Rainbow Revolution [Paperback]

 

 

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Although I myself am not a teacher, I have found a considerable amount to interest me in `Rainbow Revolution` by Jacqueline Buksh. The startling beginning, which takes the reader straight into a different culture is a piece from the `Beijing Youth Daily` - Mother killed daughter who couldn`t write the numbers eight to nine correctly.`
This beating to death with a rolling pin is explained by the fact that Chinese children are under a lot of pressure to do well. These days, with couples only being able to have one child, everything is expected of that boy or girl. And although education is free, books and other equipment are not. Parents, who in many cases, were themselves robbed of a formal education by the Cultural Revolution, save to send their sons and daughers abroad to study. They are competing for University places in Britain, America, France, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Through this book`s pages I`ve learnt that the Chinese childrens` school day begins at 7am. Some breakfast at school, but instead of toast or weetabix, it`s enamel bowls filled to the brim with rice, or `congi` (a watered down porridge), or hard-boiled eggs, twisty yoghurt, and tea without milk from a jam jar.
The classrooms were very basic with wooden desks and chairs facing a large blackboard, with the teacher standing upon a small raised platform with THE BOOK. Creative ideas were unheard of.
This was before the arrival of Jacqueline Buksh and her Rainbow Room, which sounds delightful, being painted in a soft blue, with bookcases to match, and with the other furniture painted in pastel shades, pink, blue, green and lavender.
In this room she arranged different activities; things the children had no previous experience of, such as table games, clay modelling, painting and printing, picture and word lotto. She also set up an area like a Macdonalds. The children made shopping lists, used money and a till, had a waiter and a cashier.
One object was to instil a love of the English language into the pupils by means of rhythm, drama, rhyme, songs, activity, artwork. She found that the childrens` literature needed an injection of great stories and she was asked to write out all the famous Western stories she could remember. What a task to undertake, even as she says, it was enjoyable. She spent many hours writng down her childhood memories, from Grimm`s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson, Aesop`s Fables and countless others.
While teaching in China, both Jacqueline and her husband lost weight, due to living up on the fifth floor with no lift; cycling everywhere and eating fewer carborhyrates than previously. But how I read it, it was because they hardly stopped for breath. When evening classes were started, they even participated in them too; and provided entertainment without warning, with Jacqueline dancing, while her husband played the ukulele.
I have only been able to touch on a few of the highlights of `Rainbow Revolution`. It needs to be personally read to be fully apreciated. All I can say is I can`t recommend this book enough.

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