On July 10, 2005, by the flight of Eastern Airlines, our 3-person delegation finally reached our destination- Melbourne, a beautiful city in Australia after a long journey and began our three-month-long study. The University of Melbourne, ranking the third among the institutions of higher learning in Australia, has a long history and many age-old buildings on the campus, as if they are still telling their stories to people. On our first day, we were so attracted by its beautiful scenery and got lost on the campus.

　　Before my trip to Australia, “Multiculturalism” was only a concept quite familiar to me, but I never truly understand its essence. Therefore, this study was my first intimate contact with “Multiculturalism”. After arriving in Melbourne, we felt as if we were in a global village. The people here came from different places of the world and had diverse colors, cultures and languages. We did not find discrimination an issue here, the word that we heard most was “fair”. “Fair” education was also the theme of our trip of study.

　　When we first got contact with “fair” education, actually we were rather confused because we felt that the education system here was very different from the system in our country, and the learning contents were totally different from what we had imagined before. With the deepening of the study, we began going to the kindergartens to make more intimate contact with “fair” education in practice. Thus, we became interested in this new education concept. During the three months’ study, what impressed me most was a conversation with the professor. It was a dialogue about how to treat every child fairly. In Australia’s kindergartens, there were some black children. We thought people usually had a special attitude to the black people. However, we did not find the teachers pay any special “attention” to those kids. We were a little surprised. I remember that moment when I asked the professor, “Why is the teachers here able to treat the black children equally?” The professor didn’t answer my question immediately, but asked me instead, “What will you do?” I told her my real thoughts at that moment, “The black people would make people think of something dirty. If they are naughty, I wouldn’t like them as they are not beautiful.” The professor said. “It’s good for you to tell your real thoughts. But do you ever think about why sometimes those black children are very naughty?” I said, “Are they trying to get the teacher’s attention?” the professor’s answer was “Exactly.” Then she went on, “As a teacher, for everything the children do, you should put yourself in their shoes and think from their point of view. Who am I? What do I want to do? Why do I want to do so? Then after you understand the children, you will accept them. Now do you still think the black children’s behaviors annoying? ” I learned a lot from the dialogue. Although the “fair” concept we learned was a little different from our work, but such a concept of putting yourself in other’s shoes is also applicable to our work. Such a concept is also what I lack, and through this study I should put emphasis on it.

　　This study also made us learn “fair” education in practice and provided us a chance to share our national characteristics with the children in Australia. In the activity of introduction to “Mid-autumn Festival”, we introduced China’s culture to children from different places in the world. We also prepared a pamphlet of our culture and sent it to the kindergarten where we had our internship. They would take over our work and write in the book on their understanding of Chinese culture. I think what we left there is not just a pamphlet, but our endless thoughts on “fair” education.

　　If you do not put theory into practice, it will be a fantasy forever. I think I will try my best to put this theory into my actual work, and let my children enjoy the “fairness” and “justice”.

　　                                                     Song Weiqun

　　                                The China Welfare Institute Kindergarten