协和探索中西融合（上） XIEHE Education’s exploration

上海名校访谈④｜协和教育集团总校长卢慧文

　　“一所好的民办学校不仅要有国际通行的金标准，还要有政府的支持、督学的检验以及市场的认可。”卢慧文说。

　　圣诞节快到了，虹泉路协和双语学校的大厅堆满了大袋大袋的礼物和玩偶熊。

　　虹泉路校区是协和教育最早创办的一所学校。协和教育一直坚持“以学生发展为中心，为每个学生的终身幸福奠定基础”为指导，以致力于提供融合中西方教育精粹的高质量、多元化、全面发展的国际教育，为不同需求的学生提供多元选择的课程和发展通道，培养学生成为未来出色的全球国际人才为使命，通过22年不断探索、实践、总结和调整，最终形成了双轨制双通道课程系统，以及扎实的四大办学特色：中外校长共同管理，中外教师合作教学，中外课程相兼互补，中外学生交流互动，从而走出了一条中西文化融合、多元、平衡、包容、创新的具有协和特色的办学之路。

　　近日，协和教育集团总校长卢慧文就二十多年来协和的发展轨迹，分享了中西融合办学的理念、经验，也指出了对于“中西融合”理解的现有误区。

卢慧文观点

六大策略

　　创学之初，我们曾设定了六大策略：中外校长共治，中外教师合作教学，中外课程相间互补，中外学生互动，中外环境互补，中外文化兼容并蓄。　　现在形成的自然融合状态其实经历了共存、合作以及融合三个阶段。初期，我们形容那是“鸡鸭同笼”，虽是和睦相处，但“你做你的，我做我的”，学生互动也仅局限于运动会和艺术节；到了合作层面时，两边“隔岸相望”，看到了对方的优点，也开始学习对方的长处，此阶段虽仍然“你还是你，我还是我”，但已有了彼此理解和欣赏的变化；最后，在各种磨合与协作中，才到达“你中有我，我中有你”的融合状态，最终形成了中西充分融合的状态。

体验挖掘

　　协和双语学校分设国内部和国际部，国内部除了本地课程外，更有协和自主研发的非常受家长欢迎的融合课程，国际部涉及IB、IGCSE、AP、BC等欧美通行课程。　　　在课程的设置上，我们以母语、数学和价值观教育的核心课程为中心，以科技类、人文类、艺体类、国际视野类和社会交往能力类的素养课程为提升，配以在线课程、游学、博物馆参观等丰富的个性化课程为外围，为学生提供充分的体验和深度挖掘潜力的教育平台。例如，我们引进的四大名家工作室和MLB美国职棒大联盟的棒球课程等。

跨文化跨界

　　协和的教师团队是一支跨文化的团队。比如我们某校区有200名教职员工，其中六七十名是外教。中方教师比较擅长整班教学和竞争性教学策略，而外方教师比较擅长小组合作学习，以此激发学生的学习兴趣。通过这些跨文化的碰撞，可以激发出教学灵感，而我们最终评判的标准是基于对孩子的发展有益，在此基础上来进行有效结合。 　　教师团队的第二个特点是跨界。跨文化、跨界最有益于刺激创新。我们的教师来源并不局限于师范领域，有很多优秀教师带着各个领域的经验和思维方式加入协和，在实际教学过程中，他们不仅学有所获，还同时为整个教学体系补充了很多其他元素，丰富了我们的教学方式。

中西融合

　　中西方在教育领域中难免会产生矛盾与冲突。举一个家委会轮值时对作业制度截然不同理解的例子：一般亚洲家长轮值时会嫌作业太少，而欧美家长则认为作业太多，这是文化理念差异造成的。就此，学校把作业分为必修和选修。不同家庭可以根据学生具体的情况在选修作业上有自由选择的空间。
　　 此外，中西方在选修课的设置上也截然不同。中方认为小学的课程压力小，选修课安排多一些，但外教的理念却是低幼年级的孩子差异很小，应施行通识教育，等孩子呈现出兴趣爱好，选择能力、自我管理能力也提高了，再进行选修分层，因此高中的选修课占到了一半。
　　所以，我们考量了中西方家庭以及教育的需求，进行了如下的课程设置：小学阶段设置丰富的必修学科，让学生有体验多种课程的机会，找到自己感兴趣的领域。在初高中后，才开始有横向分类、纵向分层的必修和选修相配合。例如艺术必修课中既有学习舞台表演等台前展示的机会，也有学习服装设计、道具制作这类的幕后内容，每个孩子可以根据自己的特长和爱好来选修细分科目。另一些课程则采用纵向分层，例如高中数学，修到基础学分后，可以根据发展需要决定是否继续学习微积分等大学课程。

适合孩子

　　国际教育并不等同于西方教育，国际教育其实是一个全球化领域的教育概念，包括了中国教育元素。此外，很多家长都有一个误区，认为孩子在国内体系下读书学不下去了就可以送出国。但如果孩子连本国教育都学不好，语言不过关、没有兴趣爱好、生活自理能力不强，就这样被送出国，又如何真正令人放心？　　我们观察发现，成绩好的学生无论在哪个教育体系下的表现差距都不大。对于语言或者灵活性学习能力弱，需要指导，或者偏好竞争的孩子而言，中国传统教育模式则更有优势；对于大部分中等生，越丰富多元的体验型课程，越容易激发学习的信心与兴趣。一旦学习主动性的内驱力被激发，孩子就会有源源不断的后续潜力。　　总而言之，无论是中国还是国际教育，都是以培养孩子为目的，只不过方式方法有所区别，适合的孩子也有所差异。

Recently, Ms Lu Huiwen, the General Principal of XIEHE Education Group
, shared about her 20 years of experiences of ‘East meets West’, and pointed out some misunderstandings about it.

