interview

Interviews with educators, innovative graduate students and individuals who've devoted their lives to the development of the world's youth.

Who Really Runs China’s Schools? The 2,898 People Who Never Taught
Who really runs China’s grassroots schools? The 2,898 people in charge In 2019, Beijing Normal University surveyed 2,898 education bureau directors across 26 provinces. Cheng Jianping, then a national political advisor and party secretary of the university, found the results alarming. Many grassroots education leaders had been appointed or transferred from outside education. They lacked the professional capacity to guide reform. A book by Cong Chunxia of the National Academy of Education Administration added detail: only 39.3 percent of directors had previously served as principals or deputy bureau directors. 60.7 percent came from township governments, county party committees, or county government offices. Among sitting directors, 43 percent had no education work experience.
By Jin12 days ago in Education
Yuliia Bilous and Kateryna Datsko on Women Transforming Ukraine’s Transport Sector
How are Yuliia Bilous and Kateryna Datsko advancing women’s employment, retraining, and leadership in Ukraine’s transport sector through She Drives and Lead Change?
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen14 days ago in Education
The 318/320 That Shouldn’t Exist
318. Full marks for the theoretical round: 320. On the Jiangsu regional score sheet, that number is followed by a name: a second-year student at Haian Middle School. Experimental score: 73. Total: 391. Another competitor is mentioned repeatedly: from Nanjing Normal University Affiliated High School—second in Quantum, first in Aipeiyou joint exam, total 340.
By Jin15 days ago in Education
She Said No. He Kept Sending “I’d Love to Visit Your Home.” A Guizhou Teacher’s Transfer Is Not the End.
She said she didn't want private contact. He kept sending "I'd love to visit your home." On September 18, at Dafang County No. 2 Middle School in Bijie, Guizhou, a physics teacher sent WeChat messages to a female student. In screenshots, he wrote: "Actually, I have never stopped loving you." He also wrote: "In my heart, you are my family." Then: "I'd really love to visit your home, but I don't know the way." The student replied: "Privately, I don't want any more small talk or one-on-one contact." She said no. He kept sending. A netizen later called police. On September 19, Jiuyi Police Station said it received the report on the 18th and officers were following up. The education bureau said police and the discipline inspection commission had stepped in. The school said the teacher was no longer there and had been transferred. The student was still attending class.
By Jin17 days ago in Education
The Relational Ontology of Personhood. AI-Generated.
Core Thesis Reality is intelligible through ordered relation. To identify anything as a determinate thing is to locate it within distinctions, boundaries, conditions, and modes of relation that make it the kind of thing it is. A thing is not understood merely by naming that it exists. It is understood by asking what it is, where it exists, when it exists, how it exists, what relations make that mode of existence possible, and whether its mode of being rises to the level of personhood.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast22 days ago in Education
I Saved 147 Articles and Remembered Nothing. Then I Built a Cognitive System.
How to build a cognitive system when information never stops You have 147 articles saved to “Read Later.” Eight unnamed documents sit on your desktop. Your WeChat favorites are so full they will not load. At the end of the semester, you open CNKI. The search box is empty. Your mind is empty too. You have read things. You have no place to call them up from.
By Jin22 days ago in Education
When a Classroom Becomes a Future: Andreas Szakacs and a Journey to Understand Education in Somalia
A classroom can look like an ordinary place. A few desks. A blackboard. Books stacked in a corner. Students sitting together, waiting for a lesson to begin.
By Andreas szakacs27 days ago in Education
Andreas Szakacs Travels to Somalia to Tell the Stories of Children Fighting for an Education
Andreas Szakacs Travels to Somalia to Tell the Stories of Children Fighting for an Education A documentary journey exploring education, resilience, and the dreams of children growing up against extraordinary challenges.
By Andreas szakacs30 days ago in Education
The Day the Teacher Closed His Eyes: A Story About a Stolen Watch and Pure Humanity
A brief encounter on a busy street, a few polite words exchanged, perhaps a sudden smile triggered by a shared memory from the past. The old teacher looked closely at his former student's face, searching through decades of academic memories, but ultimately shook his head. "I am sorry," the old man said gently, "I don't quite remember you." The young man smiled warmly. "I was your student, many years ago." That in itself is always a beautiful encounter. Teachers rarely know where their students end up, what they become, or how life shapes them after they walk out of the school gates for the last time.
By Lenka Čihařováabout a month ago in Education
The Uncredentialed Professor
Prologue In the summer of 2023, Xiong Yuno, twenty years old, signed an associate‑professor contract at Hubei Polytechnic University.
By Jinabout a month ago in Education
Visa Rules Under Fire: New 4-Year/240-Day Cap on Student and Journalist Visas Gets Sued
I didn’t expect to be reading about visa rules on a Tuesday morning, but this one hit different. The government just put a new limit in place: student visas and journalist visas will now have a hard cap of 4 years, with a maximum of 240 days for extensions. And within days, unions representing universities, news organizations, and foreign correspondents filed a lawsuit to block it.
By Zohan Khan2 months ago in Education
We Already Have 1,000 Einsteins. They're Just Locked Out.
Jeff Bezos once said: If we had a trillion people, there would be a thousand Einsteins. On first hearing, it sounds elegant. There is a kind of mathematical honesty to it—if the proportion of geniuses in the total population is roughly constant, then a larger base yields a larger absolute number. Following that logic, at a trillion people, humanity would simultaneously possess hundreds of minds capable of rewriting physics textbooks. Dozens of industrial revolutions would overlap on the timeline, and civilization would seem to have been fast‑forwarded.
By Jin2 months ago in Education