Chinese Teacher, Pupils Learning Lessons in Ojai

Qing Guang Ya was amazed at how quickly his four young, shy students fell head-over-heels for the teachers and students at a private boarding school in Ojai after they arrived from China for summer school.

He remembered when he first opened his Guang Ya Private Primary School last September, China’s first private primary boarding school for young children since 1949, the children wept after their parents dropped them off.

But as soon as the youngsters, ages 6 through 10, met their teachers at Ojai Valley School last week, a close relationship blossomed almost instantaneously, with the children riding on the teachers’ shoulders.

“When our children go to a new place, they cry for the first few days,� he said Wednesday. “Here at Ojai, they were attracted to the faculty and children and forgot all about me.�

Most Chinese educators would frown at the idea of children and teachers developing a friendly relationship, Qing said. But he has vowed to make an attempt to buck this trend and many others that he said have become detrimental to educating China’s nearly 300 million children.

This is one of the many lessons Qing will try to implement in his new school, which is modeled after Western boarding schools. The Chinese headmaster chose Ojai Valley over hundreds of other private schools in America to extensively study its school curriculum and take back American ideas to help accelerate school privatization in China.

The boyish-looking Qing (pronounced “Ching�), donning the green polo shirt Ojai Valley gives to teachers and staff, traveled nearly 16 hours from Beijing Airport to Los Angeles last week. He plans to stay in Ojai until the end of June.

The 37-year-old former television producer and filmmaker brought four of his students from China to attend Ojai Valley School’s six-week summer school program as part of his plan to make his students more culturally aware. The students have received American nicknames and are learning English. To make him feel more like an American, the Ojai staff also nicknamed Qing “Mike.�

One of Qing’s students, 7-year-old Lijian Chen, who has been nicknamed Teresa while she’s at Ojai Valley, said she plans to make a lot of friends while she’s here. Her friend Xiaohe Zhou, nicknamed Lisa, said other than the language barrier, she’s having a great time.

Ojai Valley administrators are working with Qing on improving his school’s curriculum and formulating a sister-school relationship. Plans are in the works to send Ojai Valley teachers to China so they can evaluate Guang Ya’s school up close and suggest changes.

“Most education in China takes place at the first level, which is memorization,� said C. Michael Connor, admissions director for Ojai Valley and one of the coordinators for the visit. “We hope to move Chinese education past the first level into analysis and evaluation, and not repeating what (students) have already heard.�

Both schools are also planning to experiment with student exchanges, where Ojai students would spend a semester the Guang Ya school. Qing will also consider encouraging his students to attend private high school in Ojai and other American schools.

“The Ojai school has many of the same views that I have in terms of educating children,� Qing said. “The current educational system in mainland China is not adequate enough to educate its children.�

Guang Ya’s privately funded school, located in Dujiangyan, near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, has classes for preschool age children through third grade, with a total enrollment of 210 children, he said. He said he hopes to expand the school to a full elementary status in three years.

Most of his six-day-a-week classes are taught in English and students are required to speak it most of the time. The school has five American instructors and plans to expand that number as the school grows.

Qing’s classrooms are air-conditioned, equipped with computers and have color televisions that receive satellite broadcasts. The school’s enrollment fee is $6,315 and the annual tuition is $1,543--an exorbitant amount of money in China. Some parents have donated construction materials to offset the tuition costs.

In an effort to make the school more accessible to the poor, Qing offered to admit five orphans at no cost.

Qing said he started the school out of frustration with the teaching methods his then 6-year-old son confronted at a state-run school.

Qing decided to try to establish a relationship with an American boarding school last July. He contacted the United States Information Service office in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, which put him in touch with the Assn. of Boarding Schools, a national organization located in Boston.

The association recommended five schools, including Ojai Valley, as potential candidates. The information service sent a representative to Ojai Valley last winter to visit the campus. In February, Ojai Valley officials received a letter from Qing expressing his interest in their school.

Ojai Valley invited four students and a teacher to attend its summer school and camp session. After the student’s visas were approved, the students, along with Qing, arrived in California. Their departure for Ventura County was televised nationwide to 110 million people, he said.

Qing’s school has received widespread interest from the international media and educators from around the world and has become a springboard for school privatization in China. Since late last year, more than 10,000 private schools have been started in China, he said.

Qing said the Chinese government’s one-family, one-child rule is sending shock waves through its educational system, causing parents to treat their children like spoiled “little emperors.� He wants children to be more disciplined and have more self respect and dignity.

“The current education system will not help develop character,� he said.