论文部分内容阅读
As a shining example of American, or even the world’s elite culture, Harvard University boasts a 140-year-long history, longer than that of the United States. From the perspective of his relatives and friends, Yang Linfeng’s admission to Harvard University meant he could easily secure a highly-paid job and move into the elite classes. This prediction is, however, only partially right.
Yang Linfeng graduated from Harvard in June, 2011, and soon became a member of a multinational consulting firm. But he gave up this job which was a “golden bowl” in many people’s eyes only one year later and devoted himself completely to the setting-up and running of the “Sunshine Library”. Now, one year has passed since the birth of the library. The founding team composes of only a couple of full-time staffs, all of whom are talented Chinese overseas graduates from famous universities including Harvard, Duke and Stanford.
The birth of “Sunshine Library”
Like Yang Linfeng, Zhu Ruochen and Yang Ge are also golden boys in the eyes of their relatives and friends. When they first met Yang Linfeng in 2010, they were still undergraduates of Duke University and Yale University respectively. Their shared passion for public welfare brought them together and made them intimate friends. It all started from one conversation about Chinese rural education, after which they fell into deep silence and decided to provide better education for children in remote rural areas.
Investigation by the founding team showed that three reasons hindered the improvement of rural education: the lack of educational resources, old-fashioned teaching methodology and the lack of targeted tutorship. Those “soft” problems cannot be solved only through donation, teaching facilities building or short-term support teachers. Therefore, developing a new type of e-reader to offer rural children extra-curriculum reading materials came to be accepted by Yang and his team. After discussion, they agreed to name the program as “Sunshine Library”—a name of warmth and hope.
In 2011, Yang Linfeng graduated and returned home. He collected the hardware needed in information education with his team in his spare time. They conducted deepening investigation. As tablet computers became increasingly popular, the team decided to use establish tablet computers and internet as the platform for digitalized learning software and education resources and created the “Xiao book”.
Busy work made Yang Linfeng feel unable to maintain his “Sunshine Library” program, and, in the end, he made up his mind to quit his well-paid job after rounds of weightings and evaluations, putting all his energies into the things he really loves. Yang said frankly that he was not sure about the prospect of the program, nor did he know how long he could persist. But “now that there’re uncertainties, why not keep going on and find out what will happen.” After resignation, Yang started his business in his friend’s house for both commercial and residential uses in Haidian District, which was later joined by Zhu Ruochen, who just graduated. Then Yang Ge, who then was still studying overseas, provided part-time help. The three young guys had a clear division of work: Yang Linfeng was responsible for software designing and overall implementation, Zhu Ruochen was the course director, and Yang Ge took charge of hardware and user experience designing. “Sunshine Library” at that time remained unregistered but a Hong Kong businessman provided Yang, out of trust, one million Yuan (later he added 500t), which became the start-up capitals of the program. With the help of some friends, a small firm in Shenzhen agreed to undertake their tablet computer orders (with costs below one thousand each). Also by virtue of friends’ help, “Sunshine Library” smoothly obtained free publishing resources offered by SSReader and ChineseAll.
E-books’ entrance into classrooms
When Yang Linfeng and his team came to find Principal Cao Gaonian of Siba Middle School in Liangzhou district of Wuwei city, Gansu province, the latter was totally unable to understand what on earth these “young kids” were going to do: anyhow, they came not as voluntary supporting teachers nor as charitable donators; instead, they intended to promote their e-book to Cao.
At the beginning, Cao even thought that these guys were learning software salesmen. But later he shrugged off those doubts. Yang Linfeng, a young man in his early twenties wearing a pair of thin-framed glasses, looked extremely honest. “He strongly suggested me to arrange four reading sessions per week, and said nothing about money.”
In the fall of 2011, students of Siba Middle School got their first tablet computer—“Xiao Book”—to expand their extracurricular reading. During that period, Sunshine Library also conducted activities of public welfare, tested hardware and internet support of tablet computers through experiments to find out whether their ideas work or not in rural areas.
After many attempts, Yang Linfeng and his team found, to their amazement, that “Xiao Book” was much liked by children. They not only read more, but also developed their creativity. But “Xiao Book” didn’t get warm responses among teachers and parents, for they believed that it should be a learning tool rather than a toy.
As for how to change this situation through technical measures, Yang and his team came up with a solution: keeping enriching “Xiao Book” and developing course learning process to make it a competent assistant for both teachers and kids.
