Yan'an Revolutions

Welcome to Yan'an

The Nursery of Chinese Revolutions

Last weekend, the headmaster of the school invited me to join him and some other teachers from the school on a trip to Yan'an. The trip aimed to combine sightseeing, food tourism, and meet-n-greets with schools in Yan'an Prefecture. Now find your maps and guide your eyes to northern Shaanxi Province. Yan'an will be not too, too far to the north of Xi'an. Yan'an is important enough to be on your map.

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On the map, it would appear that Yan'an is not far from my HuaiYa neighborhood. Six-hour drive by car, maybe. But in every way, Yan'an is a different world. The geography is dramatically different. I hope to have an entry on that in the near future. The food is different. They have a wide variety of mutton/lamb/goat entrees (including lamb hoof meat and goat head meat served in the cracked-open and hollowed skull of an adult goat), a potato'y local special food, and squash (in April!). The Yan'an folk have never heard of our local special food (mianpi'er). And their best chefs attempt to imitate saozi mian (our local, China-wide famous noodle), but the word "dud" comes to mind when I think of it. HuaiYa and Yan'an may be in the same province, but they are different worlds.

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Anyways, talking about food has pushed us to the brink of eternal aimlessness. Let's return to planet earth. Yan'an is famous as the site of revolution. One revolution changed China 70 years ago. A contemporary revolution may change China in the decades to come.

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Revolution #1:

I am by no means an expert on China's communist revolution. To be honest, reading about this critical period of modern Chinese history makes my eyelids heavy. You know what I mean? Let me explain: it bores the life out of me. In fact, I did not even want to go to Yan'an, but I sensed the headmaster's "offer" was something of a request.

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Old ideas, new ideas, merging and pounding of ideologies, propaganda, legends of godly men, blah, blah, blah. I don't know why, but it bores me. And I suspect it bores you too. So let's condense the history and make it colorful.

Communist thought arrived in China and evolved in China and was ultimately accepted in China as the antidote to the toxic 'poisons' of feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism. In the infant years, an assortment of Chinese intellectuals created a rainbow of communist thought. This rainbow was the backdrop of a dark foreground: corruption, drugs, warlords, civil war, foreign exploitation, and bold aggression at the barrel tips of the Japanese military. The conservative leaders in China despised communism (and the associated threats against their leadership) and therefore attempted to purge the country of communist thought. They shot from the hip and killed many people. But although the surviving Chinese communists dwindled in number, they strengthed in unity. Facing the threat of extermination, this nugget of revolutionary diehards went on a long, long march across China to escape persecution.

At long last, these fleeing communists arrived and found safety in Yan'an. They unpacked their rainbow and put in the skies over China once again. But this particular rainbow coming from Yan'an began to lose its colors. Soon there was no more violet in the rainbow of Chinese communist thought. They next day no more blue. No more green. No more yellow. No more orange! The variety of ideologies and policies that once existed were being streamlined into one pure thought at the hands of a small group of increasingly influential communist leaders in Yan'an. By the mid1940s, the rainbow of Chinese communist thought shining from Yan'an cast a single, pure shade of red. And by the end of the 1940s, the Chinese communists defeated the Chinese nationalists and so cast Mao Zedong's red rainbow all over mainland China.

The point is that the political revolution, which began as a hundred schools of thought from places all over the world, was molded into a focused vision there in Yan'an. Afterwards, this vision was applied across China and hence profoundly changed Chinese society and culture.

After a long day of scheming about how to take the future of China into his hands, Mao Zedong ate dinner and slept here.

Important decisions about the future of Chinese communism and China in general were discussed and debated here. In the beginning they were probably genuine discussions and debates. In the end, maybe not so much. I imagine scenes of yes-men praising and rubber stamping everything Mao Zedong says. Maybe I'm unfairly critical of Mao?

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Revolution #2

Well another revolution may be brewing in Yan'an these days. And it could be very, very influential. This revolution is not political. It is a revolution in education methodology.

Get this! The students at Yichuan Junior Middle School arrange their desks in formations that put the students face-to-face! The teachers give students assignments, projects, and opportunities to practice what they have learned during class! Students create things. Students discuss things. Students even give speaches and attempt to teach things! And students get to display their creations inside and outside of the classroom. What else but a revolution?!!!! Have a look:

In this classroom, students sit face-to-face in groups of 4 or 5. They work as a group. They help each other. They are responsible for each other. When the water rises, the entire boat floats.

In this classroom, the students sit in long rows of desks that face each other. Although not as cohesive as the groups described above, the students still have better opportunities to discuss things with each other, ask questions of each other, help each other, participate in class activities together, etc.

All the classrooms are decorated inside and outside with students' projects. I have toured so many middle and high schools in China that I had begun to think white walls were natural. But then when I saw these classrooms with the color of pride and achievement everywhere, I re-awakened to the reality of what a classroom should be. A forest without trees is not a forest. A classroom without stimulating materials everywhere is not a classroom.

If you have forgotten, please go back to my September and October entries and remind yourself of what the classrooms at my school look like. All desks face forward. Barely any room to move around. Mostly white walls. Few if any students' projects on display. A different world here at Yichuan Middle School! If you could have seen the shock and excitement of the student who accompanied us from my school as he entered the realm of student-centered learning, oh then you would understand why this is a revolution.

In some ways, this is hardly new. America has many, MANY classroom environments like this. And indeed there are classrooms like this all over the world. There have already been classrooms like this even in China. Indeed the school leaders modeled their recent change after a school from Shandong Province that has been using this method for quite some time. So how is this a Yan'an revolution?

Well, generally speaking, this method is new to most of China. This method, imagined in the minds of distant educators worldwide, has arrived in China. Now the method needs to be defined, refined, and studied. And then the method needs to spread far and wide. Yan'an did it before. Yan'an can do it again.

Imitation is the way of life in China. If something is successful, there is a stampede to imitate. Last weekend, our school leaders went to Yan'an to observe the method at Yichuan Middle School. Because Yichuan school leaders had only just introduced the new classroom environment policy in February 2009, right now the method is only a curiosity. Our school leaders are merely observing and asking questions at this point. I guess other school leaders will do the same. At first, only the schools from Shaanxi will be interested. But if this school is truly successful, school leaders will come from all over China to study the method. If this school can send more and more students to top-tier universities, there will be school leaders begging to apply it all over China.

Side story: there is a famous high school in Hebei Province that last year sent 40 students to BeiDa, China's most esteemed university. Most schools are thrilled if they can send one student to BeiDa. So 40 students is incredible! Now administrators flock to this school in Hebei to learn the method. Unfortunately, the secret to their success at that particular school is to have the students always studying. The students at that school never have P.E. and are encouraged to eat lunch for 5 minutes... and to read their textbooks as they eat their lunches. Creepy, eh?


Needless to say, I hope Yichuan Middle School will be successful. It will send a ripple that will change China's education system profoundly. The quality of education will improve. The productivity of the labor force will improve. Fate has given Yan'an a second chance to deliver a "great leap forward."