's development at the Chengdu Waldorf School.
Interview: Hands-On Education Reform
The Executive Directors explain RCEF's strategy in rural China.
Science Class in Action
See how Mr. Pei conducts a third grade Scienc e Class using ice cubes.
A Day at Guan Ai
Pictures from a day at Guan Ai Primary School that puts the sights and sounds of Guan Ai in motion.
Work for RCEF
RCEF seeks energetic individuals to join our full-time staff team in China. Staff members must be able to commit at least one academic year (September-August).
Summer Volunteer Program
Find out why RCEF isn't running a volunteer program this summer.
Click here to read explanation.
Past Newsletters
RCEF posts monthly and quarterly newsletters on our website.
Click here to read past issues