ABSTRACT
The school is in one of Shanghai’s counties, one hour’s drive west on the way to Suzhou. It was opened in 1905 as a college for training elementary school teachers (a Normal School). As part of the drive to enhance the educational level of these teachers, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission closed its Normal Schools in 1996 and transferred the training to East China Normal University (ECNU). From one term to the next, An Ting became a junior and senior combined middle school for students aged between 12 and 18. (Students at the Normal School would have been aged 16-18.) The school therefore illustrated both the effects of recent reforms and the way in which changes in China’s education system have sometimes been dramatic. I wanted to talk to teachers who had been involved in this sudden institutional change, which was similar to the experience of the special school teachers I met in Hangzhou and Jinan (see Case studies 4 and 10). I was introduced to staff at An Ting Normal School by Professor Jin Linxiang from ECNU whose first job had been at An Ting, nearly thirty years ago. The present headteacher was a colleague of his back then. The school still keeps its original name, despite its new function.
