FCL Updates: China Report: Full-Circle Learning in Hangzhou

We pass a caterpillar in the school yard. The caterpillar is not a furry one but is made of very young children, each one holding the waist of the next as they move quietly into the classroom. Inside, each one puts their own chair on the tape measured out in a square on the floor. Some are barely big enough to walk, but they work together cohesively, sharing space, each child patiently waiting for the next before settling the chair into a space. After hearing about a faraway place called America, they give their visiting foreign grandparent presents they have made. A self-portrait drawn by an American child is presented as their constant new companion, to share a new friendship with them. When their guest leaves, some come forward to offer kisses and hugs of immediate acceptance and love.

In the yard of many kindergartens, we see tiny farms where children grow vegetables. In the hallways, creative works—usually made of recycled materials—say as much about the dedication and energy of the teachers and parents as they say about the innate qualities of the students. It is no wonder that the teachers’ room at Fuyiu kindergarten bears the motto: “Work is love made visible.”

Creative works and photos abound at Greentown Schools as well. They illustrate the love between grandparents, parents, teachers and students. The best acts of love, however, require no materials, only time and concern. At one school, we enter a room crowded with tiny beds. Twenty sets of eyes look up with instant wonder. Nap time is ending for the two-year olds. A door opens and in rush the big “brothers and sisters,” now four years old, who each go directly to the bed of the child they care for each day as expertly as a well-practiced mother. They know the routine. They lay out the trousers and stuff the little legs into them. They place the shoes on the feet, first the right, then the left. They carefully tuck in shirts and put arms into coats and help the two-year old down from the beds. Next, the little ones help the littlest ones make up the beds with military precision.

It is no wonder that the children in these schools can apply their skills so well to honor grandparents on their special holiday for grandparents, that they can easily make friends and can show love for others in the family and in the community. Here, in a place with a one-child policy, the children have instead created one family, one very big family, and the ties go beyond blood ties. They are ties of deep, abiding love.

The Zhejiang Normal University College of Preschool Teacher Education sponsored its second Sino-American Full-Circle Learning conference , October 28-29 2010. At least 150 educators from throughout the province registered to hear presentations of classroom teachers who had mastered Full-Circle Learning processes in the classroom as well as experts on theory and practice.

One highlight of the conference was a presentation on earthquake relief at one of the university-affiliated schools, in which students practiced sacrifice, raising money for children in an affected community in a very systematic service project. The students practiced sacrifice, giving up their favorite toys, their pet silk worms and other items to organize a toy sale for earthquake victims. Heartwarming testimonials told how students as young as four years old carried out difficult tasks to improve life for others. Two year-olds participated by purchasing the toys, with their parents.

Another highlight of the conference was a moving dramatic presentation by students who reenacted a folk tale. In the play, a series of animals in a forest each found a gift of food on their doorstep and carried it to the next hibernating animal rather than eat it themselves, until the original carrot given to the rabbit ended up back at her own door.

Dr. Gan JianMei (Angela Gan), the character education director at the university, organized the conference and lectured on the basics of Full-Circle Learning. Other presentations considered the effects of holistic education on society, nurturing altruism in early childhood development, aspects of ecology and the spiritual journey of a teacher. Several days of school tours and a lecture at a Greentown primary school followed the conference.

The university was introduced to Full-Circle Learning five years ago. During this time, the research program has blossomed. The university has trained teachers in its own schools and invited teachers throughout the province to its workshops. Greentown Education System, a recipient of those services, has now conducted exchanges back and forth (with six principals visiting America in January 2010), and both organizations have applied many efforts toward adapting the model to the Chinese culture and customs. Teachers use university-adapted translations as a springboard for their own creative ideas.

With positive role models surrounding them, the children in these fine schools not only learn to face the world as future decision makers who will be trained academically but who will become benevolent leaders or better citizens, as members of one loving family.

The 2010 trip to China also included a school presentation and conference presentation at the International Conference on Process Philosophy, celebrating the Establishment of the China Process Society. This conference was held in Beijing, the city, where the first volume of a Full-Circle Learning book was also translated by Peking University Press.)