Sunshine Library kept growing and just at that time, the team began to explore a school-ambassador mode. These school ambassadors made timely feedbacks to the course group and technical group, and the latter tried to develop more understandable learning software. In order to save both teachers’ and students’ time on rarely used words, team members set a preview part in the learning software of "Xiao Book"; and meanwhile, they made full use of videos and flashes to encourage students to do self-study before class. In addition, learning software in English, mathematics, physics and other subjects were launched one after another.
Meaning of pursuing such
a cause
Today there’re more than 15 full-time staffs working for “Sunshine Library”, most of whom are graduates from famous universities abroad and from prosperous families: Gao Renpin, Director of the Project Department, a graduate from Peking University, came back to China after receiving a master's degree at the University of Southern California; Cui Yingzi, Project Specialist of Siba Middle School, a graduate from Yunnan University, came to England to study Management Consulting, and just quit his job in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank this year… for most of them, a white-collar job with a month salary exceeding 10 thousand Yuan is easy to get. However, at “Sunshine Library”, Yang Linfeng can only get five thousand Yuan a month, and salaries of other specialists are even lower.
"In order to listen to my inner voice", "Strong desire to learn about the other side of Chinese society ", "looking for something I want to do, or what I really want to learn", "I want to do more for others and the society", ""Spread knowledge, hope and spirits”... these plain words show the reason for these “golden” boys’ choices. Today, they have reached a consensus: We are not smarter than others; we just have access to better education resources, which are almost impossible to get for many children from remote rural areas.
With the team’s efforts, “Xiao Book” becomes increasingly mature, and “Sunshine Library” launched four project sites in Gansu and Hunan. It’s inconvenient to charge electricity in rural areas, so Yang Linfeng and his team modified the battery equipment of "Xiao Book" and added an autofocus camera to enable students to scan and copy. Relevant servers are also set up on campus, so that when the internet is out of work, students can still download and update resources.
Vigor, diligence and optimism keep pushing these young guys ever forward. The program group still insists on researching and developing while the technology group continues to overcome problems one by one. The target of the team is to develop a set of plans and systems which can be learned and publicized, within a year’s time. "We hope to find new project site s under the premise of maintaining the current pace of staff, techniques and systems’ development," said Yang Linfeng. "In the future, it’s hopeful that I can continue to consolidate the foundation of rural public welfare and mobilize more public institutions and enterprises to jointly explore information education services targeting rural schools, and, make “Sunshine Library” a social enterprise focusing on Information education at the same time,." Yang eventually uttered his long-reserved wish.
Yang Linfeng graduated from Harvard in June, 2011, and soon became a member of a multinational consulting firm. But he gave up this job which was a “golden bowl” in many people’s eyes only one year later and devoted himself completely to the setting-up and running of the “Sunshine Library”. Now, one year has passed since the birth of the library. The founding team composes of only a couple of full-time staffs, all of whom are talented Chinese overseas graduates from famous universities including Harvard, Duke and Stanford.
The birth of “Sunshine Library”
Like Yang Linfeng, Zhu Ruochen and Yang Ge are also golden boys in the eyes of their relatives and friends. When they first met Yang Linfeng in 2010, they were still undergraduates of Duke University and Yale University respectively. Their shared passion for public welfare brought them together and made them intimate friends. It all started from one conversation about Chinese rural education, after which they fell into deep silence and decided to provide better education for children in remote rural areas.
Investigation by the founding team showed that three reasons hindered the improvement of rural education: the lack of educational resources, old-fashioned teaching methodology and the lack of targeted tutorship. Those “soft” problems cannot be solved only through donation, teaching facilities building or short-term support teachers. Therefore, developing a new type of e-reader to offer rural children extra-curriculum reading materials came to be accepted by Yang and his team. After discussion, they agreed to name the program as “Sunshine Library”—a name of warmth and hope.
In 2011, Yang Linfeng graduated and returned home. He collected the hardware needed in information education with his team in his spare time. They conducted deepening investigation. As tablet computers became increasingly popular, the team decided to use establish tablet computers and internet as the platform for digitalized learning software and education resources and created the “Xiao book”.
