After piloting the program at five schools during the 2007-2008 school year, RCEF selected Guan Ai Primary School in Yongji, Shanxi Province as the main site for the Integrative Rural Education Program. Click here to watch a video of a day at school. Founded and led by a village couple, Guan Ai is a rural boarding school that serves students in grades 1-6. The local school leaders are committed to developing quality teaching methods and curriculum suited to rural children's life needs.

Representativeness:  Guan Ai is located in a rural environment typical of many villages in northern China today. Rural elementary boarding schools are becoming increasingly common as migrant parents leave their children behind in villages and government policy closes down more village schools. Thus, lessons learned and approaches refined at Guan Ai about how to design and manage a successful rural boarding school will be useful to rural school districts, principals, and teachers in more areas throughout China.

Local Leadership: The school leaders, a local couple, are respected by the teachers and the community and have proven entrepreneurship and management capabilities. They set up the school on the strong principle that every child deserves love and respect, no matter what their academic performance. In addition, Guan Ai has a team of teachers who work very hard to ensure all students’ well-being, not just high test scores. The school leaders are highly motivated to improve professional development for their teachers and took the initiative to invite RCEF to work in their school.

Autonomy: Since it is privately managed, Guan Ai can hire teachers from a society-wide pool and manage them according to criteria set by its own specific needs. All the teachers are from the local area but cannot get positions as government teacher because the government's quotas are already full. Guan Ai provides a platform for motivated locals (many of them graduates of teacher training colleges) to gain useful employment and develop their interest in becoming better teachers.

The Campus

Guan Ai School consists of 5 buildings spread over the school campus. The main building houses the classrooms and teachers’ dormitories, and is located in the back of the campus. Wood houses that serve as offices were donated and built by a Canadian non-profit called Canada Wood . Recently, the school has been undergoing renovations. New buildings are replacing old ones and part of the front play area has been rebuilt out of cement. The campus is also turning greener, thanks to trees that have been planted recently.

A Day in the Life at Guan Ai School

Below is the daily schedule at Guan Ai Elementary. When the days start getting darker earlier, the schedule is adjusted slightly so that students wake up a bit later and get ready for bed a bit earlier. Click here to watch a video of a day at school.

The schedule is obviously very full. However, Guan Ai has operated by this schedule length for the last four years and incredibly, the children brim over with energy from morning to night. As a boarding school, Guan Ai is responsible for the students twenty-four hours a day. Most students are "left-behind" by parents who have migrated to cities to find work.

Each grade has math and Chinese every day. In addition, they have English, Science, and Social Studies, Art, Music, and Physical Education about twice a week.

Daily Schedule

06:20                         Wake Up
06:30        06:50        Wash Up
06:50        07:10        Morning Exercises
07:10        07:40        Morning Study Hall
07:50        08:30        First Period
08:40        09:20        Second Period
09:20        10:00        Breakfast and Recess
10:10        10:30        Practicing Chinese Characters
10:40        11:20        Third Period
11:30        12:10        Fourth Period
12:20        01:00        Fifth Period
13:10        13:40        Sustained Silent Reading
13:50        14:40        Lunch and Recess
14:50        15:30        Sixth Period
15:40        16:20        Study Hall 1
16:30        17:30        Extracurricular Classes

12 electives and each student voluntarily signs up for two, which are taught on alternate days. The electives are: Cooking, Poetry Recitation, Drama, Arts & Crafts, Chess, English Corner, Soccer, Chinese Yo-yo, Aerobics, Community Service, Story Time, and School Newspaper.

17:30        17:50        Chores

Each grade sweeps out their own classroom and has a part of the school yard they are responsible for keeping clean. Grades rotate throughout the week to wheel out the school trash wagon and dump it in a nearby landfill. There are no public waste services in most rural villages.

17:50        18:10        Recess
18:20        19:00        Dinner and Recess
19:10        20:00        Study Hall 2

Once a week, movies are shown during this period. We strive for a combination of educational and entertaining programming.

20:20                         Rest

Staff

There are 14 teachers, 2 cooks, and 2 nannies at Guan Ai School. In addition, RCEF bases full-time staff here. (Click here for their biographies .) They work closely with the Guan Ai teachers to improve the teachers’ lessons and develop innovative, community-based curriculum. Recently, some primary schools near Guan Ai have been approached for a greater involvement in the exchange of ideas. They are interested in RCEF’s work, and we are exploring possibilities for new partnerships.