Tuesday

Ni hao!

On Tuesday we visited the Changan Middle School in Changan County. It compares with our high school. Students are ages 16-18. The school has 3600 students, most of them boarding there. There are 230 teachers, with approximately 56 students per class. Since most students live on campus, they get up at 6 a.m. and have a reading class before the 8 a.m. school day starts. They have 5 classes in the morning, 40 minutes each. 4 more classes in the afternoon until 5:30. After dinner, they have two evening classes since they are living there! Yes, quite a full day of studying. The classroom teachers move from room to room. The students stay in the same classroom all day. Students have two months vacation in the summer and one month in the winter.

We visited several classrooms and students all study English so they could ask us questions. Some of the questions:
What did you think of the Olympics?
Do we speak Chinese?
Do we teach Chinese in our schools?
How long is our school day?
Who is our favorite basketball player?

Their school has had a partnership with Lee's Summit High School in Kansas City since 2005. They are working on curriculum reform, hoping to gain ideas on how to enhance creativity in teaching and learning.