Contents
Organizational Updates
School Profile: Xiaochao Primary School
RCEF has a new rural school partner in Yongji, Shanxi Province.
Teaching & Curriculum
Reading Here, There, Everywhere
RCEF teachers gained new insights through conferences and reading demonstrations.
New Video: Sweet Potato Project
Watch students get out of the classroom to explore the role of sweet potatoes in their community.
New Video: Water Project
Inspired by a village filmmaker's documentary on water, students investigated water sources in their environment.
Helping Schools in Gansu: Part 2
Students fundraised to help a rural school in an impoverished village to improve students' diets.
Chicken Raising Project: Part 5
After raising their own chickens, students learned how to sell their products at the local market.
Donor Updates
Donor Roll
We warmly thank those who donated to RCEF between February-May 2010.
School Profile: Xiaochao Primary School
Above: Xiaochao Primary School is located in a village on the outskirts of Yongji, Shanxi Province.
This school year, RCEF began working with a second rural primary school in Yongji, Shanxi Province. Xiaochao Primary School is a public school that serves around 153 students in six grades. Many of them are "left behind children" whose parents have migrated to cities to work. Most of Xiaochao's teachers live in the surrounding villages and have taught at the school for a decade or more, earning many county and provincial level teaching awards.
While its test scores consistently rank at the top of the township, Xiaochao wants to add more enriching activities to its curriculum and bolster students' well-rounded development. RCEF is helping Xiaochao to set up a school library and to design Reading and Integrated Practice classes. You can read about these projects in the articles below. RCEF also organizes conferences and meetings for teachers from Xiaochao and our other program site, Guan Ai Primary School, to share teaching methods and experiences.
Reading Here, There, Everywhere
By Sun Chuanmei, Program Manager
The spring was full of learning opportunities for the teachers in RCEF's reading project. Becky Zeren, a primary school librarian from Trnity school in Menlo Park, California, demonstrated a reading lesson in the newly opened library at RCEF's partner school, Xiaochao Primary School. Afterwards, all the teachers sat in a circle and asked Becky questions about her two decades of expertise in library management and reading. By the looks on their faces, I could tell they were struck by what they heard.
Above: Teachers and students listen as American librarian Becky Zeren reads a story.
In mid-April, I attended the First National Conference on Rural Library Construction and Reading Promotion in Wuhan. It was my first time meeting so many people working in this field. Everyone has their own strengths and methods—it's like a hundred flowers blooming!
At the end of April, I went with my RCEF colleague, a teacher, and a principal in RCEF's program to the Sixth National Reading Forum held in Changzhou. It was organized by the organization "Draw Close to Our Mother Tongue". It was a four day meeting with rich content. There were professional experts on reading giving presentations and also demonstration lessons by classroom teachers. The topics were diverse and content was rich: recitation, poetry, novels, picture books, etc. Every demonstration class showed off different kinds of colorful methods. The best part was that the teachers who participated gained a deeper feeling for reading. In addition, they had ideas for how reading can be done in a school, especially a rural school. This experience really emphasized for me how the promotion of reading starts with individual sparks.
New Video: Sweet Potato Project
Guan Ai Primary School teachers and RCEF staff chose the sweet potato as the subject of a yearlong interdisciplinary project for fourth and fifth graders. The unit lasted from October 2009 to June 2010 and included many hands-on activities, observations, and interviews in the community. Thie video above shows all the stages of the project, which you can also read about here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
New Video: Water Project
Above: Students went to the Yellow River to explore water sources in their community.
A Village Filmmaker Exchange Program showcasing works of rural filmmakers from around China took place in Yongji in late May. Guan Ai students had a chance to dialogue with a rural Tibetan filmmaker named Wang Zha after viewing his documentary film Water which captures scenes of water in his hometown. Fifth grade students discussed their impressions of the film and made comparisons with people's attitudes about water, water usage and water pollution in their village. The students created a concept map detailing the many water-related issues in the local area, and split into groups according to their research interests. One group went to the Yellow River to learn about how it is diverted to nearby cities for industrial use. Another learned about pollution of the Sushui River. The group researching the topic "The Water of Our Village" interviewed the former village head about the evolution of water technology in the village from a hand-cranked well to the current mechanical well and water tower. Another group looked at the everyday uses of water and wasting of water in the school and village.
On the evening of May 20th, Wang Zha came to Houjiazhuang Village (where Guan Ai School is located) for a showing of his film to villagers and students. After that, fifth graders presented their own research findings. Teachers and villagers were impressed by the students' work, which included their own hand drawn maps showing the course of the Yellow River and Sushui River through Yongji, diagrams of pumps and dams in the Yellow River, stories of how each household of the village came to have a water tap in their home and much more. Students were surprised to see how much local water has changed, especially in terms of worsening pollution. They took this opportunity to encourage villagers and schoolmates to conserve and protect local water. The video above shows the students in action!
Helping Schools in Gansu
Above: A student makes a fundraising poster.
In April, fourth graders from Xiaochao School made plans to fundraise for primary schools in Gansu Province to raise chickens and supplement student nutrition with eggs. The schools are located in impoverished, mountainous areas and are partly staffed by volunteer teachers. The students put their plan into action tn May. First, they divided into three groups to write speeches, write a fundraising letter and create a poster. The letter and poster were displayed in the schoolyard with a board where schoolmates could leave comments. Many students expressed concern for the Gansu students and interest in supporting the chicken raising project. Next, the students elected five representatives to give speeches to the other grades. The class split into five support teams to coach the representatives in the presentation of their speeches. The fourth graders then went to each class and to the teachers' office, giving their speeches and passing around a collection box. In the end, they raised over 700 Chinese yuan. Finally, they practiced making phone calls to the teachers in Gansu to find out how to mail send money to the school. This turned into an exercise in increasing shy students' self-confidence, which you can read about here.
