A different idea of education....

A little psychological inquiry never hurt anyone!

On Friday, I was lucky enough to visit two Chinese schools with Reinier as part of our relationship building mission with the Chinese government. There are huge differences in the Chinese (and most Asian countries) educational visions, it was fascinating to see it them in practice.

Mask painting.

Weaving.

Our first stop was the Chinese kindergarten, with 500 students and 30-40 students in each class. The children were so happy and so keen to say 'Hello, how are you?' to us as we wandered around. There were several excellent ideas that we were able to bring back to EtonHouse to put into practice. The kindergarten had an excellent program for developing fine motor skills, a very important aspect of early childhood education in China as it helps children to be able to write using the Chinese characters.

Nanna nap anyone?

We had a delicious morning tea at the kindergarten where they continued to show off student learning and we watched several DVDs promoting the school. One of these DVDs showed the school's military program - hundreds of small children dressed in camoflague running obstacle courses, attacking straw dolls with spears and hiding in trenches throwing things at the enemy. A very interesting concept for 3, 4 and 5 year old children.

Play time.

Just your everyday army practice for kindergarten children.

The next stop was the local primary school with 1500 students! Again, the principal was extremely proud of her school as she showed us around. The first room we were led to was the 'Psychological Inquiry Room' which conjured up all sorts of disturbing images as we entered - think 'Clockwork Orange', 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'. Another interesting room we visited was the 'Specimen Room' - a room filled with stuffed animals developed by some keen science teachers who appear to also be amateur taxidermists! What they used the room for, I'm not exactly sure.

One Corner, One Dream! Not exactly sure what this means.

Year 3 English class.

After the extremely fascinating and eye opening tours of both schools, we headed out for lunch with the principals, some teachers and the Wuxi government officials. It was really interesting to chat to the teachers about their ideas of teaching and the Chinese principals were very receptive to our ideas about teacher appraisal and professional development. Several of the principals and teachers will be attending a parent course that we are running here at EtonHouse over the next 8 weeks - we are desperately trying to educate the parent community about what an international school is and how they operate ('What? You mean you don't follow the Korean curriculum?!')

The 'Specimen Room' - What the?!

Another sensible Chinese proverb? Can someone explain the meaning to me?!

Also on the topic of schooling, I had a very interesting conversation with the owner of my favourite restaurant down the road from my place. The owner is Singaporean and we were talking about how she is looking at a new school for her daughter and is thinking of the International School of Wuxi (to school to whom we have lost a lot of students - the one with unqualified teachers and very, very, very religious). This is how the conversation went:

Me - Have you considered EtonHouse?

Her - Well, we have heard things about EtonHouse...

Me - Like what?

Her - We heard that it's a very happy and supportive environment.

Me - And that's a problem?

Her - Yes, we don't want that, because we are from Singapore we want more homework and proper learning.

Me (putting the marketing hat on.....) - Well, are currently trying to improve our academic standards at the same time as being a happy and supportive place.

Her - I want my daughter to be happy ..... sometimes. Homework is very important though.

And so the conversation continued. We ended with me giving her my card and her (somewhat reluctantly) agreeing to bring her daughter along to have a look at the school. What different ideas we all have about education?!