We were welcomed with open arms on all our visits from the University, to the two high schools and at the orphanage. The people of China have been very gracious and honorble hosts for our visit. Indeed, I just got back from wandering the streets of Xi'an where I randomly picked a place for lunch... where I was instantly greeted by a student welcomed me in english and offered to teach me some Chinese.
I was very impressed by the rigor of the student schedule at the schools we visited. The class sizes are about 45 per room and the lessons are very rigorous. There seems to be lot of lecture format classes, but project-based learning is not absent as I observed students working on lego robots and doing caligraphy. Sports are taken a little differently as the main gym each school I visited, from the International School, to both high schools in Tianjin, had no place for spectators. Competition is among the students and is not a spectator event on the whole.
The students were very open to meeting our students and we saw many smiles and gifts exchanged. The faculty was very warm and open to speaking about any topic. I found the Principals at both schools to be very knowledgable and supportive of collaboration between our schools.
The likely path to success will be:
1. Exchange formalities between schools in writing. This process has alreayd begun, but should include some discussion with school leaders about what kinds of ground-rules we all need to follow to make sure our efforts are successful. These will forma framework for our communications.
2. Tackle one collaborative project this year with interested teachers from Tianjin and Littleton. We should look for efforts like shared blogs or common assignments such as a report on World War II in social studies class. Our best chance is to use the district blogs as they seem to get through the firewalls in China. Perhaps the district logos and supervision makes our blogs more acceptable. We can make use of Skype for some video calls, but we will likely be more successful if the calls originate from China.
3. Exchange visits can emerge from the collaborative efforts. Once students in either Littleton or Tianjin, China have made some acquaintances, short exchanges will be more successful as visits will begin with friends.
4. Extended exchanges may result possibly with students and teachers exchanging for 6 months.