Think Like a Teacher

Better late than never. I read the post in Education Week about #blog4nwp after the March 18 deadline, but perhaps that makes it even more meaningful. Time and deadlines will never erase the need for writers. A public policy decision looming in Congress could remove all funding for the National Writing Project (NWP), a quiet force that drives writing into classrooms across the U.S. with the strength of a benevolent tsunami. The NWP unleashes the force of writers from deep beneath the surface of a vast teacher-sea, sending forth huge waves to spread over large areas and leave an unforgettable swath. Unlike a real tsunami, however, the forces of writers are entirely of good, and they leave high water marks of inspiration and understanding wherever the wave travels.

Why writing? Why not STEM or math? Why do we need a “project” to make writers out of teachers? Writing scares people, just like water. Teachers will dip their toes in, but only through experiences like the NWP will they learn to swim, and even ride the waves as writers, willing to take risks with their words and talk about the process. Just as STEM programs provide experiences for teachers to act as real scientists so they can provide authentic science teaching, so does the NWP immerse teachers and respect the real experience of being a Writer as essential to building a classroom community of writers.

For the U.S. (or any country) to thrive, we need not only the scientists and innovative thinkers. We need them to be able to communicate their work clearly and with passion. Have you ever tried to read what an engineer writes? It’s a wonder that many new inventions get beyond the lab. If you can’t explain it, no one will ever know about it. Every scientist needs to be a writer. Without  teacher-writers to model the process of shaping ideas into words, we are destined to have great ideas that gather dust.

Almost 20 years ago, I was a writing fellow of a NWP-affiliate at a nearby university. I watched a kindergarten teacher get so excited about writing, she almost tackled community college prof with her ideas for writing together with five year olds. I learned the power of metaphor. I learned to visit and revisit every word I write. I learned to listen for voice. I learned to have a voice.

I know that only a small fraction of  teachers have experienced a NWP summer. But I also know that ending funding for NWP is as dangerous as stopping funding for cancer research. It may never be enough, but we should not underestimate how far each dollar goes. The one mistake we have made as NWP fellows may be that we did not tell enough people where our personal writing force began. This benevolent tsunami may soon be gone, and the high watermarks will fade. What is left without the force of the NWP will be a stagnant, waveless pond.

Jennifer Northrup’s post about a visit to her media center by teachers-to-be (T2B) raises very important questions about today’s teacher ed programs:

…the discussions of the day really made me wonder if pre-service teacher education is neglecting to prepare students for the role of technology in the classroom. Is it fair to say that we have to hope that these students have a cooperating teacher that utilizes technology in the classroom or that they will be forced to learn it on their own in the end?

My short answer: NO. It is not fair to simply hope a cooperating teacher will have time/expertise/motivation/experience with technology to make this a part of student teaching.  I know from sharing TeachersFirst with T2B in OK2ask sessions that the T2B desperately want to know what to do with technology long before student teaching.

In this case, I think of teaching as a bit like cooking.

A true cook (master teacher) has the expertise to work from available ingredients, create a recipe, adjust the recipe to a different number of servings,  combine it into a broader menu of compatible offerings, adapt for possible food allergies, set the table, and time all the food so it arrives at just the right time to be eaten piping hot or refreshingly chilled. The learning meal then takes on a life of its own through conversation and involvement of everyone around the table– and facilitated by the food prep. If he/she is  smart, the master chef will include students in the food prep for a broader, richer menu. An experienced, tech-savvy teacher integrates technology the same way, using what is available at just the right time to bring every student around the learning table together. If a T2B is lucky enough to be souschef with a master, he/she will at least learn the fundamentals of collecting ingredients and managing simple menu planning. He/she will not learn every utensil or technique, but he/she will be able to serve up a shared learning meal.  The students may even try some foods they would have otherwise avoided when not included in the menu prep.