Christmas is coming and the hall in SUIS’ Hongqiao Campus is filled with large sacks of gifts and teddies.

The Hongqiao Campus was the earliest campus established by XIEHE Education. XIEHE insists on being guided by the principle of “Focusing on the students’ development, laying the foundation for each student’s lifetime of happiness”. An architect of the ‘East meets West’ style of leadership and team teaching, XIEHE has established a diverse range of educational institutions, cultivating students to be a global citizens. After 22 years of exploration and practice, XIEHE has successfully set: two featured course systems and pathways through collaboration of Chinese and foreign staff and between subject areas; blended teaching for same subjects; differentiated instruction; student practice activities. The XIEHE schooling pathways have been formed and have become more and more multi-cultural, balanced, mixed and creative.

Ms Lu Huiwen’s Opinion

1

six strategies

At our school’s beginnings, we aimed for six strategies: co-leadership from both Chinese and international principals; co-teaching by Chinese and Western teachers, integrating eastern and western educational advantages; interaction between Chinese and western students; supplementing Chinese curriculum with western curricula; combining the differences of Chinese and western cultures.

Actually, we experienced three stages. In the beginning, we described the first stage as ‘the chickens and ducks are in the same cage’. Though they live in harmony together, they still did everything separately - the only interaction between them was limited to just holding sports events and arts festivals together. Then, we moved into the cooperation stage, where each side ‘faced each other across the river’, trying to learn the advantages of the other and stepping into multi-understandings, going along smoothly but still separately. In the final stage, after much cooperation and collaboration, both sides finally reached the goal of integration, forming authentic ‘East meets West’.

2

experience

SUIS schools have local streams and international streams. We offer not only the local curriculum in a local stream, but have developed our own mixed program which is warmly welcomed by parents. The international streams offer students the IB、IGCSE、AP、and BC curricula which are very popular in Europe and the United States.

We set the native language, math and value education as the core of the curriculum, and we arrange literacy courses including Science and Technology, Humanity, Arts and Sports, Social and International perspective courses. Besides, we offer extra curricula such as online courses, study tour, trips to places like museum etc. These various and personalized courses have fully provided the experiences and educational platform for students’ potential development. For example, we introduced lessons facilitated by high-profile celebrities and MLB baseball program.

3

cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary

XIEHE’s teacher group is a cross-cultural team. For example, one of our campuses has about 200 staff, with 60-70 foreign teachers among them. The Chinese teachers are good at whole class teaching and competitive teaching. However, the foreign teachers are used to teaching with a team in order to stimulate students’ interest in learning. Through cultural collisions, teachers’ inspiration has been stimulated, and our final assessment is built on the standard that it is beneficial to students’ growth and development.

The second characteristic is cross-disciplinary learning.Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary learning is the best way to be creative. Our teachers are not coming from Normal university graduates, but have come from various fields with professional experiences and ways of thinking to join XIEHE. In practice, they supply many more elements into their teaching and enrich our methods.

4

East meets West

It is inevitable that we will meet with conflicts and contradictions in the eastern and western education fields. There is a case, for example, about a PTA member’s different understandings of homework: many Asian parents complain about students not having enough homework, while European parents will think that the homework is too much for their children - this misunderstanding is caused by their cultural and value differences. Therefore, the school separates homework into compulsory and elective ones, different families can choose different homework for the students based on the different situations.

Furthermore, the setting of elective courses is very different between east and west. Local teachers will arrange elective courses to reduce the pressure of the primary subjects, but foreign teachers feel that we should apply general education into the subjects due to the lower differentiation provided in the lower Primary school grades. After they grow up and impove their interests and self-management abilities, we can offer elective courses with different levels according to their preferences; elective subjects in secondary school will reach 50%.

We consider the preferences of both sides and finally set the curriculum as follows: we set a variety of compulsory subjects in the Primary school in order to let students have various experiences and to help them discover their own interests. At the Secondary and High school stages, we offer compulsory and elective courses at the same time, such as performance, costume design and prop-making lessons - each student can choose the disciplines according to their interests and strengths. Other subjects will use vertical stratification, such as High school mathematics - when a student finishes learning the basic subject content, they can decide whether to study it further or not.

5

international education

International education does not equal western education. International education is actually a global concept, and includes Chinese elements. Many parents have a misunderstanding - they believe that their children must go abroad if they cannot 'survive' in the local education system. But if the students are not good at learning their own national education and have not developed any interests, and lack self-care abilities and language skills, how could they be able to go abroad without any concern?

We have observed that there are not many differences between those students who have good scores and learning habits whether they are in a local or international education system. For those students who are weak in language or learning ability, we need to give them more guidance. In terms of those students who have competitive preferences, we suggest that the Chinese traditional education way is more fitting for them. However, for most other students, the more different experiences they get in the different curricula will give them greater learning confidence and more interests. Only when their inner drive of learning initiative is stimulated will students have a powerful and sustainable development in the future.

In general, whether a Chinese or international education, the main purpose is to cultivate students and to help them grow, only using different methods to match the different needs of each and every student.

未完待续

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