this is not a traditional maths class
instead a simple board game has unlocked
students interest in what otherwise
could be a boring lesson
mr lake unicef's executive director was
visiting mixon primary school in a
remote part of yunnan province in
southwest china
he is here to see how a new model of
social and emotional learning is
changing the way teachers engage their
students being tested by the ministry of
education with support from unicef in
250 pilot schools in five of the poorest
and remotest parts of the country
the model is providing lessons on how to
improve the quality of education for
china's poorest children
the little thing that i saw today that
stood for that
were the little game
sets that we were giving
in a school room here the teacher had
not been trained in how to use them but
she was using these games to teach math
to very young children
and without that little catalytic
game board
then the children wouldn't have been so
interactive and that's the key to early
childhood development is not just
learning by rote
but by playing together and studying
together and responding to the teacher
the game board was helping to do that
mr lake's five-day mission to china was
an opportunity to understand the
enormous progress the country has made
in lifting millions out of poverty
but also to see what remains to be done
to improve the quality of services for
children
in the remotest parts of the country
especially for rural and minority
children
due to its location this is both a
primary and boarding school
where the children sleep over during the
week
covering the 12 surrounding villages
students have to walk two to three hours
to reach their homes in the mountains
the social emotional learning we hope
every children can be confident with
themselves and also have a good skills
in communicating and negotiating with
others and also realize the the
relationship with the group
and
back to our pilot schools
because a lot of her children they are
from the rural area they are the ethnic
minority children
normally they
they are they are tend to be shy
and they you know they have some
difficulties but they don't know how to
seek the help through this self self
through this uh social emotional
teaching and the learning
they know how to express themselves and
also how to seek help from the others
even in these remote areas education is
important
so much so that young jianji a 64 year
old grandma comes every week from the
mountain village with the youngest
children to make sure they benefit from
a community supported kindergarten
foreign
the difference is also being felt
well beyond this community too
already the government has adopted
national child friendly school standards
and social emotional learning as a key
component of this model and with its
focus on play and interactive teaching
is now also expected to be scoured up to
other schools in china by 2015
and just from here in yunnan province
which has been very welcoming
for this kind of approach
over and over again whether it's early
childhood development child-friendly
schools
so-called barefoot social workers
who do a great job in the communities
there are many others all of them get
taken to scale across
china and has made a huge impact
on children throughout a country of over
1.3 billion people
this is shanta blumen reporting for
unicef television for more information
please go to unicef.org