One problem with teacher ed is that the time limitations and inequities among the kitchen (student teaching) experiences and facilities make consistency very unlikely. We cannot assume that the cooperating teacher or student teaching school will even have essential technology ingredients or expertise. Some will have state of the art appliances and 1:1 computing, while others will have the edtech equivalent of one microwave oven to feed a class of 30… with past-date groceries. To  make it worse, the T2B may arrive having experienced teacher ed faculty who themselves use edtech solely as a drive-through meal: something you grab and go — without looking at the nutritional value!

To steer today’s T2B beyond the drive-through toward solid nutrition in their use of edtech as part of total menu planning, we need to deliberately take them out to “eat” in a variety of schools. We cannot assume that today’s T2B have ever even tasted this food before. Let them taste-test the marvelous things you can do by starting with a simple menu item, let’s say telling a simple digital story. After tasting it, let them try cooking up one of their own–even if it’s a little too crispy around the edges. Then ask them to envision a full menu where it might fit. Show them sample menus.  They may be tempted to simply re-create the comfort food lessons they had over and over as a child. Give them some nutritionally sound starting points they may never have savored.

This week I watched an Oscar ceremony including Natalie Portman, followed livebloggers through the unveiling of iPad 2, and read a blog post at ASCD. They all had something in common: the confluence of technology and the humanities.

I had never known that Natalie Portman was a brilliant scientist in her own right until I read the NY Times article about her multifaceted talents. Instantly, I thought of A.M., S.R. and a handful of my other highly gifted former students  who also crossed over the perceived science/humanities “divide” as if it were a laughable piece of yellow, plastic police tape. Natalie Angier, who writes about Portman, focuses on Portman’s drive and on the odd contrast between the isolation of serious scientific researchers vs the public exhibitionism of the entertainment industry. Angier misses out, however, on the place of acting as artistic and personal expression, on film as a place where layered interpretation,visual imagery, and rich language can intrigue the mind and invite as much analysis and questioning as any science– perhaps with a bit more opportunity for ironic twist. I suspect that Portman could talk about the line between science and arts and dance along it quite well. I don’t know her work well enough to be sure, and I certainly have never talked to her. But I can envision my exceptionally gifted former students dancing the line with her, laughing.

Enter Steven Jobs.  His road sign icon for the role of Apple’s “DNA” (and its forward thinking people) marks the meeting point of liberal arts and technology. That meeting place “yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.” I know “Liberal Arts” is a dirty word (well– two) these days, and those of us who actually expended tuition dollars on them are ridiculed for our irrelevance in an era of competitiveness and the hard-driving skills needed in the 21st century. But I firmly believe that Jobs is right about technology’s place. Technology is not simply the test tube or tool we use for data, data, data. If you watch what people do with it, you quickly see today’s technology as a place to play, express, evaluate, compare, collage, question, write, answer, re-question, and enter into an iterative process of exploration and expression. Technologically-assisted exploration IS creative process if we allow it to be. Throw away User Manuals.

David J. Ferraro’s post on the ASCD blog, “Humanizing STEM: A Different Kind of Relevance,” says he “privately fret[s] over the way STEM advocacy, and current reform efforts in general, inadvertently devalue the humanistic and civic dimensions of a basic education.” He goes on to delineate the vital role that the humanities can play as a lens for viewing the intrinsic beauty of science and…

that math is beautiful, true, and good in its own way; that the development of the physical and natural sciences over the centuries has been motivated in part by a universal human desire to make sense of the world; and that technological innovations throughout history have been fueled not only by economic necessities but also by a basic human restlessness and the quest for mastery over nature.

Exploration, whether it is the how and why of science and technology or the what-if of changing a musical key or  shifting the composition of a photograph, is the common ground of the techmanities. Jobs gets it. I think Portman gets it. I know the people who dance across the yellow tape get it. I just hope that people who plan for education get it soon, before we lose the next Jobs or Portman or Ferraro… or your neighbor’s kid.

There is a place where creativity and professional risk meet, and technology has brought that place to our fingertips.

