Tuesday, April 14, 2010
Today was another eventful day on this very interesting trip at a location 6,500 miles away from Helfrich Park. This week we are in Beijing for the week visiting different levels of the educational system hierarchy, schools and colleges.
To summarize once more from yesterday’s conference, we met with Mr. Yu Changxue , Director of the Ministry of Education. His presentation on educational reform and development was very interesting and insightful. Professor Li Renzhu, the Director of Testing gave a power point presentation on one of the reforms, educating the children of migrant workers.
We visited Beijing National Day School this morning and had a presentation from Principal Li Xigui. The school looks like an American University or college. His assistant principal was Wu Fengqin and (not as cool as Mrs. Adams) and the school’s director of international exchange Mr. Zhou Bin gave presentations as well. Principal Li’s presentation centered around the following areas: Chinese Principals role in school management, teacher hiring practices, school curriculum design, and the pillars of educating China’s children:
1- Student evaluation
2- Student moral character
3- Student psychological development
4- Student health and fitness
We were also given an extensive tour of the facility and grounds. The science labs at the school were (now hear this Mr. Heard, Mr. Scherry, Mrs. Burkhart and Miss Wright) were equipped exactly as the labs at USI are! They were certainly impressive. Mrs. Biesecker would have loved the art rooms. The kids in art class were doing those projects where you cut a form from a block of wood and then put ink on it and make prints. And, Mrs. Michael and Mr. Farny would have enjoyed seeing the orchestra room for the whole orchestra and the rooms for group practicing by sections of the band or orchestra. Wow. They had a turf field, three cafeterias, a dormitory for teachers and a dormitory for students that are boarding. Students come from through out China (23 provinces) have kids attending. There are 4,000 kids in grades 7-12. Other tidbits about the school is they have an Olympic size swimming pool and 116 academic programs and 120 teams, clubs or after school programs. I will go into Principal Li’s presentation in more detail when I get back.
We were at BNDS for 3.5 hours and then we got on the bus and went to the edge of town to hear a presentation and get a tour from a migrant worker school. Remember that migrant worker schools are for students whose parents come to the cities trying to find work. There are so many students in the regular schools that some cannot take any more students. In the case of the school we visited, Longhai School, all of the students are migrant workers children and the school is like a charter school in America a little bit. We met the two benefactors who funded the startup of the school and it is a non-profit entity. Principal Su gave us a presentation on the history of the school, why it was developed and programs at the school academically. There is no comparison between the schools in facilities. The migrant school is in a very tough part of town and instead of a turf field in the middle of campus it is cement. The building was built seven years ago but looks much, much older. However, the staff at Longhai was incredibly committed to the students. Like BNDS, students come from all over China to attend but for much different reasons. There are 1,308 students and this school is Pre K- middle school. There are 2 pre K classes, 18 elementary classes and seven middle school classes. High school kids will either go to a local high school that has space, return to their village school or begin working. Again, when I get back I can go into much more depth on each school, their philosophies and curriculum. At this school I sat in on a lesson on English. It was an 8th grade class and the kids did pretty well. They even allowed me to read a passage from the reading exercise they were doing which was pretty neat. We were at that school for about 2.5 hours so our day was pretty full but very, very interesting and eye opening.
On April 13th after we spent the entire morning at the Ministry of Education, we had two tours. The first was to Tian’an men Square. That is a famous landmark in Beijing for many reasons and the square is a HUGE area. On those grounds is Chairman Mao’s, the Chinese Congress building and a memorial to WW II soldiers. At the end of the massive square, across the street is the Forbidden City. This area is where the Emperors lived for many centuries and the historical significance to this country these areas have is incredible. All of the HPSA social studies teachers would have been very impressed. It would be a great field trip for the HPSA students! Each day there are thousands of visitors to this historical area.
Today, April 15 I will be going to Beijing Normal University to hear a seminar on change in Chinese society and its impact on the educational system. In the afternoon we will be going to an ancient part of the city (Beijing) to see the Hutong areas. Mr. Nelson, Mr. Spear, Mrs. Brow, Mrs. Alford and Mrs. Brown should be able to talk a little about that in social studies class before I write about it.
PUMA students, remember the Simple Six and work hard. The PUMA students are great and would represent themselves very well here.
