Shanghai Daily news

When Liu Jinghai became headmaster of a school known as an "educational slum" 10 years ago, he knew creative teaching methods were needed to get students interested in learning.
His success has proven he was right, but many schools are reluctant to change their ways as they worry students in creative classes won't do well on the country's university entrance exam.
Many teachers prepare their students for the exam by forcing them to remember numerous facts and figures, but don't really teach them how to think independently.
The phenomenon raises a dilemma for educators, who, on the one hand, hope to prevent breeding bookworms, while, on the other hand, need students to do well on the exam or parents will complain.
In recent years, many teachers in the city have come up with various new education methods, some of which have proven to be effective.
Liu, headmaster of the No. 8 Middle and High School in Zhabei District, is one of those well-known educators.
"It is a crucial task for educators to improve students' capability in thinking independently, instead of simply teaching them facts," said Liu.
Liu says he thinks students should be forced to think more in the classroom, instead of just remembering what they are told. He has put the theory to work in math classes in his school.
"Different from former math classes, teachers in our school are told not to tell what they are trying to make their little audience realize but depend on the students to discover it for themselves," said Liu.
He still remembers the amusing experience in a class, which was set to teach the definition of a circle.
Instead of simply repeating the abstract definition as "the set of all points in a plane at a fixed distance," a teacher asked the class to find ways to enable everybody to sit the same distance from a set point. After a hot discussion, a student stood up and said, "let's sit in circle."
The classes have not only made students more interested in learning about math, but have also improved their exam scores, Liu said.
The middle school is often the runner-up in score ranking in the district's annual math examination.
"The innovative ideas from our experienced teachers make their work efficient," said Liu.
The school keeps track of good ideas by listing them on PowerPoint demonstrations and allow other teachers to share them.
The classes allow students to see ancient Greeks finding ways to measure a distance before learning Pythagorean theorem and thinking out various methods to compare two fractions before the teachers tell them the common rule.
All that fresh ideas have been gradually taken into effect since Liu took office about a decade ago.
At that time, some local media outlets reported that students at the school had low morale and many were involved in petty crimes.
But a decade later, most of the students there prove themselves talented and confident.
"The first thing I did when I started working at the school was to make every student believe he or she can be successful," said Liu.
Liu asked the school faculty to create every chance for the students who lag behind to show their advantages and to raise them confidence through continuous praise.
"The method took effect for a while, but soon we found the repeated praises made students rely too much on their teachers," said Liu.
Then Liu and his staff began to search for ways to teach students to learn independently.
"It is just like toddlers to learn walking. Parents need to support them at the beginning, but should gradually let their kids go," Liu said.