Wuhan English Class

This is a picture of a 1st grade teacher teaching English (yes they start in 1st grade and it is incredibly effective).  This particular teacher is considered the best primary English teacher in Wuhan and after sitting through her entire class, I would have to believe that she is.  She is an absolute dynamo who kept, get this, 48 1st grade students ACTIVELY engaged in the lesson for 45 minutes!  The students were learning to say, "Mama, what's for breakfast, I'm hungry for milk and corn flakes/orange juice/ a roll/ ham/toast and jam/etc."  The entire class was conducted in English at first grade! It was very impressive.  The primary classes are organized just like our MS abd HS, the students change classes every 45 min. And the teachers specialize in a subject area.  I have heard/read many times that this is not possible or advisable at the early grades, well China obviously hasn't heard that and it works very well for them.

Wuhan Badminton School

This is a picture at what they call a primary school, which is grades 1-6.  This is a unique primary school in that it specializes in teaching the students how to play, get this, badminton!  Yes, the students are sent here because their parents want them to learn badminton from amateur and professional badminton players who are their badminton instructions.  The students spend 1.5 hours per day learning badminton.  In this picture, the students are all out in the activity area in front of the school doing their morning exercises in unison led by two of their students who have proven to be the best at it.  Before they went out, all of the students had to do a 5 minute eye massage ritual to protect their vision which is strained from all of the required reading.  What is interesting is that I haven't met anyone who thinks it is useful.

Wuhan MS #26

This a picture of Mr. Zhu's Wuhan MS #26 where I spent the day on Monday.  I was very impressed with the administrators, teachers and students.  The staff is very professional and curious about America, and contrary to the media portrayal that America is universally despised, the Chinese demonstrate and verbalize a very deep and genuine appreciation and respect for America and Americans.  Now we just need to disabuse them of the Hollywood image of America, which is all many of them know about us.  I'm working on it but I probably won't get to all 1.3 billion of them by Sunday! 

Wuhan

I arrived in Wuhan on Saturday evening, April 17.  It is a large, bustling city of 9 million people.  It is the stereotypical large Chinese city you tend to have a picture of in your mind.  There are modern high-rise buildings right beside buildings that are being torn down by hand with sledge hammers.  There are a million little shops, and I don't mean places where you go shopping, but little holes in the wall where there is constant activity but it is impossible to tell what anyone is really doing or trying to accomplish.  The city is continuously shrouded in either fog or smog or both, and I don't think there is a light bulb anywhere with more than 25 watts, which with the sm(f)og creates this very dingy atmosphere.  Finally, their traffic is absolute chaos; there are no rules and no traffic lights, they don't believe in them.  They pull out into oncoming traffic to force them to stop so they can't get to the other side of the rode.  Pedestrians have no right of way; might makes right!  There has to be a lot of people killed here by being run over - It's crazy, and the horn is the most frequently used part on the vehicle, even though blowing the horn has been outlawed!   

Having given that description, there are several beautiful landmarks and some places of incredible natural beauty.  I can't share any pictures with you yet because I have no internet access via the computer; I am typing this email on my Blackberry for Wes Weaver to post.  I won't have internet again until Friday when I go to Shanghai.

I spent all day yesterday in Mr. Zhu's school and what a great experience that was!  They told us that we would be treated like rock stars in the schools by botht the teachers and students and that is exactly how it was.  The first thing we did was the flag-raising ceremony, after which Mr. Zhu and then I addressed the 3000 students and staff.  Following the welcome and speeches, I had a meeting with all of the school administrators and Communist Party officials, who select the principals, and they had many, many questions for me about how our schools are structured and operated.  The students, teachers, principals and party officials have many misperceptions about American education and America in general.  They see American movies and TV shows and think that is reality.  I enjoyed debunking the myths, which is one of the main reasons for this exchange program.  Everyone was very welcoming and genuinely excited for my visit, the hospitality is first class!  I'll post more when I can.

Great Wall

Today, Friday, April 16, we visited the one and only Great Wall.  Like many of you, I have been reading about and seeing pictures of this monument to human achievement since my early days of elementary school and honestly never expected to actually see it and touch it and walk on it; but I did, today!  It is a surreal experience.  I am not going to tell you the history of the Wall, that is well documented by much smarter people than me, so I am just going to share some pictures with you from my 3 hours on the Wall.

Believe it or not, and I did not know this until we got to the Great Wall, but you take a cable car up to the wall because the hike up would take several hours and by the time you got there, you would be too exhausted to walk the Wall.  This is a short video of our ride up on the cable car.

Dave

Flat Stinger at the Great Wall!

Videos - Great Wall and Chinese school