Why is it that “professionals” or adults in general balk at admitting their own creative play? Why do “responsible adults”  think that creativity belongs only to  the very young or the juried, respectable, credentialed, or reviewed?  Yes, there is a place for “Artsworld” and New York Times Arts section, but none of us should be afraid to admit that we play with creative toys and concoct things that may or may not qualify for juried shows or concerts. We share and laugh at the anonymous anomalies of the amateurish and absurd on YouTube — often the products of an exhibitionist style of creative play — but few of us allow our own creative play to show,  for fear it will undermine our professional image or bore our constituents.

There is a place where arts and the personal meet, and technology has brought that place to our fingertips.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the pinnacle of “Artworld,” is embracing creative accessibility with its Connections project. Met staffers select “Connections” from the Met collection and share their own interactions and narrations about the works in videos on wildly varied themes, even “Date Night.” More importantly, the Met invites anyone to create their own Connections project. Art becomes personal, and producing a Connection to share it is both creative and public. Even from the high plateau of the Met as an institution of the Arts (capital A),  this project invites creative thinking and “play” from people outside the Artworld. I wonder whether a professional from education or any other field outside the Arts would risk it. Probably not, unless it somehow fits their credentials.

There is a place where personal creativity and learning meet, and technology has brought that place to our fingertips.

David Warlick, quinteesential education consultant and speaker, admits he has spent hours on airplanes making music with a creative iPad app, but he apologizes for talking about it on his blog. Teachers balk at admitting their own creative attempts, too. When was the last time you allowed a student or fellow teacher to see what you tried to make as part of creative “play” with Prezi or Photoshop or GlogsterEDU? More importantly, how can we ask children and the young adults of the next generation to respect their own creative endeavors when we don’t even take our own creative play seriously enough to let anyone see it? Let’s move beyond YouTube-silly to admitting we actually try making something creative. No one said it had to be “good.” Let them see you play.

There is a place where creativity meets importance, and technology has brought that place to our fingertips.

I am no longer spending day to day life in a classroom with kids, but I continue to learn from my job. My connection with kids may be more vicarious than it was before, but I continue to learn as part of education world. So for the New year, I stop to share my top learning moments of 2010.

Things I learned this year:

It’s worth asking.
In the spring I received a letter inviting me to join a group of professionals involved with technology in education on a trip to China. If I had not formulated a plan delineating how TeachersFirst could benefit from my participation in this trip and then had the nerve to ask whether The Source for Learning would share in the cost, I would have assumed that such a trip was simply not possible. Many months and many thousand miles of travel to China later, I am very glad I took the risk to ask.

Laryngitis does not mean the absence of a voice.
In June, I gave my first full hour “lecture” format presentation at ISTE in Denver. Twenty-four hours beforehand, laryngitis completely erased my ability to speak. Over the next day, I communicated silently with pencil and paper, pantomime, nod, and smile. I discovered the kindness of many complete strangers and the willingness of others to do anything they could to help promote healing of my voice. You can read more about the experience in my post. The bottom line: my “voice” came through in far more ways than simply from that presentation. Not only did the sound re-emerge from my mouth amid the presentation; my passionate interest in creativity and facilitating it as essential to learning (and often with technology tools) echoes in upcoming articles and presentations — and my desire to refine the voice of creativity together with other articulate professionals.

Comparison can hinder vision.
The China trip showed me so much about how people on the other side of the Pacific view learning, how they “teach,” and how Chinese parents and society expect education to look. The easy way to talk about everything I saw in China is to explain it in comparison to what we know in the U.S. The skies are more polluted than ours. The level of laws concerning health and safety is far less than in our litigious society, etc. But I find myself stopping mid-paragraph as I continue this comparison. What is important is not the side by side comparison of “them” and “us.” In fact, the very comparison to us blinds me to nuance and sounds, thoughts, philosophies too different for comparison. There is no one-to-one, force-fit, side-by-side way to understand China. If we focus on competition and comparison, we will never hear the intellectual phonemes the Chinese articulate that simply are not part of our thinking language. We will learn far more from dialog.

