A group of faculty members from Syracuse University’s School of Education ventured to Shanghai from Oct. 25 to Oct. 27 to take part in the Second Annual International Forum on Teacher Education.

The symposium, held at Shanghai’s East China Normal University, brought representatives from numerous countries and organizations including UNESCO and UNICEF together to discuss teacher education and preparation.

ECNU is the second highest ranked university for education in China.

‘China is trying to make education more universally accessible,’ said Douglas Biklen, dean of the School of Education. ‘In particular, they are trying to figure out how to get more people into education and getting more college-trained educators to work in the rural areas of western China.’

The SU faculty members, lead by Biklen, included: Jing Lei, assistant professor of instructional design, development and evaluation; Sari Knopp Biklen, a Laura and Douglas Meredith Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education; and Louise C. Wilkinson, Distinguished Professor of Education, Psychology and Communication Sciences.

Each faculty member discussed a theme in SU’s presentation, ‘The Syracuse University Inclusive Education Model: Lessons for Practice, Research and Policy’.

Wilkinson said the symposium was both stimulating and rewarding.

‘I think that there’s a lot that we’re doing right in the United States,’ said Wilkinson. ‘At the same time I think we have a lot to learn. We won’t necessarily take everything we learned over here, but it stimulates us to think about what they are doing differently.’

Participants in the forum said they wanted to not only take ideas away from their time in China, but aid the Chinese as well.

China is aiming for universal literacy, Wilkinson said.

‘If you are going to address literacy in the children you need to address it in the parents,’ said Wilkinson.

A UNESCO representative from Bangladesh who attended the symposium spoke of how 60 percent of the adults in Bangladesh are not literate, said Sari Knopp Biklen.

‘How do you address the issues when there are not enough adults to teach?’ Sari Knopp Biklen asked.

In Sari Knopp Bilken’s presentation, she discussed the importance of the ability of educators to analyze social issues in addition to practical knowledge of discipline and education.

China is trying to develop an educational system in which the authority of the teacher isn’t so distant from the student, said Sari Knopp Biklen.

During the symposium, Wilkinson was honored with a position as a visiting professor at ECNU. Only three other professors in the world were awarded this title, Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson said she plans to take a leave of absence for the spring 2007 semester to visit and lecture at ECNU.

‘I am just as interested in presenting as I am in learning,’ Wilkinson said.

Biklen said that much of China has changed since he was last there, 30 years ago.

‘Shanghai is very interesting,’ said Sari Knopp Biklen. ‘They have a unique mixture of a communist party (and) an interest in social welfare and capitalistic growth.’

Wilkinson and Lei will be teaching a course called ‘Chinese Lessons for American Schools’ at SU this summer. The course will run from June 1 through June 21 and will include two weeks in Beijing and one week in Shanghai.

‘I think it would be an amazing experience to see what other cultures think about education,’ said Molly Herdzik, a sophomore education and mathematics major. ‘Comparing our ideas with other country’s could hopefully help us fix the problems we have.’

Published on November 7, 2006 at 12:00 pm