Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Leaving China
We will fly out in about 12 hours, and it has been quite a trip! We traveled for 14 days with 30 other educators from Ohio. There were groups from Ottawa Hills, Wyoming, United Local (near Canton), and Oberlin. Of all the amazing history, breathtaking scenery, and thought-provoking experiences we have had, my favorite is spending time at our sister school and with Summer, our interpreter and her family. I think that through our open conversations we were able to find much common ground and build bridges of friendship for a lifetime.
We learned that in August our interpreter Summer will be visiting Ohio, and we hope to host her at Rossford for a while! We will keep you informed as we find out more about her schedule.
Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses
The Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses were sculpted by the Qin Dynasty in 210 B.C. to protect the Emperor Qin Shihuang in his afterlife. They are regarded as the most important archaeological findings in the 20th century and the eight wonder of the world. Each warrior has unique facial features with a very realistic technique. This finding also provided a great display of all kinds of weapons used during the Qin Dynasty. They discovered the surface of most of the weapons had been treated with chromic oxide to prevent rust. This is something the American and German armies started using in the 1920's and 30's. It is amazing to think they had this technology over 2,000 years before it was rediscovered in modern times. It is estimated that there are more than 130 war chariots, 275 horses, and 7,000 armored warriors. The sculptures began working on Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb and the terra-cotta army when he took the throne at the age of 13 and they had not quite finished when he died at 49. All the workers, architects, and anyone involved in the construction of the tomb were buried alive after the death of the emperor to protect the tomb from being discovered.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Chinese Dynasties
When we were in Xi'an, we learned that this city of 10 million is the ancient capital of China and home to the 13 early Dynasties of China, including the Qin and Tang.
The first dynasty united all of China in the year 221 BC. During the Qin Dynasty, the First Emperor Shi Huangdi standardized the currency, written language, and bureaucratic procedures. He did this is a very ruthless way, and was known to kill anyone who disagreed with him. This emperor also began construction of the Great Wall and the Terra Cotta Warriors (see Maria's post coming soon!). Even though his dynasty only lasted around 20 years, he accomplished a remarkable amount and his changes remained long after he was gone.
The Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) had originally built city walls around Xian. As the cultural, economical, and political center, Xian was a city of strategic military importance. Therefore, great city walls were constructed to protect Xian.
Later on, during the Ming Dynasty, the City Wall of Xian was built again on the foundation of the earlier walls, and it took four years, from 1374 to 1378 to rebuild them. The total perimeter of this wall is 7 miles.
We were able to bike on the wall and it was beautiful! it was early in the morning on Sunday, and cars and people were crowding the streets below us. As we were biking we heard a very loud crowd and pulled our bikes over to see a large outdoor market with lots of fruit, veggies and sundry items. Our tour guide says that all of the grandmas go to the market every day to get fresh food for lunch and dinner. It sure sounded like most of the grandmothers in Xi'an were at that market that morning!
Monday, June 18, 2012
Shanghai
We spent the first half of the day traveling. I am surprised how much our group of American citizens stands out in each city and airport. In our country, we are used to seeing people of every nationality. This is not the case here in China. People watch as we walk by, some try and take our pictures. We have all found this very amusing but it makes me appreciate the multiculturalism of America and that anyone fits in.
We have only seen a very small part of Shanghai today but the size of the city and the mass amounts of people is impressive. Their population is now 20 million. Shanghai began its rapid growth in the 90's. Within the last 20 years, the entire city west of the Yangsi River has developed. This makes up almost half of the city. They sometimes refer to the new side and the old side. Shanghai was one of the first Chinese cities to open up to foreign companies. This had a huge impact on its rapid growth.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Rural vs. Urban China
The economic and educational gaps between eastern China where the cities are booming and western China where the area is very rural farmland are significant. The farm communities are very poor and cannot offer wages comparable to jobs in the city. Because of this, many parents choose to leave the farm and head east for better paying jobs so that they can support their families. These people are referred to as migrant workers although they are in their home country. The workers' children often stay behind with their grandparents. Therefore, many children only get to see their parents once a month or once a year depending on how for west they live. Some migrant workers take their children with them into the large cities. This also presents many difficulties for the family because the public schools do not have room for the migrant worker's children. These children may go uneducated, pay a high price for the public education, or look for special schools that are being developed for these migrant workers' children. However, these schools are very poor and cannot offer an education with equal opportunities to the urban school districts. The educational opportunities of the schools in rural China are also very different from the urban schools. Besides having significantly less resources than the larger city schools in the east, they also lose many of their teachers to these schools because the salary in the city is much more than they can offer in the rural western village schools. Because of the education and economic situation in China, the gap between the haves and the have nots is widening.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Old and new in Wuhan
The old city of Wuhan is disappearing before her population's eyes. Within the last several years, millions of citizens have seen the infrastructure become modernized with new highways and roads through the city, sewer and subway under the city, and six bridges over the Yangtze River. Beautiful outdoor malls and 45 story apartment buildings rise up from every district of Wuhan. It is truly a transformative time for the city and citizens.
