Ye Lan: education is a great undertaking under mundane appearance

“We must enable students to actively and happily participate in learning activities，to always be thinking and to be aware of the challenges they face.” 68-year-old Ye Lan has made many comments about education, and these are frequently mentioned by her fans. As a tenured professor at East China Normal University, Ye Lan has been exploring a kind of educational practice with Chinese characteristics and over the past several decades has cultivated many outstanding teachers and principals.

Ye Lan

Ye Lan was born in Shanghai. In 1962, she graduated from the Education Department at East China Normal University, and then took a job at that same university. In the 1970’s, Ye Lan became one of the first groups of voluntary teachers dispatched to support Tibet. Several years later, she went to Yugoslavia for further study. Over the past several decades of educational research, she has played a leading role in “the Research of the Popularity and Development in the Theory of Basic Education” a key program during the 10th Five-Year Plan period, and also in “the Research of Education for All-round Development against the Backdrop of Building an Innovative Country and a Harmonious Society,” a key program during the 11th Five-Year Plan period. Her monograph, titled “An Introduction to Education,” won first prize in the Outstanding Teaching Material Category.

Under the direction of Ye Lan, the “New Basic Education” program recently came to an end in Shanghai. Ye and her colleagues spent 15 years on the program which yielded surprising results. “New Basic Education” is a comprehensive and large-scale program which was conducted by Chinese scholars, and lasted for a long period of time and required wide theoretical vision and deep exploration. It aims at delivering vivid lectures to meet students’ needs, creating warm classes to facilitate students’ development, and enabling teachers to teach in an innovative way.” Under the direction of Ye Lan, the “New Basic Education” program has trained a number of outstanding teachers and principals, transformed many primary and middle schools, and discovered unique methods to conduct experimental research in some parts of China. Experts said that she made a significant contribution to China’s educational development.

People often say that Ye Lan is a “teacher of teachers.” By now, Ye Lan has cultivated more than 40 doctoral students and postgraduate students. According to Ye Lan, education is a great undertaking, though it often looks ordinary. “I have been telling teachers that the quality of a lecture depends on you and it is related to the quality of your life, as well as the future lives of dozens of students.”

Translated by LOTO