China Images

I have traveled to China for over 30 years to do research and consult in Chinese schools and colleges. During a few of these years, 2004 to 2010, I wrote occasional reflections and essays for friends who wanted to know more about my experiences and about China. Known as China Images, they probe some of my time spent in rural and urban schools and communities and with Chinese friends. Additional writings are in other parts of this website and, of course, in my books, Educating Young Giants: What Kids Learn (And Don’t Learn) in China and America, published by Palgrave Macmillan and One in a Billion: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey through Modern Day China, published by Rowman & Littlefield. Although some of these essays are dated, notably “Telecommunications” and “From Bicycles to VWs,” I have included them because they provide a window into China just two decades ago.

• First and Continuing Impressions, 1(1) January 2004
• Urban Elementary Schools, 1(2) February 2004
• Telecommunication Gaps and Growth, 1(3) April 2004
• Lessons from An Shang Village, 1(4) December 2004
• Shanghai Jews, 2(1) March 2005
• From Bicycles to VWs, 2(2), September 2005
• Angst in Shaanxi Province, 3(1), January 2006
• The Confucian Thread, 3(2), March 2006
• Understanding or Misunderstanding, 3(3), October 2006
• A Fifteen Year Journey, 4(1), February 2007
• Staring is Okay, 4(2), August 2007
• Opera and the Soul of China, 5(1), June 2008
• How on Earth Do Children Learn to Write? 6(1), March 2009
• Into the Schools—January 1990, 6(2), September 2009
• What Do Chinese Children Know? 7(1), May 2010