EXPERIENCING CHINA

You probably know that Metro offers Mandarin Chinese as one of our foreign language options. During the summer, Pinpin Peng, our Chinese teacher, took 17 Metro students to Beijing for a cultural field study. The students quickly learned that they needed to work harder on studying the language, but they had a great time anyway.

They stayed in a Beijing live-in high school and participated in language and cultural classes (art, kung fu, kite-making). From what I heard, they sampled a wide variety of Chinese dishes as well as China’s version of McDonalds and KFC.

The group visited many amazing ancient sites such as the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace.

They also had an opportunity to spend a day at Xin Hua, a modern high school that has partnered with them to become Metro’s sister school. After exchanging gifts and spending time together, the students and their new friends plan to continue their friendship by meeting virtually through Metro’s distance technology equipment in our classroom.

All of the world travelers agreed that their Chinese counterparts take school more seriously and work much harder than American high school students. This is not exactly new information, but hopefully it will inspire them to put in some extra effort to stay competitive.

The students presented a slide show of their photos and told of their observations at Battelle in October in a brown-bag sponsored by the Diversity Council. In addition, their cultural study papers and journals are being prepared for publication by the PAST Foundation.

Kalena, Lena and Zunera at the Great Wall