Contents
Organizational Updates
RCEF's New Focus
RCEF will focus on preparing students to make improvements in their communities.
RCEF at 2009 Clinton Global Initiative
President Bill Clinton invited RCEF to his prestigious annual meeting.
Curriculum and Teaching
Raising Chickens: A Community Research Project
Read an example of RCEF's innovative teaching approach in action.
Profile from the Field
Team of Three Advance Love of Reading
RCEF staff Chuanmei Sun describes her collaboration with two rural teachers at Guan Ai School.
Donor Updates
Recognition of Recent Donors
We warmly thank the donors to RCEF in September 2009
RCEF's New Focus
By Sara Lam, Executive Director of Programs
Click on the thumbnail for a larger image
The mission of RCEF is to promote education that prepares rural students to improve their lives and their communities. Like any other endeavor to educate people and change the way they approach life, this one takes patience and time. While RCEF has been working towards this same goal for the last four years, our programs and approach have gone through several major changes. This evolution reflects our deepening understanding of rural education, our increasing expertise in curriculum tailored for rural children, and our adaptation to social and economic conditions at our program sites.
This school year, we have decided to hone in on the second part of our mission: "To prepare rural students to improve their communities." Accordingly, we will structure our curriculum to foster the following five benefits for students:
- Leadership and Communication Skills
- Self-confidence and Initiative
- Critical Thinking
- Empathy
- Understanding of challenges and opportunities in their communities
There are several reasons for our current focus on "preparing students to improve their communities. " First, feedback from our main partner school, Guan Ai Primary School, shows that community-based education is the area in which teachers have learned the most from RCEF. In particular, Guan Ai's principal said that community research projects are valuable learning experiences, and that after working with RCEF staff on several such projects last school year, she is now able to design such projects herself. Further, we felt that our staff was spread too thin last year. With a new focus, we already feel a positive difference. Our staff is able to work more intensively with teachers from beginning to end of a unit or project, which makes these projects more effective and ensures thorough documentation of methods and experiences. In addition, we’ve found that there are not enough Chinese materials or resources that show educators how to meet these goals in rural schools. The lack of effective community-based curriculum is a gap in rural education that RCEF has the experience and resources to fill.
To begin with, RCEF program staff will concentrate on designing and testing out curriculum for mandatory subjects like Social Studies and Science, as well as extracurricular activities such as library and reading activities and the school newspaper. The content and objectives of these subjects and activities lend themselves very naturally to cultivating the skills and attitudes we aim to foster in rural students. In Social Studies class, for instance, it is easy to integrate community research and service learning projects in which students can practice making small improvements in their communities right away. The school newspaper project requires students to make decisions and work together as a team, interview people in the community and solve practical problems. If you’re interested in the progress of these projects, take a look at my article below about Community Research class.
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Clinton Global Initiative
By Diane Geng, Executive Director of Operations
Above: RCEF's table at the Clinton Global Initiative NGO exhibition.
For the third year in a row, President Bill Clinton invited RCEF to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. Taking place each September in New York City, this prestigious gathering brings together heads of state, global CEOs, and philanthropists and leaders of non-governmental organizations from around the world.
This year, I had the chance to speak briefly with President Clinton about RCEF's work as well as identify opportunities for financial assistance, partners, and best practices. RCEF was one of the few NGOs from China and the only one focused directly on rural Chinese education. We participated in a NGO exhibit during the conference that raised RCEF's profile among hundreds of attendees. In addition, RCEF made a commitment at this year's meeting to develop and disseminate high quality curriculum materials to promote the adoption of community-based, student-centered teaching in rural primary schools in China.
Raising Chickens: A Community Research Project
By Sara Lam, Executive Director of Programs
Above: Students make measurements for their custom-made chicken coop.
This article describes an example of the "Community Research" curriculum that RCEF implements in social studies and extracurricular classes in rural primary schools. Sara Lam is currently leading such a class every other afternoon at Guan Ai Primary School.
On the first day of class, I had no idea where the “community research” activity class would lead us. I had the fourth to sixth graders in the class brainstorm strengths, problems and issues of interest in the village. We came up with long lists, including strengths like traditional art and availability of library books, problems with drinking and gambling and issues of interest like agriculture. In the end, the students overwhelmingly chose animals and animal farming as the theme for our class. I asked the students to think of ways we could research this, and they came up with ideas such as interviewing animal farmers, observing animals, searching the internet and raising some animals ourselves. As you can imagine, the last option captured the group’s interest the most, and we started talking about which type of animal would be most interesting and feasible for us to raise. We decided on chickens.
Above: Mr. Hou, a villager who lives near the school, talks students through the design of a chicken coop.
The next class, our goal was to learn about what chicken farming involves and make a final decision about whether or not to raise chickens. I repeatedly emphasized that raising animals is a very big responsibility that can’t be taken lightly. The students had to make a decision based on the amount of work chicken farmers do each day. We went to visit a chicken farmer, which gave the students a chance to observe the chickens, see what kind of equipment and materials are needed and interview the farmer about the work they do. In the end, the students decided that they were ready to commit to raising chickens. During the visit, the students found out that some farmers use chemical feed while other farmers raise chickens organically. We had a discussion about which method we should use. The students had learned that chickens which ate organic feed such as corn would have more nutritious and healthy eggs. On the other hand, they knew that it would take twice as long for the chickens to mature and start to lay eggs. After the discussion, the students unanimously decided to use organic feed.
