Institute for a Greater EuropeThe 1st essay competition for students and young scientists from Europe and China
Dialogue through Education- Learning between Europe and China
Traditionally educational exchange programs act as bridgebuilders between cultures. But what can be learned from the past for the future for the European-Chinese exchange and diplomacy? The first EU-China essay competition of the Institute for Greater Europe in corporation with its partners from European Guanxi invited young people to share their answers to this question.
A call to action – The first EU-China essay competition on educational exchange
An old Chinese saying states: “三人行，必有我师( Sānrén xíng, bìyǒu wǒ shī) – In a group of three people, there will always be one person I can learn from.” Building on that ancient wisdom, educational exchange has always served as an essential bridge builder between countries and cultures. Meanwhile, in earlier times, foremost at the early 20th Chinese students mostly travelled to Europe and the West, such as the renowned Chinese educationist Cai Yuanpai (蔡元培). Nowadays in reverse many young students from Europe are travelling to China to learn more about this country, culture, and its growing influence in global politics. Under the current challenges of globalization, diversification and knowledge-based economy, cultural and educational cooperation between China and Europe has broader prospects and more far-reaching significance. However new challenges shape this corporation.
In that context the Institute for Greater Europe in corporation with its partners European Guanxi hosted the first EU-China Essay Competition. Students and young professionals from Europe and China were invited to share their visions and hopes, innovations for promoting the future development of this exchange as well as contributing their personal intercultural experiences.
The organizers were very delighted, that such call met on a fertile ground. Many students from diverse regions in China and different countries in Europe contributed to this essay competition. Especially the diversity of topics discussed is very impressive, ranging from aspects of language learning, over research in cultural projects, new perspectives for design education, as well as innovative ways for learning languages, including even empirical research. Furthermore, many essays submitted even gave concrete proposal on how European and Chinese education system can learn from each other, searching to promote intercultural and future oriented education.
A platform for exchange of ideas- Symposiums dialogue through education
After the deadline the Symposium : Dialogue through education between Europe and China”, was held on the 23rd of September, with the great support of the Confucius Institute Freiburg. Having evaluated the high-quality and though-provoking essays from various disciplines, this symposium provided a platform for personal exchange of ideas and different worldviews. Furthermore, this symposium was enriched by many high-quality speakers from various disciplines, giving insights into their expertise.
After a short welcoming speech by Bernhard Koch, Vice-Director of the Confucius Institute Freiburg, the symposium was officially inaugurated. Here a wide audience from China and Europe joined this very inspiring and thought-provoking day. As first speaker, Dr. Ute Heilmann, graduate member of the Postgraduate Centre for Chinese Studies at Heidelberg University, shared her experiences on the evolution of Chinese academia. After her graduation she had been active as Editorial Director Clinical Medicine at Springer Verlag in China and Asia, providing a deep insight into commonalities between European and Chinese academia.
As second speaker Dr. LI Jie, associate professor at the Northwestern Polytechnical University Xi´An and co-organizer of this project gave an insight into her research work on cognitive linguistics. Here, she emphasized the importance of seeing languages in a wider, intercultural context, where translation is not just a box of words to be transported to another language, but more like painting and art, taking the high importance of the intercultural context into mind.
Following this language learning, Stephan Raab, president of Institute of Greater Europe and co-organizer of this project, emphasized the synergies and intersection between diplomacy and comparative international educational research. He argued, that seeing international relations more through educational lenses provides a better understanding of the trajectory of a country, as education reveals visions for the future and memories of the past. Likewise seeing education more through diplomatic lenses helps to promote more awareness for global citizenship.
Furthermore, Dr. ZHANG Tao research assistant at the Institute for Sinology at the University of Heidelberg put a special focus on the importance of movies in language learning. During her presentation, supported by her personal experience as language teacher, she revealed that movies can provide a fruitful source and motivation for language learning in both ways.
After that, Ardita Osman, research employee at the University of Duisburg Essen and member of the European Guanxi, showed in her presentation, that China has tuned from an educational emigration to an educational immigrant spot. Many students from abroad are now coming to China for pursuing their studies. This gave a special importance to educational diplomacy.
Building on that Stefan Pellech, founder of the Austrian Chinese Consulting Firm Sinotan, who had spent several years in China, attached to this, explaining the educational reforms taking place in China. Here, he emphasized, that education has to be thought in a wider context than schools, sharing his experiences of collaboration in the arts and cultural exchanges.
Eventually, the first part was concluded by Finn Stallbaum, employee at Youth in Europe. During his presentation he was sharing his personal experiences of going abroad. Here he encouraged the participants to be open-minded and curious about such opportunities, motivating them to spend some time abroad, for gaining new intercultural experiences and growing with them.
After the award ceremony, handing out the prizes for the best essays, ZHAO Xiaodan, English Teacher from the Shanghai Caoyang Middle School, introduced into the second part with a talk about the practice of blended Learning in English teaching in junior middle school. Following on that, the participants were invited to share their ideas discussed within the essays. Here, especially SHUI Ting and LI Lou has to be thanked for their great hosting during the second part of this event.
Learning as mutual lifelong process for becoming global citizens
Concluding this interdisciplinary and intercultural project between Europe and China, education and curricula always gives insight into what a society and culture has learned from its past as well as sharing, what it has learned for the future. With education always striving for the future, this project gave proof about the fact, that young people in Europe and China are likewise open-minded and curious to learn from and with each other about their respective regions, their cultures, memories of the past and their visions and hopes for the future. We hope that this project can serve as a founding stone for a fruitful and prospective educational exchange between Europe and China, opening new worldviews and building bridges.
For more information on the project also visit the project website here.