Title: Bioethics education for informed citizens across cultures

Report 1 from China 

Report on school visit on 17 June, 2003 by Baoqi Su (China country coordinator)

Schools visited
1. The Middle School Attached to Beijing Normal University 
Location: Xuanwu District, Beijing
Level: First class

2. He Ping Men Middle School 
Location: Xuanwu District, Beijing (opposite to school #1)
Level: Second Class

Meeting Summary
I mostly talked with Ms Gu, who is a biology teacher and generally responsible for teaching and study of the school for almost 2 hours. I also happened to be invited to join a lunch by coincidence, to discuss the school’s website project. I had a chance to talk with the president and get his support also.  I took photos of teachers and schools/rooms as attached. It is impossible to explain all the discussions in this short report. However, the main points are:

1. They have a strong wish to open a new lecture on bioethics to the students by our efforts. The concrete plan is for Autumn 2003 (from 1 Sept.) one class in each school, alternative course, the first/second year students of senior middle school, 16-year olds probably.
20-30 students / each class
2 periods (90 minutes) / one week, 10-15 weeks
2 main teachers (either major is biology or English) for each class.
Ms. Gu will find 4 new teachers to teach this new course. I shall be one of the teachers, and will teach 1 or 2 lectures. Ms. Gu, the general coordinator will teach 1 or 2 also. However, the main work will be left to the 2 or 4 new teachers. 

2. They also plan for a similar set of courses to different students in the spring term next year, which could use the revised materials in the second year of the project.

3. We have to make sure of the high quality of the class (effective time, teaching, student’ interest), even it is a trial. I plan to observe the classes and take videos to record each class, dependent upon my work duties at PUMC.

4. We have to judge the suitability of the materials first for teacher, second for the students in advance too.  This includes the English level (if the students have to look up at the dictionary too often, they will loose their interests), content, teaching style, language. Probably they will teach and discuss in Chinese, although the materials is in English…

Positive impressions
1.	Some teachers are interested in this new course, bioethics.
2.	Students are aware the issues of bioethics, for example, after the National College Entrance Exam, the discussions of the questions on the internet. Besides the question itself, some students also mentioned the experiments of the frog should not been done at all.
3.	Leaders of school support the idea.

Difficulties foreseen
1.	A completely new course, no teacher is familiar with it so far.
2.	Difficulty with English materials; more difficult with English teaching.
3.	The current curriculum of students is very full and tight already.
4.	Have to ensure the students are interested.

Main considerations
1.	After the materials are available, I plan to start the training class for teachers. However, to teach how to teach, at least for me at present is a big problem… They hoped for me to introduce and bring some related materials in Chinese to the teachers, however, I do not think it will be an easy thing, for I am not sure whether there are some available.
2.	Have to set up the classes.
3.	Need to find 2 teachers for each class, who are responsible for half of the lectures.
4.	When could the whole teaching materials be available? Further materials should be sufficient including some related materials in Chinese.
5.	Training classes of teachers is necessary. I shall take main responsibility for this, once/a week, lectures, discussions… 
6.	Necessary funding to do the trials.

Follow-up
I shall keep thinking and contacting the teachers, and do my best to prepare it. I need to prepare the chapters and related materials to support that in Chinese, as I will need that to teach the teachers.

I am not sure that they would like to be included in the list group, when I explained the planned chapters (bet1, 2, 3) to Ms. Gu, I needed to explain the English words. 

Need further discussion. 

General points for future contacts and other countries – Interchange between Baoqi Su and Darryl Macer (DM) – which may answer some general questions facing all countries and trials 
1. The very positive response is excellent.  Although we did not expect for a new course to be set up in bioethics, it will offer a great opportunity for testing materials and checking the interest of students.
2. The classes can be done in local language, and supplementary material for teachers (and they might chose some of that to give to students) can be in local language as well as what is prepared in the chapters. 
3. Can you be one of the teachers in the courses to students directly?  Can you observe some of the classes? Do the teachers need to be different in the two schools? There are some advantages to have the same teacher doing courses in both schools – though maybe you can spread the messages of bioethics to 4 instead of 2.
Baoqi - On the one hand, I have thought to find more teachers who have interest in this project in different schools will be more helpful. I am considering whether I can manage to find more schools and look after the teachers there. Nonetheless since I need to arrange training classes, I am also considering whether to include more teachers will be more effective.  
On the other hand, the middle school’s teachers are usually very busy, so we could not add too much burden to them (for to prepare a new course is already a very heavy burden to them, and this is one thing that I am worried about). Anyway, it is not finally decided yet. 

4. Please estimate costs of the two teachers per course of the autumn and spring trials. 
Baoqi - I expect the costs are not high, and include:
a) the costs for teaching materials, print, copy, and some funding for extra materials. 
b) I think some "material" encouragement (thankyou money) for the teachers to do the best to prepare for the lectures would be good, and in China, the teachers have some certain award for one period class (20-30 Chinese Yuan). 
Also some funding for doing the training classes including:
c) funds for materials, 
d) some drinks and fast food for training classes, and meetings
e) giving money (a small amount is enough) to the teachers themselves for encouragement. It is a Chinese very simple way. 
DM – In each country we have to decide whether it is better to make colour photocopies of the materials in Japan and post, or post originals and print and copy in the country. So it will be useful from all country coordinators to know the costs of copying in the local country and good quality paper.
Also the funds will be paid directly to country coordinators as individuals from Eubios Ethics Institute, to avoid any administrative deductions of other institutions.
Baoqi – In summer, several copies of each chapter are needed for the teacher training class. When the new term starts, about 50 copies are needed for the students, and should be in the quality appropriate for testing.  I shall check the price of colour copies in Beijing.  Do we need a colour copies for 16-year old students? 
DM –In principle I think we will make colour copies for the teaching material trials. We may try using some chapters in black and white and some in colour and compare the student's interest in these two types of material production. There are also 2-colour printing processes whjich might be cheaper than full colour, when it comes to the textbook printing.

5. We will try to prepare more chapters soon. At present we have 4 chapters ready. I will support your training of teachers as best I can from here.
Baoqi-Thanks. Being a teacher myself now, I could understand Ms. Gu’s main concern, we have to make sure the quality of the class, and we should never waste even one minute of the student’s time. In this sense, if we hope to open a new class from 1 September we have to do twice, or many times more work outside of class to prepare for it.
Let me consider the level of understanding. For myself, for the chapter that I wrote I could understand 80%, because I do not yet master other further knowledge that is a minimum requirement for teaching. For the chapters 1 and 2 that Darryl wrote, maybe only 60% of the background I need. Even for the chapters themselves without considering the background, there are some places that I do not understand clearly.  I believe to teach one class, the teachers should have at least 200% knowledge in the stomach. So the teaching training and background will be essential.

6. Please send a copy of the English material those students now use. Is it like the books we bought in Beijing?  It would be useful to have some examples of what they actually use.
Baoqi - Sorry, I do not have it at hand now, and I do not remember what level of myself  when I was the same age although I have tried to remember it. So it is one thing that I planed to explore more soon by asking the teachers.  I think the books that we bought in this April should be very useful.