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.