As with anything, there is a downside to this remarkable growth. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced as their homes are torn down to give way to mammoth malls and corporate skyscrapers. Our interpreter's family was relocated 4 years ago into a new apartment building. They have more room in their apartment, but now they live far away from old friends and family. Our sister school is along the 'old lane' of Wuhan. The old lane area is very historical with traditional Chinese architecture of colorful wooden buildings. Families who have moved into Wuhan from the rural areas live and work along the old lane. The shops and storefronts are very spartan and rundown, but the citizens are able to makeenough money to feed their families, and the store is also where they live. Now, a new school is being constructed nearby. We wonder what will become not only of the old lane but also of the families who will not be able to make a living if they are relocated to a high-rise apartment building.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
How Chinese Children Learn to Read
Summer, our interpreter and the school's English teacher, explained to us how Chinese children learn to read and write the language. We were very surprised by what she told us!
The Chinese characters that we associate with Chinese language are actually the third step in the process of acquiring and using the Chinese language.
First children must learn the Chinese alphabet. Here are the letters in the Chinese alphabet (in the order that they introduce them to the children): a o e I u u b p m f d t n l g k h j q x z c s zh ch sh r y w ai ei ui ao ou iu Ie ue er an en in un un ang eng ing ong
As you can see, in Chinese the 'hunks and chunks' of phonics are included as a part of their alphabet. You can think of this as the pronunciation alphabet.
Second, children learn to blend these sounds into words. For example, the word for pencil is qian bi and the word for spider is zhi zhu. Young children in primary school (1st grade) work to master this.
Finally, children learn the characters that are associated with the blends and words. For example, pencil is qian bi and is written 鉛筆 and spider is pronounced zhi zhu and is written 蜘蛛. It is important that students don't miss the sounds into words step, because this is how they know which characters to write.
The Chinese children have a whole extra level in learning to read and write in Chinese compared to most other languages because there alphabet is different then their written language. It is so similar to the English alphabet so they do not start learning English until 4th grade, when their Chinese is proficient, to prevent confusion between the two.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
We visited Wuhan Guan Primary yesterday. It was such an amazing experience! Both the teachers and the students were so excited to see us. They greeted us at the entrance with large bouquets of beautiful flowers and a sign to welcome us. The school day is structured with 4 main subjects; math, Chinese, science, social studies. In 4th grade, students start learning English. The students have art and physical education two times a week and music daily.
I was curious as to how they approached math instruction because their country as a whole is so advanced in math and science. From our discussions with Summer (an English teacher at the school and our interpreter) and our observations of a 3rd grade math class, they use a lot of rote memorization. They teacher shows them how to do something, she may use manipulatives within her instruction. The students turn and quickly practice with another student. Then they sing a song or chant to help with memorization, and then they remember. This was her explanation. They do have very small text books and workbooks to go along with the lessons. When I asked about how they approach math fact memorization, we were told most students know all addition and subtraction facts before entering first grade because the parents work with them at home prior to starting school. Summer said this is very important to parents and they spend a lot of time making sure their children are ready for school. They learn multiplication and division facts in 2nd and 3rd grade. This is taught and practiced in school as well as a lot of practice at home. When we asked what they do when a student does not know their facts, she said they give them more papers to practice every night. So failure to know your facts equals more work each night for students.
The students were very well behaved and we were able to join them with their morning exercise and recess time. The playground is a small courtyard in the middle of the school and the students spent their recess using jump ropes, yo yo's, hacky sack, and playing on bars. There were so many students in a very small space so they could not spread out. One student challenged me to jumping rope contest and I lost! He said to Summer, "Tell her she may speak better English than me but I can jump rope more than she can!" He thought it was so funny!
The school building was very old but had air conditioning in each room. A new school is being built for them at this time and they hope to have it ready in a year. There is so much more to tell about this experience and we will have to share more when we arrive back home.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Monday - Day 2 in Beijing
We started Monday morning with a visit to the Temple of Heaven. Besides being a place for tourists to visit and people to worship, all generations of local people come to "hang out" there. Children are playing with parents or grandparents, teenagers are walking around, and many senior citizens are playing cards, checkers, knitting, etc. Different age groups are doing to tia chi in groups. It was amazing to see such a large range of ages all hanging out together.
Our next visit was to The Great Wall of China. The Great Wall was remarkable and the view from the wall was also so beautiful! Long green mountain ranges extended in both directions.
