New Year Greeting from Adream
Dear Adreamers:
Time flies. We’ve been walking this road together for ten years.
What have we done over these years? The answer to this is getting clearer every day. Together, with Adream Courses as our medium, we’ve made competency-based education a reality and promoted the systematization of course development, especially in rural areas. We are truly making competency-based education happen, and we are giving our all to develop better, more equal education. With your help and support, Adream has given over 3 million children a chance to experience competency-based education in the classroom. Thank you for your generous contributions.
One’s basic morals, critical thinking ability, personality, and conscience are not formed in university, or after one starts working. These kinds of qualities and values are acquired during one’s formative years – during primary or middle school. But, even though there are already over 8 million university graduates in China, moral education at home and knowledge-based education in schools are still lacking.
Many people have been working hard in education for many years, but they’ve been working hard to teach children how to be good students… they haven’t been teaching them how to be good people, or how to be good citizens in the future. This is what I’ve personally witnessed in many places over the past ten years. This is why our basic education system needs comprehensive education. This is why Adream has continued to promote competency-based education over the past ten years. Because if we don’t do it now, it will be too late.
Competency-based education should be in every subject, not just in core or general classes. So, Adream’s theme for next year will be, “Thorough Development of Competency-Based Education – Building an Education Ecology Together”. By the end of 2017, we neared 3000 Adream Centers. From now on, we will be restricting the development of Adream Center construction, and not focus as much on speed. We will be improving the quality of the competency-based education we provide, and focus on ‘thorough development’, which is focusing on the professional growth of our Adream Teachers. This will not only improve the quality of Adream Courses, but will also integrate competency-based education into other subjects, effectively increasing the quality of education throughout the whole school.
We need to pay attention to the overall development of the school’s education ecology. For this, we promise to provide several new services:
1. The empirical study-based Seeing into the Future Research Institute and the newly constructed Adream Learning Community have begun operations. These organizations will help bring higher quality education to teachers and students.
2. We will provide professional training and financial support for our interregional teacher salons. We will allocate funds for programs initiated by the salons, and support the construction of online support networks for local schools so that we can promote competency-based education together.
3. We will complete and implement our 5-Star Adream Teacher training model to provide a professional development platform for teachers.
4. While improving the quality of our Adream Courses, we will also introduce more student activities based on Adream Courses to let students put what they learn to practical use.
5. Using the power of technology, we will realize data-based knowledge sharing. I promise that within one year, we will give everyone access to better Adream Box services.
Our foundation is like a prism for love. If you’ve studied basic physics, you know that when white light passes through a prism it becomes a rainbow. Adream acts as a kind of prism. Contributions from our donors are the white light we take in, and through our professional services, we bend that white light towards different parts of the education ecology, but instead of seven colors we get: Adream Center classroom construction, training for teachers and school officials, workshops for education ministers, competency-based education course development, funding for course activities, our foundation’s transparent operations system, and to spread our message about competency-based education. This kind of work will eventually come back to benefit our donors through developing educational ideals, and improving the relationships between children, teachers, parents, local governments, charitable organizations, and volunteers. Improving the education system makes your compassionate donations even more valuable.
So, on behalf of Adream, I want to thank each and every one of our dear donors, volunteers, Adream teachers, and Adream directors. Every one of you is a part of Adream, and is a part of our prism of love. We are letting China see true love! We are helping children see into the future!
Lastly, I want to wish everyone the safest, happiest, and healthiest of new years!
– Pan Jiangxue