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Published: October 16th 2009
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Today the teachers and fellows spent the morning presenting their lessons to college students at JIE’s main campus. These students are training to become middle school teachers. The purpose of these lectures is to offer the students an example of an inquiry-based lesson but, more important, it shows them how they can teach the materials and incorporate this different style of instruction into their classrooms. One of the students told Leo that he attended Dangkou Middle School and hopes to return as a teacher. Dr. Hua walked me around to each class so that I could take photos and listen for a few minutes. I spent the remaining time in Mariah and Helen’s classroom, where the students designed an experiment to produce the tallest Coca-Cola geyser. Each group presented its design then we went outside for them to test. It was a lot of fun to watch the students get so excited when their designs worked well. Some of the geysers were at least 10 feet tall. We returned to the classroom so that Mariah and Helen could recap the lesson and discuss the importance of experimental design. The students then had an opportunity to ask any questions they had, which
focused on descriptions of typical American students.
Our lunch was fairly quiet. A number of people are feeling slightly ill while the rest of us are just tired. (The weather has been warm and humid, with little air conditioning.) Those of us who were feeling fine then traveled with Jon, Leo, and Jackie to the JIE campus at Pukou, located across the Yangtze River.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is construction everywhere. As we crossed the Yangtze, we could see multiple apartment complexes being built. Each complex has dozens of buildings, with 10-30 stories. The vast amount of new construction makes it seem as if the government one day decided to build cities from nothing, all across the country and all at once. Leo pointed out that the plant leaves were coated with dust and dirt.
The Pukou campus is in a more rural/suburban setting. This campus prepares elemenetary teachers. Jon provided the introduction then Leo and Jackie presented their lesson on polymers. Finally, Jon led the audience in a discussion about the features of classroom inquiry. He asked the students to describe what science questions were used to engage them in the lesson.
A student provided an answer that lasted at least five minutes. Eventually, Dr. Hua called timeout and ended her response. When Jon asked his second question, nobody wanted to answer!
Jon invited all fellows and teachers to join him onstage to answer any questions from the students.
1. What are the requirements for admission to Purdue? And does Purdue offer Chinese food?
2. How do math teachers incorporate inquiry into the classroom?
3. One student mentioned that the silly putty she made today is not like the silly putty she had as a child.
4. What are the different benefits about living at school, renting a room, or in a homestay?
5. You have said that inquiry is not the only teaching method. Where is inquiry on the priority list of different teaching methods?
6. Can this method apply to other subjects beyond science and math?
7. Please describe the voting system in the US. She followed up with a question about our thoughts of Obama. There was a lot of applause when someone mentioned having worked on the Obama presidential campaign in Lafayette.
8. What preparations do you make before class?
9. How many students are in your classes?
10. How many subjects does a student take?
11. Do you know much about the Chinese education system? If so, how can you improve it?
Jon calculated that the fellows and teachers have impacted 200 in-service teachers and 500 pre-service teachers in the past three days. Not too bad!
The schools don’t have drinking fountains. Instead, they have hot water dispensers that they can use to fill up their lidded, clear plastic bottles with tea leaves in the bottom. I couldn’t drink hot beverages all day - especially when it’s hot outside - but I guess that they have little choice when their water supply constantly needs to be boiled.
We had 30 minutes to take a brief tour of their pretty, little campus. There is a nice pond in front of the main building that has a stone walkway through the middle of it. We then ventured towards the back of the property, where the dorms are located. A few people asked what the rooms are like so the administrator took us inside to peek into a couple of rooms. We felt bad because the students, like typical college kids, were taking naps when we interrupted
them. At this school, the rooms accommodate four students. Each person has a bed lofted above a multi-purpose space that holds the desk, vanity, and closet. These rooms all have a shower and sink area, with a very small patio or balcony. We laughed when we saw that the shower is located directly above the toilet in the floor. Very efficient!
We left the Pukou campus to go back to the main campus. It meant, unfortunately, that we had to say goodbye to our interpreter, the JIE chem. professor. It was a real pleasure to work with her this past week and we’re sorry that she cannot join us for the final celebratory dinner tomorrow evening. From the university, we were driven to our hotel for an hour’s worth of rest.
We had another evening on our own and decided to venture in the opposite direction as previous evenings to go to the KFC. It was rather funny trying to order American food at an American fast food place in China. They finally took pity on us and brought out the picture menu with English subscript. I had a spicy chicken sandwich, mashed potatoes, and a 7-Up. Again,
the American food was a welcome change of pace from the Chinese food. Someone then ordered a hot fudge sundae and most of the rest of us followed suit. (It tasted just like one from McD’s.) After dinner, we crossed the very busy street to check out the all-purpose grocery store. We had a humorous interaction with one of the employees as we tried to figure out which bottle of winebwe had been drinking. Whenever Chinese people see Ming, they think that he can speak Mandarin. She was no different. She kept speaking Chinese to me and my absolutely clueless looks didn’t stop her. I would turn to Ming and she would continue talking in rapid-fire Chinese to him. Eventually he was able to tell her that he is from Guangzhou (where they speak Cantonese) and she switched languages. Then we had better luck. It was fun to explore all of the Chinese versions of American products. For example, Lay’s makes potato chips in these flavors: beef steak, tomato, blueberry, lime (very sweet, FYI), etc. Some other people were adventurous but I had enough of the lime chips the other day. I headed towards the cookies and chocolate section because
familiar companies (Hersheys, Nestle, Cadbury, etc.) tend to offer really good stuff outside the US. I picked up some cute little packages of Hersheys kisses with Chinese wrappers. After everybody made their purchases, we walked back to the hotel.
Tomorrow should be another good day. We start the morning with a tour of the Gang Xi residence then head to the Confucius temple and the markets. We close our portion in Nanjing with the celebratory dinner.
A final note. There has been much coverage lately on CNN and BBC about Chinese wealth. China trails only the US in terms of numbers of billionaires. To put it in perspective, China has ~50 billionaires (depends on the source; I could have SWORN that CNN said 120 but Forbes lists it at 52), Russia has 32, India has 24, and Brazil has 12. The wealthiest man doesn come close to Bill Gates or Warren Buffett - he "only" has ~$5.2B. But these numbers begin to explain the massive creation of wealth in this country.
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