Watching learning is learning, too.
I am lucky enough to have two grandsons, one born in 2010. Watching them learn reminds me of what classroom teachers do every day. We watch learning, and in the process we learn, too. That experience never stops. At the end of every day, each of us– even those in no way involved in education– should ask, “What did you see someone learn today?”  If everyone pondered this, society might find a whole new approach to what education is and should be.

Zero technology days are a good idea.
Although I had perhaps 3 of these during 2010, the days when I do not touch my iPhone, listen to MP3s or Pandora, check in on Facebook, watch the news, connect to the Internet, or answer email are precious indeed.  Not only do I focus entirely on people and places. I also return to the  grid with new perspective and energy. Lithium ion is not the only kind of recharge.

To all who care to stop by and read here, Happy New Year. What did you see someone learn this year?

During my stay in China, I received notification that my two proposals for the ISTE conference in June, 2011 had BOTH been accepted. I am flabbergasted, excited, and a bit daunted by the challenge of putting together two very different presentations to be given within the same morning. What an opportunity!

One is on the cyclical nature of creativity and how that can be respected and fostered in an education world of linear, point-A-to-point-B accountability. The second is on taking the control of IWBs (interactive whiteboards) out of the hands of teachers and making them student centered for learning. While I will be sure that both presentations have practical, learning-friendly strategies that teachers can envision and implement, they begin from very different directions. One springs from a deep philosophical discussion about the nature of creativity (born of my interests in the humanities and listening/reading/teaching about creative process). The other bounces defiantly out of the back alleys of argument that began with Bill Ferriter’s blog post almost a year ago, “Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards” and the unfortunate practice of distributing technology hardware as a teacher-centered panacea for student achievement.

So I have a lot of work to do between now and the spring to piece and quilt two separate presentations.  In the meantime, I will enjoy “collecting things” for both. Sometimes the pre-presentation, messy time is the highlight of my own creative process as ideas, images, and examples collect like scraps for a quilter. The virtual floor of my office (a.k.a. my MacBook) is going to be deep in material.

Posted once I was off the plane and back online after some sleep…

As I write this, I am flying past Mt. Fuji on our way back to the U.S. The plane is packed with people, including more Americans than I have seen in the past two weeks. It seems strange to encounter strangers who speak to me in English! The long flight (10+ hours with a tail wind) gives me a chance to reflect a bit on the trip. I have many more posts to come with corrections to some of my early observations and a lot more to tell about each place we went.

Ten + 1 things I will miss about China

1.    Surprising juxtapositions of smells, foods, colors, people, and buildings

2.    Ni hao, xie xie, and “smiling”

3.    Traveling and learning amid forty amazing educators who see education as a dynamic, personal journey for both student and teacher

4.    Profound, broad Chinese pride without hubris, a pride in their historic ingenuity, current progress, and rising status in the world

5.    History unfathomable for those of us from a country a mere 235 years old and the Chinese people’s love for that history as their common anchor during times of trial

6.    Our national guide, Shawn (his English name), and his willingness to respond insightfully and respectfully to every question; his head bobbing slightly to the side as he began each response with a smile. His English was impeccable and quite sensitive to subtlety.

7.    Symbolism, spirits, dragons, earth, and heaven, feng shue (sp?) surrounding us until we actually began to notice the details on our own

8.    Streets, sidewalks, and highways swept spotless by lone workers with large, curled, natural straw brooms

9.    Learning to resist the urge to compare everything to the U.S. and to simply observe and learn

10.  Laundry opportunism: city apartment buildings tall or low, decorated with laundry drying in hazy sunshine, row after row of gadgets suspending sheets or shirts stories off the ground. Laughing to see more clothing left hanging from street lights by residents who climb to snag available drying space

11.  Crowds of petite, pony-tailed women in fitted wool or bright puffy jackets, short skirts, and fur-topped boots and men in black puffy coats and skinny black pants, waiting to dodge deftly across traffic

Things I will not miss: 

