Final Farewell..Friday April 25

Today was my last morning at Sizhong School.  The administrative team planned a farewell ceremony for me.  I was touched with the words and gifts that were presented to me.  The headmaster listed the many things that the school has learned from me and appreciated my feedback about the classes that I obserevd.  I also, offered my reflections and my take-away from my experience.  They  wish to keep a friendship and relationship with Leicester Middle and High School.  Mr. Liang ( my shadowing principal) is very eager to come to Leicester in the fall.  He will spend his first week touring Massachusetts and then will spend one week shadowing me in our district.  He has asked to have a visit at each of our schools.  I hope that as many people have the opportunity to greet him to our community and express a warm welcome  as their community did for me.  

Day 4 School Visit

Today I visited a middle/senior high school.  The middle school is grades 7,8 and 9 and the high school grades 10-12.  This school specializes in the arts.  This is where students from this area may choose to come to prepare for national dance,ballet, and gymnastic competitions and even train for the olympics.  I even got to participate in a ballet lesson.  

This school is also know for its visual art program and  music.  Especially, opera singing and playing piano.  I asked the principal about how many hours each student will spend in their specific pathway program, they said a minimun of 2 hours per day up to four hours.  They also have a mock kindergarten classroom, where all 12th graders who want to be kindergarten teachers in their future will spend 2 hours of their day.  No little children will actually attend, however, they develop lesson plans,activities,as well as read and write children stories.  They must create an atmosphere as if it were their own classroom.. They spend time weekly, acting as the teacher and teaching their peers nursery ryhmes and vocabulary etc...

have you ever seen....

3 seated bike

A cuter boy, keep asking the same thing in Chinese over and over, no clue what he was saying!

a gas mask in a hotel room in--yeah that made me nervous!!

A mail bike....

A school lunch from a Chinese school dinning hall

tried     Chinese dumplings

Another school lunch

Seen how they cook duck...peking duck is a very common dish here

taken this kind of taxi cab?

tried Chinese fruit at the market square

a way to keep food from home hot ( I guess an old fashioned microwave oven)

TRAFFIC IN CHINA!!!!!

Fruit that looks like this?

A more UNCOMFORTABLE bed than this?

a dog wearing pants?

Day 4 Hebei Museum and another school visit

Today we visited the Hebi Museum and learned how ancient Chinese artifacts and porceline have evolved over time.  The time period and the different dynasties had many influeneces on the uses of the artifacts.  

an interesting article I happen to read today

http://asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/how-high-performing-nations-teach-global-skills

Chinese Tea Ceremony and then a rest

Day 3 afternoon visit school #3

My 3rd and final visit of the day was to a vocational/technology high school school, highly regarded in the city for tourism preparation.  Today happened to be an exam day, so we were able to see many finished projects, including that of the culinary arts students and the beautician program.  (They had to make a girl up for her wedding day.)  The two programs that I was surprised to see as electives were a bar tending school and golf training school.  I was very impressed with the 3-D interactive tourism lecture hall.  Students wear 3-D glasses while peers give a full tour guide of 10 most common tourist   attractions around China, with the ability to span a camera in all angles during the tour.  The other was the self-directed language lab, where students can learn English, Korean and/or Japanese.

Pictures of plates made my culinary art students:most of them are made of fish