Rural Remote-Teaching and International Education: An Interview with Wesley Chiu
“Our mission has always been about becoming a better version of yourself in a diversified cultural environment”
—Wesley Chiu
In this interview, Wesley Chiu shared his views on volunteer remote teaching in rural areas and international education. Furthermore, he put forward suggestions on how we can promote and improve the quality of education. From co-founding Project Volunteer Online to provide companionship and education for “left-behind” children, to becoming a board director of United World College Changshu China (UWC), Wesley Chiu shared some of his experiences with us.
Wesley Chiu is a board member of UWC Changshu China, a member of the UWC National Committee of China (as Selection Coordinator) and a financial sponsor of "UWC Go Make A Difference" program. Founded in 2015 as the first UWC in the mainland of China and the 15th in the world, UWC Changshu China offers a challenging and transformative educational experience in a diversified cultural environment. As an IB World School, it provides a high-quality two-year IB Diploma Programme (DP) and a one-year foundation programme for students. Wesley was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, researching on education. Before his time at Harvard, he worked at SCA (a global leading tissue company) as General Legal Counsel Asia Pacific and was also responsible for sustainability projects in the region. He was also a board director of Vinda (HKSE 3331), one of the leading tissue companies in China. In addition, Wesley was also an external postgraduate program mentor at the Law School of Shanghai Jiaotong Univeristy.
Wesley has a passion for education. Apart from serving at UWC, he is a co-founder and a board director of Project Volunteer Online (PVO), an NGO pioneering in setting up internet video conferencing classrooms in 46 primary schools in remote villages in China where there is a general shortage of teachers. They recruit and train 160+ volunteers in cities to provide weekly 200 online real-time interactive classes to 2000+ left behind children in these village schools. The project locations include Anhui, Henan, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai and other remote provinces.
Why did you decide to be a founding management team member of the “PVO (Project Volunteer Online) Teaching”?
After graduating from university 20 years ago, I volunteered for a two week rural teaching program. Before leaving the school in the village, a little girl approached me and asked “Zhao Bin, when will you come again?” But I couldn’t answer her question at that time. In the last 20 years I have been thinking about how we can sustainably help those students in remote areas where they do not have enough teachers. As a result, I launched this program with my friends by using video conferencing about six years ago to help those students with online interactive classes.
What were the difficulties you experienced when establishing the PVO?
In the beginning, the lack of funding and teachers were the main difficulties we faced because no one was doing remote education when we began this project. So it was difficult to find people to be willing to donate money to a grassroot NGO to start this program. In addition, we did not know where to find volunteers because the teachers in public schools are very busy. They do not have any extra time for additional classes. However, our project supports the rural schools that lack teachers and these schools also have classes from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. It was unrealistic to expect public school teachers to make time for teaching. Therefore, finding volunteers was the problem we had at the beginning.
The PVO’s team has more than 160 volunteers in cities to provide real-time interactive online classes to children in 46 villages in China on a daily basis. How has your current progress affected the development of rural education?
There are two major influences. First, left-behind children became more active, having more courage to speak up, and more willing to explore new knowledge. Second, local teachers saw the different teaching methods. They are also more willing to use these new teaching methods now. These are the biggest impacts we've seen on local teachers and students. Also, I would like to mention our online volunteers too. They gained a deeper understanding of the villages in China through interactions with local teachers and children from rural areas. Volunteering became another way to find meaning in life for them as well. Many of our online volunteers are full time mothers or white-collar workers. After taking care of children or returning from work, if they can use their knowledge to make a difference for others, that provides an extra meaning in life for them.
Do you think that the society does not provide enough attention to the rural education? What do you think rural students need the most in terms of education?
I do think that the society does not have enough attention to left behind children, especially in terms of mental health development. Most of the children in the countryside are left-behind children whose parents work in the cities and do not have the opportunity to have face to face communication with their children. Therefore, we can observe that left behind children's mental health development is very different from those who live in the cities. In this respect, it is difficult for us to take care of it at this stage because we lack teachers in certain subjects (especially music and art) in village schools that are crucial in mental health development. These teachers often do not want to stay in remote villages. Also, although many of the central primary schools at the township level have music and art teachers, they have large class size with 50, 60, or even more students. So the class sizes make it difficult to take care of individual needs.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of online education?
