2010 AERA, 5.1.10: The Presence of China
A Move toward Creativity
I enjoyed the panel discussion about teacher development and classroom teaching driven toward individual creativity led by two vice presidents (Mr. Youqun Ren and Mr. Qi Dong) from two best renowned colleges of education in China. I’m very glad to see this emergent change in K-12 education in China. This country was the earliest country invested printing, compass, paper making, and gunpowder, etc. for the world. However, the contemporary China seemed losing its ancestors’ creativity. The “stereotype” of Chinese students is that they are the most diligent but silent and obedient GROUP. They lack INDIVIDUAL voices and often times individual uniqueness is covered and negated by their group.
Literacy as Power and a State of Grace
Scribner (1984)’s three metaphors of literacy resonated with me a lot when I thought about the ancient values of literacy education in China which nowadays still influences the Chinese culture. I would like to share some thoughts here. Education, esp. literacy education, was commonly viewed as a pathway to success, for lower classes climbing the … Read more
Stories about My Chinese Name
Today in class we had a class discussion regarding stories about our names, what meanings our names convey, and what identities our names might bring impact on. This is actually a good practice for English teachers to engage students in exploring and reflecting on the literacy, cultural meanings behind each other’s names. Furthermore, this practice … Read more
About Chinese Valentine’s Day
Tomorrow is the Chinese Valentine’s Day which is also called Qi Xi or Qi Qiao Jie. It happens on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar. So the date varies every year in the lunar time zone: Year 2010 is on August 16, 2010 Year 2011 is on August 6, … Read more
