Read all about it is good advice
The British historian and anthropologist Alan Macfarlane was generous in his praise of the writer and education expert Zhu Yongxin. He is, Macfarlane said, “a very hardworking, driven man”. He writes in the preface of the book Dialogue in Education, which the two co-authored, that “it was an increasingly interesting exchange. He’s filled with what seem like excellent and liberal ideas when thinking of the creative and active role of education.”
The book, published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House recently, records, in dialogue format, communication between the two spanning more than four years.
They discuss the two countries’ educational history and systems, personal ideas on education, as well as thoughts on reading and writing.
Its English version will be brought to a wider international audience by Cam Rivers Publishing, said its editor, Ma Xiao.
Zhu, deputy secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, is the founder of the New Education Initiative, and one of the country’s key promoters of better reading habits.
“I believe the best way to elevate educational and social equality is to promote reading,” he says.
As a CPPCC member, Zhu hands in proposals each year centering on promoting reading, as well as education, in rural and remote areas.
One of his most influential proposals is the High-SpeedRail Reading campaign.
“It’s possible in space and time, with the railways running on strict timetables, and with enough flow of passengers,” Zhu says, suggesting the opening of rail library services and delivering books just like food.
“E-reading on trains can also be made more accessible.”
Zhu’s core ideal in the New Education Initiative is about living a happy and complete educational life. It is a studentcentered ideology, instead of a knowledge-centered mechanism.
“We started with the teachers, and ‘10 actions’ make our pathways,” he says. The essential elements in the 10 actions are reading and writing.
Zhu and his team started the initiative in 2002. The nongovernmental trial involves 5,215 schools and 5.6 million teachers and students in the country, of which 40% are in rural areas.
Macfarlane, a Life Fellow of King’s College in Cambridge, Fellow of the British Academy and the European Academy of Sciences, says he is particularly impressed by Zhu’s description of the many new experiments that are taking place across China.
“At the primary and junior high school level, schools are trying a new, freer and more creative approach,” Macfarlane records in his diary.“(There is) much more emphasis on art and music, hobbies and selfregulation.”