Chicken Raising Project: Part 5
Guan Ai students have been raising chickens for half a year. You can read the history of this project here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Their six hens have been laying 3-5 eggs each day since March.
By the beginning of May, they had accumulated a cardboard box full, which they decided to sell. They visited the local township market to observe villagers sell eggs. They learned that the market price is about 5 Chinese yuan per catty (which has 7-8 eggs), but that each average size egg is usually sold for fifty jiao, making it more profitable to sell by the catty. They also found that not many people from the township were buying eggs from the villagers because many of them had their own egg-laying chickens or preferred to buy the cheaper eggs produced in factory farms.
Above: Students' eggs and signs attracted attention at the market.
Above: A buyer told students to emphasize their eggs' large yolks as a selling point.
Early the next morning, the students and their teachers took their eggs to the city to sell, hoping that city dwellers were more likely to pay more for home grown eggs. The students started out asking for 9 or 10 yuan per catty, and though they attracted a crowd, no one bought any. The students created posters explaining their project and the advantages of their eggs, which were laid by hens that are fed grains, soy beans and fish bone. Finally, one man bought one catty of eggs and gave students a pep talk as well as marketing advice. As the day went on, the students became more courageous and effective and were finally able to sell all eight catties of eggs for 43 yuan by early afternoon. Click here for a description of the experience by one of the accompanying teachers.
Donor Update
We warmly thank those who donated to RCEF between February - June 2010! To view donors' names by month, please click here.
Silver Sponsors ($1,000 to $4,999)
David A. Hong (Temple City, CA)
Matilda C. Young (San Francisco, CA)
Bronze Sponsors ($100 to $999)
Art-hammer.com (Hacienda Heights, CA)
E.J.H. Baardman (The Netherlands)
Global Giving (Washington, D.C.)
JP Morgan Chase Foundation (Andover, MA)
Marion Lee (Athens, OH)
Rainmaker Properties (Palo Alto, CA)
Ruth Hayhoe (Delray Beach, FL)
Givology (New York, NY)
Hongzheng Lu (Pittsburgh, PA)
Xi Zhang
C.P. Ma (The Netherlands)
Patrick Leung (Flushing, NY)
San Mateo County Reading Association (Redwood City, CA)
Ken Chin (Redwood City, CA)
Kevin Kwan*
Microsoft Matching Gifts (Princeton, NJ)
SMA Shuimin AG (Orange, CT)
Trinity School (United Kingdom)
Stephen Potter & Ailin Zhu (Seattle, WA)
Barclay Global Investors (Stuart, FL)
Global Giving (Washington, DC)
Julie Chao (Washington, DC)*
Rebecca Zeren (Portola Valley)
Ting Xiang (Houston, TX)*
Yong Hao (Arcadia, CA)*
Supporting Sponsors (under $99)
Connie Chung (Cambridge, MA)
Jeff Wang
Tony Young (Monterey Park, CA)
Universal Giving
Jialan Wang (Cambridge, MA)
Owen Gibbins
Xinyuan Shang (Philadelphia, PA)
Ziqiang Wang (Needham Heights, MA)
Diana Chang (Toronto, ON)
Haoyan Sun (Denver, CO)
Kevin Pollack (New York, NY)
Mercedes Beaver (New York, NY)
Ting Zhou (Houston, TX)
Weiji Ma (Houston, TX)
Yuen-Pak Liu (China)*
Hui-Hai Liu (Danville, CA)
Linda Sze (Ontario, CA)
Jessica Mouw (Ashburn, VA)
Jing Cao (Sunnyvale, CA)*
* Donation made in honor of the upcoming wedding of Ting Zhou and Weiji Ma, who met as RCEF volunteers in rural China. Click here to read about their story and goal to raise $3000 for RCEF!
The RCEF Highlights is a quarterly publication about the educational initiatives RCEF is developing in rural Shanxi Province, China.
Contact Us
Donate
You can help rural Chinese students reach their potential! Donations 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!
Donate Your Used Car
Donating your used car can directly benefit RCEF! It's an easy and convenient process.
RCEF Annual Report 2008-2009
Click here to download: [English] [Chinese]
See videos of RCEF's activities on our Youtube Channel!
Singing, Dancing Little Librarians
Students celebrate their roles as managers of the school library by creating their own song and dance.
Click here to view.
Teacher Profile: Mr. Pei
Mr. Pei Weifeng, a Guan Ai 3rd grade teacher, leads his students through a science class.
Click here to view.
Anti-Smoking Investigation
Students carried out a campaign to educate their neighbors in three villages about the harms of smoking.
A Day at Guan Ai School
Follow our students through a typical day at a rural village boarding school.
Past Newsletters
RCEF posts monthly and quarterly newsletters on our website.
Click here to read past issuesFrom our Blogs:
Selling Eggs
A firsthand account of students' eye-opening lesson peddling their eggs at the city market.
Water Investigation
Fifth grade students exceeded expectations in their' water project and presented their findings to the villagers and school.
The Fruits of First Grade Reading
Mrs. Zhang Jianghua shows off student's work from their reading class in which they spend 20 minutes reading a story or singing children's songs and then draw their responses.
Story from Math Class
Mrs Sun Huiguo describes a review method in which students quiz each other on math concepts.
Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Students tried out different sweet potato recipes as part of their year-long project on the history and culture of the sweet potato. You can read more about the steps of the project here.