China Journey

Hello,

The following pictures show what student life is like at the Jinan Foreign Language School Primary.  The school has 1400 students and goes from kindergarten through grade 6.  This is a private school and very expensive for parents.  Students board at the school during the week and go home over the weekend.  I will be spending the day tomorrow at the middle school speaking to them about beginning a connected after school program using the internet for both of our seventh or eighth grade students.  More about the project if it can be arranged at this end. 

Mr. Lazaroff 

Hello!

I am presently at our Sister School, Jinan Foreign Language School in Jinan, China.  Last evening I taught two classes in the fourth grade.  I had brought pictures of our school within a PowerPoint presentation and they were most impressed with:

      1.  Students do not have to wear uniforms and the desks can be moved!

      2.  They thought our children were “beautiful” and “cute” (of course!).  When you see their pictures on my return I think you’ll agree the same about them!

      3.  They liked the idea of having 20 students to a class.  The normal class size at this school is 36 in all classes. 

      4.  They commented on how clean and nice our school looked.  They especially liked the large banners hanging in our cafe.  They were glad that we also teach students about honesty, responsibility, citizenship, and kindness toward others.

      5.  They were surprised that our school was so big with only 650 students.

I have put together a PowerPoint presentation that I look forward to sharing with everyone about all of my adventures.  I am off tomorrow (Thursday) to meet with the Middle School principal to talk about a special, after school program designed to allow our intereted eighth grade students to work with eighth graders in Jinan via the internet.  More about that when I return.

I’m afraid I cannot upload pictures at this time (it’s been the only problem I’ve encountered while here), but I am bringing all of them back with me to share with you soon. 

Tomorrow is a very busy day as I am traveling to another school, but I will try to add a post as soon as I can.

Mr. Lazaroff

Hello from China!

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to write.  Mrs. Ekstrom, please let your children know that on Tuesday I will be teaching a class and sharing their great cards and drawings with those students.  Right now I am housed at the Primary school (grades k-4), but later this week I will be visiting the Middle School and will be giving the cards to those students.  I’ve already been told that communication between our classes is both wanted and possible. More on that later.

My journey so far has been fantastic!  We flew into Beijing (24 hours of travel) on Tuesday/Wednesday of this past week.  Unfortunately, the computer I brought along did not work with their internet connections and I was not able to write to you until now (Sunday evening).  There is exactly 12 hours difference between us (so right now it is 9:45 PM for me, and 9:45 AM for you on Easter Sunday).  We have been visiting many historic sites and even ate one evening with a Chinese family in their kitchen.  The food is wonderful and using chop sticks is getting easier and easier! 

Today I had a 5 hour train ride from Beijing to Jinan.  Shandong Province is China’s “bread basket” and all along the way we saw farm after farm.  The Chinese love their veggies and much of the land is given to growing them. 

Since I just got to the school this evening I have not had an opportunity to see if I can upload pictures to this site using the school computer.  If I can, my next communications will include pictures of the school and sites I’ve visited earlier this week.  Tomorrow morning I get to address the students for the first time.  There are 1,400 students in grades k-4 at this school.  That should be interesting!

Please check back each day as I will be at the school until Friday morning when we head back north to the capital and plan on posting now on a regular basis.

Have a wonderful vacation!

Mr. Lazaroff

Welcome to Edublogs.org. I leave tomorrow (4/11/06) for China.  In all, it will take about 20 to 24 hours of traveling to reach Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China.  Once there I plan on sharing with you the daily agenda and to post comments and pictures of what I see and experience.  Feel free to add your thoughts, ask questions or make requests.  Ideas to consider might include:  What would we like to see our relationship with our Sister School grow into?  If you got the chance to travel to China would you?  Why or why not?  China has a very old culture, what might we learn from them?  What might they learn from us?  Should Chinese be taught at HWP?  Why or why not? 

I will write again once the plane lands!  Hope to hear from you soon.

Mr. Lazaroff