Olivia and Joy
Several English teachers took us out to dinner each night.
Audrey, Malan, Olivia, Joy, Peter, Emily, and Mike all made us feel very welcome!
Mike
Malan
Malan and Peter
Emily
Monday, July 9, 2012
Shengli Primary School - Qian Tang Campus
Front Entrance
Principal Zhang, Deb McClintock, Anna Marie Burrell, Assistant Principal
Happy Faces!
Ready to Learn!
Emily is teaching an English class
Students exercising on the track
Principal Zhang and students at the track
Open windows on either side of the classrrom are their only air conditioning.
There are great smiles no matter what the weather is!
The fencing is to keep cars out of the front entrance, not people!
Four floors of great learning!
Surrounded by the apartment homes of the students!
Parents and Grandparents can keep a close eye on the school!
A pretty courtyard looks out on the track
Another pretty courtyard area
Students have their backpacks ready to go home when they return from their P.E. class.
The teachers share an office down the hallway. They travel to the student classes. Six teachers share this office. Teachers teach classes half of the day and the other half they spend grading papers and preparing lessons.
Shengli Primary School also sent students home on Thursday afternoons so the teachers could collaborate and attend workshops.
Artwork displayed in the Art Room
More 3-D Artwork!
Beautiful Artwork made by the Art teacher hanging in the hallway.
More beautiful artwork!
Mr. Zhang sees the students off. Parents and Grandparents come to pick up the students from school.
Shengli Primary School - Zan Cheng campus
The Gymnasium
Badminton courts, Basketball hoops, Dance bar and mirrors
The Library
A quiet place to read
The Music and Dance Studio
10 Practice Rooms complete with a Piano in each one
The Caligraphy Classroom - student work is on wall
The Caligraphy Teacher is making a special message to send back to Harrison Elementary
Students walking in outside hallways
Kids will be kids everywhere in the world. They always find ways to have fun and show off!
Flat Stanley visits Shengli Primary School, Hangzhou, China
Flat Stanley enjoyed visiting with the students at Shengli Primary School, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Happy Students!
The students were excited to meet Mrs. Burrell and I! They made us feel very welcome!
Competition Race Track
Older students design and build race cars to race against each other as part of the curriculum.
Front Entrance of Shengli Primary School - Zan Cheng campus
This is the front entrance. There are examples of student work on the display boards in the front of the picture. There is a grand piano covered with a green cloth behind the pictures. Students take turns each morning playing the grand piano as the other students are arriving to school and going to their classrooms. There is no central office at the entry. The school is open to parents and grandparents to come into the school when they need to. There is no bus transportation. Students walk to school and are often accompanied by parents or grandparents before and after school.
Aerial View of Shengli Primary School - Zan Cheng Campus
This is a picture of the Zan Cheng campus of Shengli Primary School taken from Principal Zhang's 11th floor apartment next to the school. He keeps a close eye on the school at all times! : - )
Shengli Primary School has two campuses. This is the newer campus built about 10 years ago. There are over 2,000 students and 150 teachers that learn and work at these two schools. There are over 1,000 students at each campus.
There are assistant principals at each campus that help Principal Zhang oversee the daily happenings at each school. Principal Zhang has a very big job!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Shengli Primary School
The principals or their representatives came from all the schools to pick us up and take us to their school. Mr. McClintock went with a group of people to Taizhou Baiyun Primary School. This was about a 3 1/2 hours away.
Anna Marie Burrell and I went with the principal, Mr. Zhang, and a translator from his school to our partner school, Shengli Primary School.
We were warmly welcomed by the students, faculty and staff. We walked through the hallway being greeted by students smiling and waving and saying, "Hello!" We went to Mr. Zhang's office and he gave us a schedule he asked us to look over and see if there were any changes we would like to make. We were very happy doing whatever he felt comfortable allowing us to do. He had lots of experiences planned for us to participate in observing and teaching in classrooms. It sounded great to us. Anna Marie Burrell is an architect and a partner with Schmidt and Associates. It is an architecture firm based in Indianapolis. Their firm designed and oversaw the Warsaw Community High School's Performing Arts Center. She had pictures on her IPad of the building. She was interested in seeing what schools in China looked like and what they needed in their schools because her firm specialized in designing schools. We had a wonderful day. We ate in their school cafeteria and were taken out to dinner by a group of 5 English teachers to a fancy restaurant. We enjoyed it very much!
