Newtown Family Hosts Chinese Principal

By Nancy K. Crevier

Collecting information so that it can be disseminated to others in a useful manner can be challenging under the best of circumstances. But gathering that information in a country where you do not speak the language adds an additional barrier, one that Liu Shaohua of Zibo City, Shandong province, China, and 17 of his colleagues from that province are attempting to hurdle this week as they visit sister schools throughout Connecticut.

Mr Liu, the principal and senior teacher of 6,000 students between the ages of 16 and 18 at No. 4 High School, Shandong, arrived in Newtown as the guest of Ted and Tina Welsh and their family on Thursday, October 18. He will shadow Mr Welsh at Norwalk High School, where Mr Welsh teaches history, meet with other Norwalk teachers and administrators, and absorb as much information as possible before heading out to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles to culminate his 12-day trip to the United States.

Mr Liu met with The Bee Sunday evening, October 21, at the home of Peter and Tracy Van Buskirk, friends of the Welshes. Mr Liu’s English vocabulary is very limited, so it was through the efforts and graciousness of Mr Welsh and Ms Van Buskirk, both of whom drew on past fluency in the Mandarin language, that the interview was conducted.

The experience has been very interesting so far, said Mr Welsh, as his family and Mr Liu attempt to communicate and provide Mr Liu with an insightful first visit to America.

“The visit to Newtown has been very, very good,” said Mr Liu. “Ted has been awesome. Chinese people are always very hospitable, so it is nice to come to another place where people are equally hospitable.” As if to illustrate his point about Chinese hospitality, he presented the Van Buskirks with a gift of plum tea and a bamboo-trimmed rice paper fan upon his arrival at their home. Seven Chinese characters run vertically down each fold of the fan, and read from right to left, it is a poem from the era of the Tang dynasty, he explained.

The planning for Mr Liu’s visit began nearly a year ago, Mr Welsh said, when he began to consider taking a trip to China with members of his AP comparative politics class at Norwalk High School.

It was through the ongoing Connecticut-Shandong Program social studies consultant for the Department of Education for the State of Connecticut Dan Gregg that Mr Welsh was able to pull together an exchange that involves not only Mr Liu’s visit to Norwalk High School, but a visit to Zibo City No. 4 High School in Shandong in March for Mr Welsh and 14 of his students.

Rooted in an economic and business relationship that began between the governments of Connecticut and Shandong province in 1986, in 2002 Mr Gregg received a Fulbright Scholarship that enabled him to take 18 Connecticut teachers to China and that initiated the Connecticut-Shandong Program.

“The theme was ‘China Economy in Transition’ and you could see the economic boom. I knew of the business relationship, so I contacted the deputy of education in Shandong and we agreed to develop an education relationship. I had no idea where we’d go with this,” said Mr Gregg.

Where they went was into a quickly signed agreement between Shandong province and Connecticut in 2003. The agreement was renewed in 2005 and emphasizes teacher and student exchanges and school partnerships. There are currently 75 schools in Connecticut partnered with schools in Shandong at this time.

“This effort by Ted [Welsh] will establish a relationship between the No 4 High School and Norwalk High School,” said Mr Gregg.

It is for logistical reasons that the sister schools are in just one province of China, explained Mr Gregg. Setting up exchanges in just one area of China simplifies a very complex process. With more than 90 million people in Shandong province alone, there are plenty of opportunities for schools to be paired up, he said. “We try to make a match based upon ‘grade’ levels and the size of schools, but it is difficult because Chinese schools are so much bigger. But it works out well,” he said.

Education is taken very seriously in China, said Mr Gregg, and since relationships between the United States and China thawed in 1978, China has sent an enormous number of educators to the United States. “The ministry of education is eager to have new ideas and is even giving some schools latitude to be experimental. The educators who have come to the United States do implement teaching skills they observe here,” Mr Gregg said.

Funding for administrators and teachers from China to visit Connecticut is undertaken fully by the government of education in China, and for Connecticut educators who wish to visit Shandong province, Mr Gregg has been able to provide partial funding from the Freeman Foundation or through local development funds. “Most of the time,” he said, “school systems cover the costs.”

He sees the program as not only an educational opportunity for teachers and students, but as a way of creating trust and creating close, personal friendships that can benefit both countries.

Mr Liu had already visited New York City and the requisite tourist stops there by the time Sunday had rolled around, and had spent a good part of Sunday in New Haven with a friend from China, where he visited the Yale campus. “I liked New York City very much,” said Mr Liu.

He also noted that the Newtown area has many more trees than Zibo City. His hometown is a city of 400,000 in central Shandong province and is in a mountainous area. Only in the parks and forested mountaintops, he said, are there as many trees as here. “The scenery here is very beautiful,” Mr Liu commented. But the focus of this visit for the 24-year teaching veteran is primarily business.

Through Ms Van Buskirk, Mr Liu explained that he and the other visitors from Shandong province are here to study teaching methods in the United States. “Then we can go back to China and compare methods and take advantage of any beneficial teaching styles we learn,” he said. He was anxious to meet with administrators at Norwalk High School this week he said, and hoped that with Mr Welsh’s help, he would be able to ask and get answers to some more technical aspects of running a school in America.

Mr Liu said that he had spent Friday, October 19, at Norwalk High School and observed some differences between the American school and his school in Zibo City. “The schedule here of students is very different from China. Here, there are fewer students in the classes,” said Mr Liu, adding that the average class at his school consists of 40 to 50 students. He also found the energy level of American student to be quite a bit above what he encounters at home. “Students here are very loud. In China, they don’t show so much emotion at school.”

The amount of moving about that American students do between classes was another big difference that Mr Liu noted. In China, he explained, the students stay in the same classroom all day, where each teacher for that level teaches two classes. The length of the school day in Shandong province is something to make American students appreciative of their schedule. Through Mr Welsh and Ms Van Buskirk, Mr Liu said that at his school, students begin classes at 7 am and go until 5:30 pm — six days of the week. Mornings are generally devoted to academics. There is a two-hour nap time scheduled after lunch during which all 6,000 students at No. 4 High School retire to dormitories each day to rest. The remainder of the afternoon consists of athletic, music, and similar type classes.

No student in China would think of appearing at school without a collared shirt or wearing flip-flops, said Mr Liu. “Many students wear uniforms. No jewelry is allowed. There are all different kinds of clothes at the school here,” observed Mr Liu.

Mr Liu said that he looks forward to the week he will spend in Newtown with his American family, and is equally excited that he will have the opportunity to host the Norwalk students in the spring.