Transforming education is never easy but transformation is necessary. How to personalize education for every student? How to engage students in identifying and solving problems worth solving? How to connect students across school and cultural boundaries so they can learn from, with, and for each other in the globalized world? These are challenging but meaningful tasks for all school leaders and teachers.

Over the past five years, some Chinese schools have embarked on the journey to make significant changes to engage students in a new type of learning. This is especially difficult in a country where testing is considered a high priority for parents, teachers, and school leaders and test scores really matter for all involved. In this episode, we have invited four students from two cities in China--the capital city of Beijing and Chongqing in Southwest China--to share with us their experiences with a new education paradigm: the Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Education or ICEE. Together with them are two adults who have helped leading the experiments. The students are from Beijing Academy, a relative new school in Beijing and Chongqing #8 Secondary School, a school of a long history. The experiments have been supported by YEE Education in Beijing.

Bo Hu, vice director of the Academic Affairs Office at Chongqing No.8 Secondary School, is one of the coordinators for ICEE at No.8. With 11 years of experience in teaching English in China, Bo strives to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment to unlock students’ potential. Currently, Bo is pursuing a doctoral degree in education.

Gao Mengchan graduated from Beijing Normal University in 2016. At the same year, she started her teaching career in Beijing Academy. Having been an English teacher for almost eight years, Gao gained a new identity in August, 2023 as one member of YEE- GLocal program. It has been a brand new experience for both Gao and her students as they are exploring and practicing the key ideas of “innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship education”. In today’s conversation, Gao will introduce what their students have been doing in GLocal and what she has learned from a teacher’s perspective.

Join the conversation at silverliningforlearning.org

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