week 3- conversation partner learnings

Week 3 blog assignment

The conversation partner I have is Professor Hui Li of Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong and Winnie Leung, an early childhood teacher in an early childhood center, Canada.

Dr Hui Li is focusing on Chinese literature and language learning and early childhood education. He told me he did researches together with some scholars from the universities in China. Though he also did researches about early childhood curriculum in Hong Kong and studied the education system in Hong Kong. He provided government advices on the project relating “using Chinese language as the principle teaching media.” In this project, there were a lot of noises whether this should be executed though some parents disagreed. Since Chinese is the mother tongue of the population in Hongkong, using Chinese language will help children understand better. Some parents view that Hong Kong being an international city, English is very important for the future career and development of the children…. Anyway the argument went on and on.

Winnie is a teacher in the early childhood center. She loved children very much. Anyone taking teacher as a profession, someone must have passions and love to children. Or else she will not do a good job. She said a few of teachers in her school just took it as a job. She could feel that they did not like the children saying they were annoying. This was not good for both sides. She also had children from another minority group. She can tell they are living in a barely sufficient condition. She will try her best to provide more support to them in terms language and attention.

I find more information about the poverty in China. More than 18% of people living in China are below the UN poverty line 1.75 USD per day. The free education provided by the government is only 9 years from primary 1-9. Not much is being done by the government on early childhood education. The theory of the government is the children don’t have to start school till age 6 to Primary 1. Under the scheme, government is providing lunch and books free for the 9 years. There was a situation. A 6 year old boy went to the school and he had to walk an hour every day before arriving at the school. He always took the school lunch and ate a little and kept it in the lunch box. The teacher found out he brought the food back to his little sister who was aged 4 studying in the same school for kindergarten. The kindergarten did not provide food to children because it was not within the 9 years scheme. So his little sister could only bring the food from home that was just a piece of sweet potato. The little boy shared his food with his sister by bringing it to her kindergarten. How sad the situation was. This is not the only example.