1.    Chicken knuckles

2.    Chinese traffic/drivers, especially motorbikes

3.    Crossing multiple lanes of Chinese traffic as a pedestrian

4.    Air pollution!!!

5.    “Pretty lady, you buy —!” yelled in my ear and grabbing my arm

6.    Nonwestern toilets/bathrooms bereft of toilet paper, hot water, soap, or paper towels

7.    Coins worth .10 yuan (about 1.5 cents)

8.    Small coffee cups with no refills

9.    Creepy Santa decorations with haunting, Chucky-esque faces and Christmas music played with odd rhythm or instrumentation, making Christmas into a cheap imitation holiday

10. Paper napkins big enough for no more than a cocktail and serving dishes placed beyond human reach in the center of the giant, glass lazy susan — and without a serving utensil. But at least I finally mastered chopsticks!

Ten things I will DO with what I have learned:

1.    Launch XW1W- a worldwide chance for students to exchange a taste of their daily life, coming soon from TeachersFirst

2.    Never again assume that I know what the Chinese want for themselves or for their schools

3.    Continue working to help make creativity a core classroom value and offer practicable ways to talk about it, value it, help students build it, and help parents (and those less accustomed to living it) find ways to appreciate and foster it in their own and their children’s lives

4.    Continue to ask questions and feel about for answers on the complexities of Chinese culture

5.    Try to keep a finger on the pulse of what is happening in Chinese education

6.    Never ignore a lost or confused international visitor in a U.S. airport or tourist attraction

7.    Stay in touch with this group of educators and continue to learn from their prism-like way of separating new light into different ideas

8.    Try to make TeachersFirst approachable and helpful for Chinese educators and those in other non-Western countries

9.    Get back together with our delegation at the ISTE conference 2011

10. Continue posting on this blog as I assimilate all that I have collected from the trip

Today was our first full day in Shanghai after arriving yesterday afternoon amid a steady snowstorm. The climate here is supposed to be roughly the same as Jacksonville, Florida, so snow is quite rare. The drivers, already insane in China, proved to be the same as U.S. drivers when winter weather hits. The streets were completely gridlocked, making what should have been a 15 minute bus ride (on a chartered bus used to get us to our city locations) last about an hour and fifteen minutes. We ended up having to cancel our plans to have dinner before an acrobat show. Instead, we ran into take out places right by the acrobat theater. We actually had Chinese take-out in Shanghai; that is we had take out McDonald’s! We had to order by pointing at menu items on the countertop pictures, since the people at the counter did not speak English. The cost was about the same as in the U.S., but the sodas tasted a little different, and the menu offerings were slightly different. In other words, it was about as bad as it is at home. They do manage to make the french fries taste the same. Incidentally, we have been offered french fries at a couple of our otherwise Chinese restaurants. I guess they think this is what all Americans eat. Do you have expectations of what people from another country will want if they visit you?

The acrobat show was incredible, but no photos were allowed.  There were about 36 acrobats in all, about 2/3 male. They were teenagers who obviously practice very hard and do very scary things. The smallest boy was about the size of an American third grader, and he was always way at the very top of every dangerous stunt. This troupe is reportedly the best in China. I’d love to know more about the history of acrobats in China. Is there any performance that is famous where you live?

Shanghai is the financial center of China, like Wall Street in New York,  and has grown remarkably in the past 20 years. What was farmland on one side of the river that flows through the city is now a farm of skyscrapers, each more impressive than the last. Architects love to design for Shanghai because it is a real showplace for new buildings.  The people remind me of New York: very fashion conscious, very busy, and accustomed to crowds. There are 20 million people in this city, and it grows more each year! Young people in China like to move here for job opportunities, but the cost of living is very high. I bought the world’s most expensive bag of cookies this afternoon at a coffee bar similar to Starbucks where we stopped to get warm after walking outside on the Bund (waterfront by the river with a view to the skyscrapers). The bag of 24 small cookies cost $15!