Our tour guide talked a lot about education here in China while we were traveling to the Great Wall. A few differences he pointed out were that the teachers in China just present the information to students. Students sit and do what the teachers say. His daughter is in middle school and attends school from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. She then has 3 hours of paperwork each night to complete. Parents are expected to check the work because the teacher has 70 students in her class and cannot check that amount of homework from each child. His daughter does not go to school on Saturday and Sunday but she does have 1 and ½ days of paperwork to complete each weekend. She gets ½ day of free time each week. On the weekday she gets about 5-6 hours of sleep at night. He said he does not feel it is good for the kids to have this much work but because of the population it is so competitive so they must work very hard to compete.
Maria Pratt
Third Grade
Eagle Point Elementary
Third Grade
Eagle Point Elementary
Day 1 in Wuhan
Today we got up at 3:30 AM to make it to the airport in time for our early morning flight out of Beijing and in to Wuhan. This large city of 10 million people is where our sister school, Wuhan Guan Primary, is located. Summer, our interpreter and an English teacher at the school, met us at the airport. The principal of her school is Fang Xi, who visited Rossford several years ago. Summer brought a driver from their school to navigate us to our downtown hotel. All driving rules and regulations seem to be optional, but our driver is very accustomed to this chaos and beyond some beeping and muttering, he remained calm in the midst of the traffic storm!
We just returned to the hotel from a nice lunch of Korean BBQ in the mall across the street from our hotel. Lots of western influence can be seen all around this city, and there are high-rise buildings as far as the eye can see. We had a very open conversation with Summer about cultural perceptions vs reality in our two countries. We talked about how we view Chinese students as being self-driven, motivated students who are naturally hard working and wish to please their families. Summer assured us that 'kids are kids' and that she searches for ways to engage her students and make learning fun for them. She told us her perception is that our kids have the luxury of play time and know how to have fun. We explained that although this is often true, many children either have their lives also planned out with after school activities throughout the week and/or spend lots of time indoors watching TV or playing video games…not necessarily the idyllic picture of children playing on a playground or running through a park!
Another thread of our conversation was about rules for students. In China students have many rules to follow, and have to study so hard that when they actually have down time (very infrequently it appears), they do not know what to do. As she puts it, their time is always arranged for them…in school, after school…so that when they have to arrange their own time when they graduate, all they feel is bored because they don't know what to do.
In about a half hour we are leaving the hotel for a welcome dinner with 15 teachers from their school. We are very excited to meet more of the staff, see Fang again, and learn more about the education system of China.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Day One In Beijing
Today we spent the day visiting and learning about famous historic sites in Beijing. We traveled to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Place. We got a lesson in Tai Chi from "Beijing's best Tai Chi teacher". Too bad his teaching skills didn't result in any of us mastering it! I will try to post a picture of it tomorrow.
Our day wrapped up with a dinner that featured many wonderful dishes, including Peking Duck. So far we have been adventurous and tried almost every dish served...and most of them are delicious!
There were many Chinese families vising the same sites as we did today. People from around Beijing, but also it was evident that many had traveled far...as evidenced by the variety of clothes that they wear, the way they style their hair, etc. There are 31 educators on our trip, one tour guide, and two representatives from EF, the tour company organizing the trip. The educators on our trip come from Ottawa Hills, United Local, Winton Woods, Wyoming, and Oberlin. We are enjoying getting to know everyone and finding out what they are doing in their districts to further global education.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
We have arrived!
Hello,
Our plane arrived at midnight Saturday night Beijing time. The flight was 14 hours but didn't seem bad at all. I sat next to a 16 year old girl from Wuhan, China. Her American name was Jackie. She has gone to school here in the U.S. for the last two school years and goes home for the summer to be with her mom and dad. She said she will spend this summer going to school seven days a week to study for the SAT's because she wants to go to college here in the U.S. as well. We talked about how the schools and students in the U.S. are different than in China. Jackie thinks in high school the Chinese students are better at math and science but U.S. students are better at language and social skills. She said the Chinese students will be very nice to me but will not talk much in conversation because they do not know how. She thinks the kids in the U.S. are way more fun because in China they study all the time and they do not know how to play or hang out. I asked Jackie if she feels she is behind her Chinese peers when she returns in the summer because in the U.S. she is not going to school nearly as much as she would have here in China, which is seven days a week all school year. She said she has not felt that way. She loves the U.S. but will eventually go back to live in China when she finishes all her schooling. It was a very interesting conversation and she was so sweet!
Sunday we are visiting the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace and will be enjoying a Peking Duck dinner.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
China Flight
Our flight is taking off around 10 PM Friday night, and we will be in the air for 14 hours! Beijing is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so we will be arriving around midnight on Saturday
Monday, June 4, 2012
The purpose of our trip is to learn more about the education, economy, and culture in China. We will be observing their approach toward educating their students and hope to gain some insight on their great success. We are also hoping to continue working with our partner school in Wuhan so that in the future we may be able to send some of our own students to provide them with a more global education.
Please visit our blog while we are away. We hope to be able to post daily.
Please visit our blog while we are away. We hope to be able to post daily.
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