Fly to Hangzhou
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
We flew to Hangzhou. This is a beautiful town that not many Westerners visit. Many Chinese people visit this beautiful city for its beauty. This is a great vacation destination for the Chinese people. It reminded me of an East Coast resort town in the United States. Lots of expensive car dealerships and designer stores. We walked through a very crowded park at West Lake. People from the country who were visiting here may have never seen someone from the West. They were very curious and many wanted their picture taken with us. We had fun taking pictures of them taking pictures of us. Everyone was kind and we all had fun. We went on a boat ride around West Lake, too!
We got back to the hotel just in time to get dressed up in our best clothes to go to a fancy dinner at the Department of Foreign Affairs Department complete with name cards at each place, fancy dishes, a printed menu with the name of all the 10 courses we would be served, and more glasses and silverware than I knew what to use it all for. It was very lovely. We were seated at a very large round table covered with a gold colored tablecloth. We were treated like very important guests of the country of China. It was a very special experience.
Terracotta Warriors
Monday, April 9, 2012
We got to go and see the warriors today. It is an impressive sight to see! There are 5 different kinds of warriors and each one has a different face. There are horses and chariots in a building that is over 3 football fields long. The warriors are over 2,000 years old. When they dig them out of the ground many of them are painted bright colors, but as soon as the air touches them the paint crumbles off of them. They have left most of the warriors buried hoping that they will discover a technique that will allow them to preserve the beautiful colors sometime in the future.
We also went to an art museum and got a caligraphy lesson in how to paint Chinese writing. I have a lot to learn! It was a very interesting museum.
Terracotta Warriors at Xi'an
Sunday, April 8, 2012
We flew to Xi'an. This is where the Terracotta Warriors were discovered. We went to see the wall that surrounds the city and we walked on this wall, too. This one was flat on the top and much easier to walk on. It was 9 1/2 miles all the way around. Tomorrow we will go to see the warriors. They are life sized clay statues and each one is different. There are 8,000 buried at this site. They have uncovered and put back together 2,000. It is an amazing thing to see. We got to meet the man who first discovered the warriors while he and 2 friends were digging a well. He is 79 years old.
The Great Wall
Saturday, April 7, 2012
We drove to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall! We rode on a ski lift from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the wall. There are 5 sections of the Great Wall that have been restored so that you can climb it. I do mean climb! There were no flat areas. It was all stairs of different heights and sizes. You had to really watch what you were doing! The stairs were so steep that in areas people were climbing down backwards or sitting down and scooting down the steps on their bottoms! It was very hard work! It was amazing just to think you were climbing on this ancient structure that you'd heard and read so much about! Different sites have different ways of getting back down after you have climbed. This section of the wall had a metal tobaggon run that you could ride to the bottom instead of going on a ski lift. I rode the toboggan down to the bottom! Stanley was in my backpack, too! It was great fun!
We drove to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall! We rode on a ski lift from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the wall. There are 5 sections of the Great Wall that have been restored so that you can climb it. I do mean climb! There were no flat areas. It was all stairs of different heights and sizes. You had to really watch what you were doing! The stairs were so steep that in areas people were climbing down backwards or sitting down and scooting down the steps on their bottoms! It was very hard work! It was amazing just to think you were climbing on this ancient structure that you'd heard and read so much about! Different sites have different ways of getting back down after you have climbed. This section of the wall had a metal tobaggon run that you could ride to the bottom instead of going on a ski lift. I rode the toboggan down to the bottom! Stanley was in my backpack, too! It was great fun!
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Hangzhou
We flew to Hangzhou this morning we went on a boat ride around West Lake. It was very beautiful. We got quite a bit if attention because they don't see Westerners here that often. We then went to a tea plantation. It was very interesting. We got back with just enough time to get ready for a very special reception at the Department of Foreign Affairs. It was a very lovely 10 course meal and welcoming hosts. We felt very honored. We will be picked up by our host schools tomorrow morning. I'm excited to meet everyone there. I better get to bed, so that I will be ready.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Tiannamin Square and Forbidden City
Friday, April 6, 2012
We went to Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world. We also visited the Forbidden City, where only the Emperor and his family could enter at one time. This was the home of the Emperor. Now it is open to everyone! We also went to see the Emperor's Summer Palace. It has beautiful gardens and a lake, too! We took a ride on a dragon boat there!
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Memorial to the Workers in Tiananmen Square  |
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