Busy work made Yang Linfeng feel unable to maintain his “Sunshine Library” program, and, in the end, he made up his mind to quit his well-paid job after rounds of weightings and evaluations, putting all his energies into the things he really loves. Yang said frankly that he was not sure about the prospect of the program, nor did he know how long he could persist. But “now that there’re uncertainties, why not keep going on and find out what will happen.” After resignation, Yang started his business in his friend’s house for both commercial and residential uses in Haidian District, which was later joined by Zhu Ruochen, who just graduated. Then Yang Ge, who then was still studying overseas, provided part-time help. The three young guys had a clear division of work: Yang Linfeng was responsible for software designing and overall implementation, Zhu Ruochen was the course director, and Yang Ge took charge of hardware and user experience designing. “Sunshine Library” at that time remained unregistered but a Hong Kong businessman provided Yang, out of trust, one million Yuan (later he added 500t), which became the start-up capitals of the program. With the help of some friends, a small firm in Shenzhen agreed to undertake their tablet computer orders (with costs below one thousand each). Also by virtue of friends’ help, “Sunshine Library” smoothly obtained free publishing resources offered by SSReader and ChineseAll.
E-books’ entrance into classrooms
When Yang Linfeng and his team came to find Principal Cao Gaonian of Siba Middle School in Liangzhou district of Wuwei city, Gansu province, the latter was totally unable to understand what on earth these “young kids” were going to do: anyhow, they came not as voluntary supporting teachers nor as charitable donators; instead, they intended to promote their e-book to Cao.
At the beginning, Cao even thought that these guys were learning software salesmen. But later he shrugged off those doubts. Yang Linfeng, a young man in his early twenties wearing a pair of thin-framed glasses, looked extremely honest. “He strongly suggested me to arrange four reading sessions per week, and said nothing about money.”
In the fall of 2011, students of Siba Middle School got their first tablet computer—“Xiao Book”—to expand their extracurricular reading. During that period, Sunshine Library also conducted activities of public welfare, tested hardware and internet support of tablet computers through experiments to find out whether their ideas work or not in rural areas.
After many attempts, Yang Linfeng and his team found, to their amazement, that “Xiao Book” was much liked by children. They not only read more, but also developed their creativity. But “Xiao Book” didn’t get warm responses among teachers and parents, for they believed that it should be a learning tool rather than a toy.
As for how to change this situation through technical measures, Yang and his team came up with a solution: keeping enriching “Xiao Book” and developing course learning process to make it a competent assistant for both teachers and kids.
Sunshine Library kept growing and just at that time, the team began to explore a school-ambassador mode. These school ambassadors made timely feedbacks to the course group and technical group, and the latter tried to develop more understandable learning software. In order to save both teachers’ and students’ time on rarely used words, team members set a preview part in the learning software of "Xiao Book"; and meanwhile, they made full use of videos and flashes to encourage students to do self-study before class. In addition, learning software in English, mathematics, physics and other subjects were launched one after another.
Meaning of pursuing such
a cause
Today there’re more than 15 full-time staffs working for “Sunshine Library”, most of whom are graduates from famous universities abroad and from prosperous families: Gao Renpin, Director of the Project Department, a graduate from Peking University, came back to China after receiving a master's degree at the University of Southern California; Cui Yingzi, Project Specialist of Siba Middle School, a graduate from Yunnan University, came to England to study Management Consulting, and just quit his job in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank this year… for most of them, a white-collar job with a month salary exceeding 10 thousand Yuan is easy to get. However, at “Sunshine Library”, Yang Linfeng can only get five thousand Yuan a month, and salaries of other specialists are even lower.
"In order to listen to my inner voice", "Strong desire to learn about the other side of Chinese society ", "looking for something I want to do, or what I really want to learn", "I want to do more for others and the society", ""Spread knowledge, hope and spirits”... these plain words show the reason for these “golden” boys’ choices. Today, they have reached a consensus: We are not smarter than others; we just have access to better education resources, which are almost impossible to get for many children from remote rural areas.
With the team’s efforts, “Xiao Book” becomes increasingly mature, and “Sunshine Library” launched four project sites in Gansu and Hunan. It’s inconvenient to charge electricity in rural areas, so Yang Linfeng and his team modified the battery equipment of "Xiao Book" and added an autofocus camera to enable students to scan and copy. Relevant servers are also set up on campus, so that when the internet is out of work, students can still download and update resources.
Vigor, diligence and optimism keep pushing these young guys ever forward. The program group still insists on researching and developing while the technology group continues to overcome problems one by one. The target of the team is to develop a set of plans and systems which can be learned and publicized, within a year’s time. "We hope to find new project site s under the premise of maintaining the current pace of staff, techniques and systems’ development," said Yang Linfeng. "In the future, it’s hopeful that I can continue to consolidate the foundation of rural public welfare and mobilize more public institutions and enterprises to jointly explore information education services targeting rural schools, and, make “Sunshine Library” a social enterprise focusing on Information education at the same time,." Yang eventually uttered his long-reserved wish.