As we travel around in public, we see people stare at us, both because we are a group of almost 40 Americans and because certain ones of us look very different from anyone Chinese. The African Americans cause a sensation because most Chinese have never seen anyone with dark skin. The three of us who are blondes are treated as an oddity, too, sometimes making people stop to take our picture . One of the men in our group is about 6 foot 2 or 3, and some Chinese men at the Xi’an airport ran up to him and pantomimed that they wanted to have their picture taken with him because he is so tall. They then “asked” us (by pantomime) to take their picture with an African American in our group and with our group member who has silver gray hair.  We all laughed together even though we could not actually talk to each other. I think the children who swarmed around me in Xi’an did so both because of my blonde hair and because I was American. It is a very funny feeling to be stared at as an oddity, though people are genuinely respectful and cheerful about it.

The rate of change in China is unbelievable. We joke that instead of the 1000 paper cranes of Japanese story fame, China has 1000 construction cranes in each city skyline. Our conversations continually underscore the urgency in China to progress and improve, both for as an expectation for students to learn and improve and for progress and change as a society. They are very proud of the way they can implement new ideas or new building projects. They expect changes to be complete very quickly, almost as a two year old asks, “Are we there yet” two minutes after leaving the driveway. The flip side of this urgency is that when they are not sure how to go about making changes, they seek advice on how to “get it done” very quickly. Our group has been asked for advice on making certain changes in education and use of technology during our visits with universities, schools, and national technology centers working with education.

From our perspective, some of the changes they are asking to make will first require some major shifts in the underlying culture and the culture of Chinese education. For example: schools and teaching in China have always been teacher centered, with a teacher at the front of the class talking while students sit and listen. They sit in rows, never making a sound until called upon. They recite aloud as a whole class. They do not do group projects or sit on the floor, except in very unusual, progressive schools who are trying to replicate models from other countries.

Just as educational technology leaders in the U.S. often struggle to get teachers to integrate technology as a learning tool, so do Chinese educational leaders want to see technology put to effective use. But until the teachers have SEEN and understand a different model of teaching, they will have no way to see the role technology might play. Most of the technology use we have seen has still been teacher-centered: projecting a video or PowerPoint show and then asking questions about it for students to stand and respond. Although this happens in the U.S., too, we are far ahead on student technology use as a learning tool. We have invited Chinese leaders from several places to come to the ISTE conference and to learn alongside this professional group in the U.S. If they are as determined as I think they are, I suspect we will see some Chinese folks with us at the annual ISTE conference in Philadelphia next summer.

A class left a question on this blog a day or two ago about Chinese number systems, so I asked. The Chinese use both roman numbers (1,2,3,4, etc.) and Chinese characters to represent their numbers, but they use the Roman numbers more. These are easier to print. The characters are more like spelled out numbers or number names. I am including a close up of a bulletin board in a Chinese school (click to see it larger). The math facts should look familiar!

The second bulletin board shot shows science work on the human body in both English and Chinese (click to enlarge).

Another topic mentioned to us as something the Chinese want to bring into their schools is creativity. But I could write a ton about that. I also need to tell you about the meeting we had at the distance education center here in Shanghai…and many other tales of adventure.  We have only one more day here, but I hope to spend some time on the long flight home writing up more about our China experiences. Also to come: Shanghai at night, silk museum, laundry, Shawn– our guide and interpreter, pollution, “there is a policy.” Stay tuned.

I have only a few minutes left on my 24 hours of paid Internet, so I am writing quickly. I will add pictures if I have time.

Today we visited an elementary school ( they call it “primary” school) for grades 1-6, located in a village in the countryside of Hu County.  Most of the village is farmers (more on that later!). The school has 173 students and 16 teachers. They invited us into a grade 3 English class where students were learning numbers in English.The class had about 30 students (I think), and they were very excited to see us, even though our group of 35 or so filled the aisles of their small classroom. You will see how funny we looked taking so many pictures while they worked when I post a picture. They kept their eyes on their papers and worked diligently in spite of such an interruption! We sang “If You’re Happy and You Know it” for them when their teacher asked if we would like to teach them a song. They surprised us m singing the same some back in Chinese! Apparently it is a universal song for kids.