After we decided to move forward with raising chickens, we had to start thinking about how to raise them. We invited a villager, Mr. Hou, to come to school and tell us what we needed to consider in terms of designing a chicken coop and where to put the coop. He told us that the coop should be placed somewhere where there was a lot of sunshine, but not much wind. Based on this criteria, the students selected a spot near the school wall facing the direction that receives the most hours of sunlight. Mr. Hou told us about the pros and cons of a very open chicken coop versus a cage. Originally, the students had had their hearts set on an open coop where the chickens would have a lot of space for exercise. But after listening to Mr. Hou, they decided that the risk of the chickens being caught by cats or dogs would be too great, and that cages would be more effective until the chickens are bigger.
Above: Students made blueprints for the chicken coop and calculated the cost of building it.
The students spent about two hours coming up with a detailed design for the chicken coop and calculating the amount of material needed to build it. Their design included features such as an external trough for more convenient feeding, pans for collecting manure and a removable canopy that would both allow the chickens to get maximum sunshine and protect them from rain. The process was highly educational, as students learned a lot about design techniques, used simple models to decide among different designs, and applied skills from Math class to calculate amounts of materials to buy. At the moment, Mr. Hou and a welder from the village are constructing two cages based on the students’ design while the students eagerly await a trip to buy chicks from a nearby chicken farm.
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Team of Three Advance Love of Reading
By Chuanmei Sun, RCEF Program Manager
Above: Students in the Guan Ai library where they are being trained as "little librarians".
This autumn I arrived at Guan Ai School to manage the library and reading project. Over the last two years, this project was developed by Ms. Yanzhen Wang, Guan Ai’s second grade language arts teacher, and Jiang Peng and Diane Geng, RCEF Staff. The spirit of the project rubbed off on the other Guan Ai teachers and a lot of creative progress was made. Building on this foundation, my job is to get an overall grasp of the entire project and to assist the school and teachers in executing a plan. My partners in this are Ms. Yanzhen Wang and Ms. Xiaochun Li, another teacher at Guan Ai School who recently volunteered to join our team.
This is not the first time that I have worked with rural teachers on a project. Ms. Wang and Ms. Li are dedicated and experienced and our collaboration does not give me too much pressure. I mostly feel pressure from myself. I am the RCEF staff in charge of this project and I have to be alert to the difficulties we will face. I am mostly concerned about my own abilities and how much I can accomplish. This has led to frequent self-reflection on my part and a willingness to listen to ideas from Ms. Wang and Ms. Li. We work as equals and strive to have constructive communication. We each have an area of responsibility but we also do our best to assist each other. For example, when Ms. Li opens the library to the students, Ms. Wang and I will often be on hand to help out. During Ms. Wang’s reading class, Ms. Li and I will often go to observe and give feedback. We hold meetings to discuss how to execute new activities. The thing I admire most about rural teachers is their down-to-earth simplicity, a trait that shines through clearly in Ms. Wang and Ms. Li. I am very happy to have such partners at Guan Ai School.
This year, we will focus on developing more activities for the daily reading period. Each grade’s language arts teacher will participate. New books that RCEF bought for the school library allow us to plan theme-based reading activities. In keeping with RCEF’s renewed focus on preparing students to improve their communities, our reading project strives to help students increase self-confidence and initiative, exercise independent thinking, and cultivate empathy and caring for others. We have also recruited some “little librarians”, whom Ms. Wang and I train in afternoon extracurricular classes. The little librarians have to take notes and make plans during each session, which they seem to really enjoy. I look forward to helping them gain a new understanding of what it means to manage a library. Their attitudes towards reading will influence their classmates so these 21 little librarians are at the heart of our program this year.
Above: Chuanmei Sun in front of the Guan Ai School library, the base from which she manages RCEF's rural library and reading project.
In addition, Ms. Wang and Ms. Li have started a reading study group for teachers. They get together to read and discuss books and plan reading activities to try out in their own classrooms. It is off to a great start! Over the last two years, some of the work has been lost due to teacher and student turnover and incomplete documentation. However, the quality of the work has not diminished and we continue to persevere. We will need to work hard for a long time before we can expect full results. Working as part of this three-person team, I believe our project will become better and better.
Donor Roll
We are grateful to all the supporters who donated to RCEF in September 2009! (A complete list of donors through the years is available here.)
Silver Sponsors ($1000-$4999)
Florence A. Davis and Anthony C. Gooch (New York, NY)
Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC (Chicago, IL)
The San Francisco Foundation (San Francisco, CA)
Bronze Sponsors ($100 to $999)
Anne Hsieh (Aiea, HI)Betty Phillips (Schaumburg, IL)
Guang Guo (San Francisco, CA)
Hua Wang (Jersey City, NJ)
Jeremy Liu (Cupertino, CA)
Richard Sterling (Berkeley, CA)
Rowena Geng (West Sacramento, CA)
Tony Tang (San Francisco, CA)
Supporting Sponsors (under $99)
Allison Harell (Montreal, QC)
Honghai Zhu (Jersey City, CA
Xinyuan Shang (Philadelphia, PA)
The RCEF Newsletter is a monthly publication about the educational initiatives being carried out by RCEF in rural Shanxi Province, China.
Read more about RCEF's mission and main 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!
Donate Your Used Car
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From our Blog:
Guest Speakers at Guan Ai
A calligrapher, a singer and even a professional emcee visited Guan Ai School to share their talents with students.
Click here to read more
Beekeeping Journals
Curious fourth graders took on an independent project to learn about raising bees.
Book Making Class
Stories took shape in a summer class on making and illustrating books.
Summer Nature Camp
Rural migrant children in Beijing got to experience nature in the mountains outside the city.
New School Year, New School Training
RCEF Math Teaching Coach Steven Liu helped rural teachers map out their curriculum for the semester.
Click here to read more
How I Prepared for the Start of School
Read how Ms. Li, first grade math teacher at Guan Ai School, planned her lessons during a RCEF training.
Click here to read more
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
Past Newsletters
RCEF posts monthly and quarterly newsletters on our website.
Click here to read past issues