chongqing -- a chance to teach

[Anonymous]

I guess I have my own take after watching China Prep. Most of the Chinese students I watched had a single focus in life: to do well on the Gao Kao. In my humble opinion, American students have to juggle a much wider array of responsibilities than their Chinese counterparts. Even the top students do have to go home and do chores, do stress out about playing high school sports or participating in other extra-curricular activities, are allowed to get involved in sometimes stressful interpersonal relationships, and often work part-time jobs to make ends meet and/or help support their families. Oh, did I forget to mention that they also have to go home and do several hours of homework as well, often in an environment that is not conducive to studying. And these students compete in an environment where the playing field is often not level. College admissions in this country are sometimes quite subjective and who you know can carry a lot of weight in the admissions process. I've said it before and I'll say it again: America has the brightest students on the planet, bar none. With that said, sure, I'd like to have more obedient students who show more reverence for the educational process. But often, we are not teaching teenagers. Rather, we are teaching young adults who bear many of the same responsibilities as their parents.
No one ever considers how our students would do if they trained under the same system as Chinese students. Simply put, they would excel. Back in the days when Olympic sports were a little purer (no "professional" athletes), Communist countries would basically train their athletes the same way they train their students for the Gao Kao. These athletes would basically be compensated to train and focus on one thing for several years: win a gold medal. They were competing against amateur American athletes who had a life outside of athletics and we were still the dominant sports country on the planet. Gao Kao or no Gao Kao, I'm not interested in training robots. I'd rather prepare critical thinkers to deal with the complex issues that face the world today. At the highest levels of government and in the corporate boardrooms around the world, there is no such thing as a multiple choice test. But there is always room for analytical, creative thinkers. And if you think my students are intimidated by Chinese students or the Chinese teaching model, you'd better think again. Recently China has been more open to business investment by American companies in exchange for American companies sharing their intellectual secrets or processes. We create, and we rarely imitate. That's why our students remain number one.

[Anonymous]

The prospect of teaching in Chongqing is mind-boggling. There are so many possibilities about how to structure a 20-minute mini-lesson. Nonetheless, I'm sure I can come up with something. What grade levels will be at the school and which grade level will we have an opportunity to teach? It would be really helpful if we knew this information as soon as possible as well as what subject matter we should focus on.

[Anonymous]

My students had some great questions when I told them that we get the chance to teach a lesson. They wondered if everyone would understand English and if they knew English as their second language. I also wonder what grade level/subject we shouldgear our lesson towards. My last day of work is next Thursday, June 1st. I really need to know so that I can take home the correct materials to plan before my school locks up for the summer.

[Anonymous]

I, like many of you, am excited at the possibiliy of teaching a lesson to high school students in Chongqing. I recently visited Chongqing Bashu Middle School in June 2010 as part of a US Delegation of teachers, administrators and elected officials. I wonder if some of the high students we visit this summer attended Chongwing Bashu MS.

[Anonymous]

I just found a cool blog about taking the night train from Beijing to Chongqing. The link is http://www.aroundtheworldl.com/2011/08/24/a-16-hour-fast-night-train-from-beijing-to-chongqing/. I learned that it is about 1,200 miles from Beijing to Chongqing, and that the sleeper train takes about 16 hours. It is cheaper than flying, and the rooms have amenities such as hot pots for tea and complimentary noodle snacks, tv, and little white slippers. Bathrooms are communal, but not always "squatty-potties." If we don't fly, it would be fun to go sleeper train.

[Anonymous]

I recently received an email from CASC about their October 2012 conference. It will be held at Cal Lutheran this year, which I believe is in your neighborhood, and relatively convenient for me. Since both of us are academic counselors, I was wondering if you would interested in working with me to submit a proposal to present topics relevant to our China/Taiwan trip at the conference. This kind of opportunity is exactly what I was hoping to have come along! We would have to work together on ideas and submit our proposal before we leave on our trip.
Let me know if you are interested in working together on this, so we can brainstorm.
lois

[Anonymous]

I'm thinking about teaching a theater games lesson. Any thoughts on this idea?

