Tanxia Town Center School

I want to go back and share what was, for me,  one of the greatest highlights of this trip. In the afternoon on Wednesday, October 20 we visited the school at Tanxia Town Center. Tanxia Town is made up of 14 village communities and one neighborhood committee. The school was established in 1908. This school has 1081 students and 67 teaching faculty. The class size is around 50 and has pre-K through grade 6. When we arrived, the principal was at the entrance gate to meet us with a student marching band. They greeted us with a rousing marching band song.  They then marched into the school yard. All the students were out on the balconies or at the classroom doors (3 floors- courtyard style buildings) waving and cheering to us.  Many of us had tears, myself included.  They were so genuinely excited to have American visitors, their was an electricity in the air.  We climbed the three flights of outdoor stairs, each level stopping to wave at the students. Although I can’t capture this for you, it was truly a memorable experience for all of us.  The students had actually extended their day for a couple hours to accommodate our schedule. That means parents met their students later and were also very excited to greet the American delegation. We met with the teachers first and then saw either a science class or an English class. I went to the 4^th grade science class where they were investigating filtration systems to clean particles out of water. The students were pretty engaged given they have 48 kids in the class! They were seated in groups of 6. One student seemed to be the lab leader. Students did not collect data or write anything down. They simply observed and participated in the teacher led discussion.  I think many of us will want to keep in touch with this school.

Legend of Kung Fu

Last night we went to the Shanghai Acrobats Show.  As I said in a previous post it was very entertaining, the performers were amazing athletes and the show was visually stunning.  However, last Thursday night in Beijing, we had the option of attending the Legend of Kung Fu. This was not included as part of the tour activities, so only about 8 of us went. I am so glad that I chose to go. This was the ancient story of the little monk who arrives at the monastry as a small boy  and travels his journey through life until he becomes the master. It was more visually stunning than last night’s show. I was so impressed with the performers. It was like attending an operatic ballet. It was amazing and I will include a couple photos from that experience here. The Red Theater is where the show is performed.

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