We saw their school library, built by People to People, the organization that is running our trip. It is very simple with very few books, but it has a nice clean floor and walls. The other classrooms are kept clean, but they have bare concrete floors that are VERY cold. They seem to wash the floors with water which does not dry easily, and they were very damp and cold on the feet. Both teachers and students keep their coats on all the time. The outside was about 38 degrees F, and inside was not a lot warmer! Each classroom opens to the outdoors and has open windows letting in the cold air. They have small coal burning heaters in the rooms to get a little heat, but it is a little heat!

Things we learned:

Elementary teachers teach no more than three 45 minute classes a day. Those who worked at those school did not live in the village of 750 people, but lived in the neighboring town and ride bikes to work – a distance I would guess is about 5 miles. They must get quite cold on the ride! The school day goes from 8:30 to 11:30, breaks for lunch until 2, then runs 2 to 5 pm. The students walk back home in their village for lunch. The school has two computers: one in the teacher office and one in a classroom they share for watching videos and computer programs on two large TV screens. Both are connected to the Internet. The teacher very proudly showed us a PowerPoint they had made to teach area, perimeter, and volume in grade 6. I think the numbering they used for math was the same as U.S.,  but I will have to look at my pictures in more detail to answer the question left on my earlier blog post.

Chinese teachers teach one, two, or occasionally 3 subjects in the rural schools. In the city schools they teach only one, even in elementary.  They are certified to teach a specific subject, but there is a shortage of teachers in the villages, so some teacher teach something they may not be certified to teach.

The teachers told us they are allowed to try new ways of teaching, and they like to find new ideas. They were thrilled with the gift of some books that our delegation brought, including alphabet letters and easy English picture books. I told them about TeachersFirst, especially the English teacher, since she can read it. The curriculum is set at the county level. Students go to elementary for grades 1-6 (there is no Kdg). They go to a neighboring town for grades 7-9, then only some go on to high school– about 60% of those who go to this elementary. Education beyond grade 9 is not mandatory.

The children were very happy and played outside at recess like any American children. We also saw some of them in the village later while they were home at lunch break. Our village visit is another story I will tell later.

Yesterday at the Terra Cotta Warriors museum I experienced the awe that most Chinese students have for Americans and the profound respect they show to teachers. I met a 6th grade Chinese boy who was there with his large group of schoolmates on a field trip from a school in a small city or town (not a farming village) somewhere an hour or two away. As we spoke, I was suddenly surrounded by at least 60 kids, all pressing close to say hi and to speak some English with me. When I said I was American, they were excited. When I said I was a teacher, they gasped and stepped back about a foot, being very cautious. I kept on talking and smiling with them, and they slowly closed in again. Their teacher videotaped our conversation (I guess to use in English class?). I gave them my email address and tried to act out the idea of sending me an email. I think they understood, but I am not sure. They gave the address to their teacher, anyway!

Because of that experience, I was not surprised to see the children today act very disciplined at school. They always stand up to respond to the teacher. The children in English class recited their numbers for us. We could hear other classes reciting together loudly many times during or visit.

Students have jobs at school, just as they do in the U.S. I saw some emptying the wastebaskets at recess.

I have much more to share, but want to try to add a picture or two before my time runs out. Tomorrow we travel to Shanghai, a very modern Chinese city.

Disclaimer: The information expressed here is based on professional visits to one public secondary school (grades 7-12) and the Center for Educational Technology (a national center) at Beijing Normal University. It is supplemented by a asking questions of our very knowledgeable guide (about age 30) who grew up in southwest China, the son of a HS math teacher. This information may not represent all realities in China. Information based strictly on one person’s experience is so indicated. 

1.  For about 30 years, China has had a one child policy (couples permitted to have only one baby). That policy has loosened, but most children still have 6 adults (two parents, four grandparents doting on them and watching their every move. This, combined with a powerful respect for teachers and drive for education make classroom behavior remarkably focused.