I have always insisted that if there is a local teacher, then face-to-face teaching by them is better than online teaching. Generally, the countryside does not have enough teachers for English, arts, music, and computer science, but they do not lack teachers for Chinese and math. Consequently, we do not teach math and Chinese online. What we do is to solve a problem on a scale of zero to one. In other words, it is a “yes” and “no” question. We do not have resources to solve a 60% to 80% problem. Classes for rural children should not be solely for academic growth, interaction and mental health development is also very important.
In what ways can online education be developed or improved? What are the PVO’s future plans?
In my opinion, we have to implement different forms of teaching for different situations when educating online. As we do in rural villages with left-behind children, more attention is paid to mental health development. This kind of interaction between the teacher and the class is shown to be very effective. On the other hand, high school students may focus more on academic knowledge. They do not necessarily need too much interaction with teachers online. That’s why it would be more effective to use recorded classes by high quality teachers. Consequently, the classes have to be conducted according to the students’ needs—whether there is a necessity for interaction or recorded courses and whether our target is middle school students or high school students. Everything depends on the specific situation.
In terms of plans, due to the fact that we are a grassroot NGO, we cannot cover all the villages in China that need teachers. Therefore, our strategy is to become a pilot project for others. We want to show the work to larger NGOs and even the government so they could see that the small class interactive online teaching model is feasible. We would like the government or a bigger NGO to try to solve the problem on a larger scale. I believe that China is not the only country that lacks teachers in rural areas. This problem can be seen in the villages of all developing countries. If the remote teaching model is viable in China, then it can be applied to the whole world. So I hope I can use the “Project Volunteer Online” as a pilot project to promote this remote teaching method in other parts of the world.
You are also a board member of UWC Changshu China and a member of the UWC National Committee of China. How is the multicultural environment of UWC more helpful for students’ growth and education compared to a monocultural environment?
The obvious advantage of diversity over homogeneity is that we do not know what the world will look like 10 years, as we are in a rapidly changing and diverse society, especially with AI coming. So it is hard to say that the same set of principles will definitely be applicable 10 years from now. Our education method is mainly about showing diversity to students and helping them to find the most suitable and useful approach for their self-development in this kind of environment. Our slogan has always been about becoming a better yourself in a diversified cultural environment and finding your path after exploring many different ways of thinking.
As of the 2019 academic year，UWC Changshu China consists of 580 students from more than 100 countries. How do students from different parts of the world overcome cultural boundaries and communication barriers?
It is definitely necessary to overcome barriers because we are not trying to create a Disneyland where everything is perfect. The truth is that life is full of bumps and hollows. That is why we are creating a concentrated version of real society and helping students overcome difficulties by using different approaches. For example, we have special life skill classes that teach students how to communicate with others, how to deal with conflicts, how to state questions and needs, how to compromise, when to assert their opinion, and how to manage emotions. Most of the time the communication problem doesn’t lie in the problem itself but it’s about two people’s emotions. These are all the aspects we pay attention to in the life skill classes. Moreover, we have residential tutors and teachers to help students tackle difficulties and solve problems with the full support of other UWC teachers. We hope that students will not be afraid of difficulties but have the courage to deal with them, learn how to compromise, and build a more peaceful future by learning from conflicts and contradictions.
What advice would you give to international education organizations and future educators?
I hope to see the international education and educators be able to design a personalized education according to the student’s needs to motivate their initiation to grow. Nowadays, we can see that international education has become a foreign Gaokao, a foreign college entrance exam. In China, many educational institutions and teachers take the Gaokao mode to do international education, making it a one size for all program. In this way, the original teaching philosophy of maximizing human initiation and motivation became a formularized schooling by using one format to achieve standardization. I hope everyone can return to the nature of education and make it more personalized for students so that each of them can showcase their own strengths and become a better self.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you are interested in volunteer teaching and have relevant education or teaching background related to arts, music, science, child psychology, English, and computer science, you can sign up for Project Volunteer Online.
To learn more about the recruitment and application process of PVO, please click on the following link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/WBUGOx1NABo5_E5cNMF38A
To learn more about Project Volunteer Online, please visit: http://www.ngopvo.org/
Interviewer: Inin Fan
Editor: Emily Zhang, Jackson Barkstrom, Yanni Li
