Respect, accept and care for each child not because he is smart and lively but for the person he is.

                                                                                                                                                ——Education Explorer·Bai Ling

Annotation: Children are independent individuals with own ideals, creativities and personalities. Respecting children's instinct is the real respect.

As the pioneer of national early childhood education scientific exploration, Nanjing, Jiangsu province, also a cradle of education of many talents, laid the environment foundation for the education development with its favorable atmosphere. At the same time, Dr. Bai Ling grew up in a family of education culture, which makes her pay more attention to early childhood education and more stick to her career. 

Accompanying with children for 25 years, Dr. Bai Ling implements her education dream by well-knit education theory and thought. Now, she collaborates with Guangdong CA Education Investment Co., Ltd to popularize the world-wide recognized IB curriculum, which provides more Chinese families with high-class education service.

In order to know her experiences of early childhood education, we’re delighted to invite Dr. Bai Ling for an interview.

Q：How do you realize your early childhood education dream under such strong preschool education academic atmosphere in Nanjing?

A：Chen Heqin and Tao Xingzhi, two famous educators in Chinese modern times, established Gulou Kindergarten and Nanjing Xiaozhuang University successively. In 1927, Chinese earliest scientific exploration and research of kindergarten began in Nanjing. After nearly one-hundred-year development of early childhood education, Nanjing has formed its own firm and strong teaching and research system. Adhering to the thought of living education put forward by Chen Heqin, the education in Nanjing has prosperous development and considerable achievements. In the situation of education development in the new era, we must focus on “Great Education”, reform and innovate. We need multi-path, multi-perspective and multi-platform communication and discussion to promote the development of global education fusion, which not only makes one’s education dream come true, but realize our common education dream, and make our civilization and prosperity passed on to new generation.

Q：How do you understand early childhood education?

A: Education is giving children scientific care and support under the backgrounds of different times. In 1950s, departmental teaching was put forward in former Soviet Union which criticized living education. In 1980s, active exploration took the place of passive exploration and living education was advocated. In 2001, Kindergarten Education Guidelines was promulgated and ideas of early childhood education developed from “knowledge-oriented” to “people-oriented”. Gradually, early childhood education is back to essence. From the perspective of the development of early childhood education industry in the history, early childhood education not only need to accept the inspiration of human nature but also need to cater for the development of times, which makes children adapt to the future world better. The word “Love” written on the memorial archway of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum shows the broad mind of Mr. Sun Zhongshan and expresses the feelings that the concerns about education should face towards the world. Early childhood education industry should be love-oriented, people-oriented and world-oriented.

Q：As a senior early childhood educator, what do you want to say to the principals or teachers who are keen on early childhood education?

A：Chen Heqin said 50 years ago, “Both nature and society are living teaching materials.” Nowadays, our development target of early childhood education in recent five years is insisting on the play-oriented curriculum and creating a development road of early childhood education with international view and Chinese characteristics.