Thursday, April 22, 2010
With this being my final day in the beautiful city of Changchun, we were on the move early. Our first visit today was to get a tour of one of the car assembly plants in Changchun. Changchun city is known well in China as being the number one auto-manufacturing city in China. The city has the reputation that Detroit, Michigan had back in its heyday as a car-manufacturing city.
The company plant I went to visit was the first car manufacturer in China and is well-known. It made Mao’s first vehicle and also made the vehicle used for China’s recent anniversary celebration. The plant was spotless and was very similar to the Toyota manufacturing plant in Princeton, just north of Evansville. They make a couple of Chinese model cars, the flagship model being named Red Flag. They also make the new Mazda 6 car. If you happen to see any of those cars in Evansville, it may have been made here in Changchun. The tour was only for our group of four, as they normally do not open the plant up to tours. But, Principal Song and Mrs. Guan, I have seen many times, have an incredible network of friends. They run two shifts at the plant and make hundreds of cars each day. It is as automated as Toyota and they use Henry Ford’s idea of an assembly line to get things done quickly and efficiently.
Following the tour we went back to campus number one and observed an 8th grade computer graphics class and then a 6th grade computer graphics class. The 8th graders were working on an Adobe program in which they make some type of cartoon or picture with animals in it. Then they add different parts of the program to make the people or creatures move (I have seen Mrs. King’s classes do similar things, perhaps with the same program). The 6th grade class was working on cutting and pasting pictures onto the screen. Once they had what they wanted, they added text to the scene.
We then met with the computer Head Teacher and he explained the types of things they do in class. We met in the office he shares with other teachers where he had a chart on the wall of every classroom in the building and a listing of exactly what types of technology they use in the classroom (remember earlier I told you that every single class uses PowerPoint presentations).
Following our meeting we went to lunch in the cafeteria. Again, all 3,200 students eat at the same time. The cafeteria is in three-story building for the middle grade students (grades 6-9). The elementary students (1,800) eat in their own building. After the students eat and put their trays up, they go outside to recess and play (volleyball, soccer, basketball, tag, on the playground, elementary only or walk). Like Mrs. Gris and her crew, the food was delicious and there was plenty of it to go around.
Next we had a meeting where we prepared for a little news conference. Prior to the conference beginning, we exchanged gifts for schools. Principal Song greatly appreciated the quilt made by Mrs. Biesecker, Mrs. King and Mrs. Gries.
The news conference was pretty neat. There were three newspapers represented and a television crew from Hong Kong. The reporters asked questions about my impressions of China and the educational system of China. They were also interested in any comparisons or contrasts between the two countries educational cultures or philosophies. They were very interested in the beautiful quilt and took some pictures of it. Mrs. Guan was very complimentary of her visit to Helfrich Park. She also made some very positive comments about our wonderful students and staff.
Keep up the good work PUMAS!
