Shanghai American School

Today was our final school visit of the trip. It was a completely different experience from any of the previous experiences. This was the Shanghai American School(SAS). It is a private, non-profit school serving approximately 2900 students on two campuses on opposite sides of the city. We visited the Puxi campus where we were lunch guests of the school. We ate lunch on a plaza outside the Performing Arts building overlooking the campus, which was quite beautiful. The school is governed by the parents who are mostly expatriates, including corporate people and diplomats. This is a very culturally diverse population, but all of a high socio-economic level.  All students are on college track. We visited middle school and high school classes. I have to say it was pretty traditional teaching in most of the classes I observed.  They do, however, have a lot of resources. They have a one to one student to laptop policy, so I did see that in some classes, everything was paperless. The teacher’s course was on moodle and the kids did all their written lab work on the computer. Then they submit their completed work to the teacher who scores it and returns it to the students electronically.  One teacher talked to us and described the students as Third culture kids: Their family culture, the culture from the country they live in and the SAS culture.  The school campus serves as a community for the students since they do not have a lot of opportunity for community beyond the school.  I have included photos of the school name at the gate, the outside of the middle school building and the entrance area to one of the buildings on campus.

Middle School Students working on science invesitigations 

Two middle school soccer players heading to practice