[Anonymous]

A few months ago, the UCLA History-Geography Project invited me to speak about and present a series of lessons that I did linking the French and Latin American revolutions to the Arab Spring movements in North Africa and the Middle East. The presentation was quite current and engaging, and lasted a little over thirty minutes. I would love to run an abridged version of this presentation and conduct it like a lesson. In it, I discuss the historical conditions/backdrops of each revolution and then have students analyze the reasons for revolt, comparing the parallels they all share. This lesson is directly tied to my World History curriculum and is something that I taught to my students this year (in the midst of these historical events unfolding). I do, however, fear that talking about this topic may be a big no-no. While this is a strictly historical/expository lesson, I do not know if what my lesson is about may be considered inappropriate by the school administration. Professor Dube, thoughts??

[Anonymous]

I can put together a lesson to teach students how to memorize facts: Would it be a better lesson plan to teach Chinese students how to memorize facts using technology? One of my Academic Decathlon Student who went to the state level competition shared with me his secret, plus some sites I use for our Japanse students to memorize Kanji, and 100s of hiragana, katakana through playing games. Since their goal is clear to win the memorization based exam... than folding a crane together in their classroom?

I like to find out if I could use their equipments, such as projector, white board, marker, etc. and also I have some questions: Students access to computers at the school site? and how many students have their own computers? Do they understand spoken English? (If the Gao Kao is more like Japanese Gao kao (jyuken), they put more emphasis on read/write (grammar) than speak/listen. In the case, their English won't be good enough to understand lesson prepared by US teachers. In the case I will put more visuals and probably need to prepare for the hand out materials (how many students?)

I need more information on the mini-lesson.

[Anonymous]

I just attended the CUE ifest today which was focused primarily on ipad and ipod touch ideas for teaching. Through Edmodo.com I saw how classes connect with other schools easily but not sure if Chinese schools would have access. Something to invistigate. Also, one of the edmodo communities has chinese mandrin under languages. I am still loving my mindsnacks app for mandarin Chinese and recommend it hightly. I have so many unanswered questions about our upcoming journey: Here are some of them: don't we need to make copies of our passports....but Venus has them so..when can we do this? When will we know who our roomates are?

[Anonymous]

I would love to teach a lesson about baseball. Since I have a bunch of small gifts from the Dodger organization, I think it would be fun to talk about Dodger baseball and some of the noteworthy figures-- I could spend twenty minutes on Vin and Nancy Bea alone and never get to the team! I practically grew up at Chavez Ravine, so I think I could get together a fairly cool presentation on the game in general and the Dodgers specifically.

[Anonymous]

Since we can't depend on any projector and overhead, I am thinking to take an US map from here (the map will be given to the class as my gift later) and play a 20min Jeopardy game show with the students. Winners of my questions will get a treat I will receive from Lakers. (I haven't got them yet as of today) Various questions will be covered from size of cities, longest river, state nicknames to Lady GaGa. I might be able to prepare a flashcard written in both Chinese and English (8x10 back to back), so they can learn English as well.
I am worried about the communication with them.

We teach the mini-lesson to high school students, right?

[Anonymous]

I have designed a theater games/ESL lesson with use of State Flashcards. I hope this works out okay. I plan to get them up and into a big circle..hope this is possible!

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
Thanks to a wonderful USC student and his parents, we'll be visiting a top school in Chongqing. While there, it appears likely that each of you will be able to go teach a mini-lesson (maybe 20 minutes) and then have the rest of the period to talk informally with the students. These students will be at school because they are preparing for the high pressure college entrance exam, the Gao Kao that Xin Jiang spoke about at the orientation. I know you'll have plenty of questions about what to teach, etc., but hold on to them for the moment as we're still working on the details.

What you should make sure of is that you'll have suitable clothes and that you'll have some small gifts to share with these students. Once again, you might involve your own students in the production of these. And perhaps they can be the subject of the lesson you'll teach.

I've mentioned it several times, but I don't know if any of you have watched the documentary -- shot in Chongqing -- on the preparations for the exam. It's mandatory viewing. Please let us know what you think of it and what kinds of things you'd like to bring to share with students.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/china-prep/video-full-episode/2722/

By the way - Aaron Brown, the talking head introducing the program, needs to brush up on his geography as well. The city of Chongqing has not been part of Sichuan province since 1997.

Please note -- the site also offers lesson plans, etc.

Are you ready to meet students similar to those featured in the program?

[Author]

Posts