2. School is free (and compulsory) from age 7 (1st grade)  through 9th grade. Then parents must pay. The cost of senior high school in the one we visited is about $350 per term ($700/year). But average income is FAR below what people make in the U.S. Our guide said a city professional might earn $1200/month. (This statistic should be researched further for accuracy.)

3. There is a HUGE divide between rural (“village” or “less developed areas”) and urban/town schools. Keeping in mind that municipalities called “villages” can be as large as several hundred thousand people or more, I am not sure where the line is drawn between “rural” schools and those in “developed areas.” We will see a village school on Tuesday.

4. School day/year: HS students are in school 8-5 daily. Regular classes end at 4 with after school courses until 5. The school year is comprised of two terms: Sept 1- late January, then one month off. The second term ends in time for a two month summer break.

5. Class sizes in the high school are typically at least 40 students, and many 50+. The computer class we visited had 54 but room for up to 60. The video we saw of an elementary class in a pilot edtech school had 48 in a 2nd grade class. When asked how teachers handle students who may struggle or those who are advanced, both teachers and the teacher ed professor readily acknowledged that they “cannot do this with 40-50 in their class” and must “handle it after school.” The professor said that “this is an area where we can learn from you” [the U.S.]. There is little problem with classroom behavior, however, because the the great respect afforded to teachers and high value placed on education by the entire society. I will tell you my experience with this in a post about meeting students at the Terra Cotta Warrior museum!

6. When we asked a veteran teacher how teaching has changed in her 30+ years, she explained: Students and their parents are interested in other things, more than just getting a grade. They say, “I am learning to be good, not only to be knowledgeable; to be kind, generous, to help others.”  The teacher also smiled as she explained that teaching for her was first just a job. Then she grew to enjoy it. Now it is “an addiction.” Some things about teachers are universal!

7. Teachers we spoke to looked immediately to their principal for the answer when asked whether they are interested in trying something new, such as collaborating with classes/schools outside their own. They do not seem to have the autonomy to make such decisions and may even be afraid to. This observation is based solely on a few teachers and their responses to questions from our group.

8. High school teachers teach 3 classes per day. They spend the rest of the day “preparing in their office.” Teachers wear very casual clothes, often including outerwear for cool temps, such as a warm up jacket and sneakers. Even the HS principal was in casual pants and a sweater/sweatshirt.  Even the chair of the university edtech center wore jeans for his meeting with our professional delegation, which surprised me.

9. The Educational Technology Center at Beijing Normal University (an “ivy league” level school) has a strong graduate research program conducting pilots in 260 schools across China to determine which exactly which uses and strategies for technology are the most effective in promoting learning. Most of their work involves the teacher using the technology. They openly acknowledged to us that they are behind the U.S. in student use of technology at school.

10. In city schools, computer labs for computer skill classes (not classes using the lab for another subject, such as science or social studies) are typical in high schools. See the picture from the Jr/Sr high school we visited in Beijing. These labs are rarely used by other classes. Students do not typically use computers during the school day except in computer class. They do use computers during afternoon time after official classes end and before they depart at about 5 pm. They might use a computer for a club, for research, or extracurricular projects. In cities, most students have computers with Internet access at home and do use them. Students may use computer skills learned in their computer class to complete multimedia assignments using video or images, etc. The one example of a project type we heard mentioned was PowerPoint. It is typical for there to be one computer per classroom which the teacher alone uses,  possibly with a projector. The English language teacher who spoke with us said she occasionally shares pictures of things from the Internet on the projector as part of her instruction. Apparently web 2.0 tools are not in use at all for school. Microsoft products are by far more prevalent than Mac.

Bonus: I did ask our guide about curriculum and how much Chinese students earn of U.S. history, such as the Revolutionary or Civil Wars. He said they do study world history, including the U.S., but that it is “not very detailed.”

I will be sure to share more after we visit a village school. We have heard over and over and over how different the situation is “in the countryside” or “in the villages” or “for the farmers.” Now we hope to see it. After driving past such villages today, we know the divide is broader than any we can find in the U.S.