BonnerSprings.com

With the Olympics set to begin Friday, the world's eyes are on China, and one Bonner Springs educator got an early, up-close look at the country.

Kim Mitchell, principal of Bonner Springs Elementary, participated in a tour of China this summer with a delegation of about 400 U.S. educators. Mitchell was selected to visit China through the Chinese Bridge to American Schools program of the Chinese Language Council International, a non-governmental, nonprofit organization affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education.

The program is intended to help American educators learn about the Chinese language, culture and education system, and to establish ties with schools in China.

Although her trip in the last week of June included seeing the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Olympic Village, Mitchell said her favorite part of the trip had nothing to do with historical or new-fangled tourist sights.

The best part was "definitely touring the schools, just making connections with other educators," Mitchell said. "They were so excited to hear about American schools : The teachers were very friendly and outgoing," though few of them spoke much English.

"The smallest school we toured had 1,700 students," Mitchell said. Still, the elementary school was "like ours, very-child centered. It felt like an elementary school anywhere."

Mitchell said visiting schools in the Shanxi province gave her something to think about in regard to her school's curricula.

"The kids only study four subjects: math, science, Chinese history, culture and morals, then English," Mitchell said.

They take a break in the middle of the day, Mitchell said, and participate in clubs such as calligraphy, vocal music, art, science and robotics, then return to classes that run into the evening.

Although they were using "what we would consider big, old computers," Mitchell said, "the kids were excited to use them," and had no problems making use of them.

"The kids were showing me digital pictures, representations of math equations" they made on the old computers, Mitchell said.

Teach it well

What Mitchell got out of touring the schools, she said, was that "they do less but they do it better - it just seemed more relaxed, slowed down. They didn't try to cram so much" into each day.

"Their whole premise is, 'We're just going to teach that and teach it well,'" Mitchell said, of the four subjects taught in public schools through the equivalent of ninth grade.

By American standards, reading is conspicuously absent as one of the four subjects taught in Chinese public schools. Mitchell asked about that, and the explanation was that reading is integrated into all the subjects, she said.

"It's the parents' job," Mitchell said, to make sure their child knows how to read before starting school.

Mitchell said she figured Chinese parents might be more willing and enthusiastic about this responsibility than their American counterparts, because of the Chinese government's one-child policy.

friends are family

The children, she said, "were so polite, so kind to each other, I noticed right off the bat," Mitchell said. "Our tour guide pointed out they have no siblings; so their friends are truly family."

Likewise, Mitchell said she thought Chinese students feel pressured to do well academically because so much attention has been lavished on them as only children.

The high school Mitchell's group visited "was like a university," she said, with 2,200 students.

"It looked like a university," she said, with "beautiful grounds and beautiful buildings."

Through the equivalent of ninth grade, school is compulsory for Chinese children, and then they take a test to determine whether they go on to further academic studies or to join the military or train for menial work, Mitchell said.

"If they do well, they go to an elite high school," she said.

The American educational system was a source of amazement to Chinese students, Mitchell said.

"It floored them," she said, to learn that "anyone can go to a university in the U.S."

Scholarships are literally a foreign concept, as are student loans, Mitchell said.

The headmistress at one of the schools Mitchell's group visited pulled her and another educator aside at one point to ask if she could come visit their schools.

"We're trying to work it out for her to spend time in both our schools this December," Mitchell said.

In a fog

The five days Mitchell spent in Beijing were also rewarding, she said.

They saw the Olympic Village, including the so-called Bird's Nest, the radically styled Olympic stadium.

"We drove right by it," Mitchell said. "I was frustrated it was so smoggy that day."

In fact, Mitchell said, she didn't see a blue sky for her entire stay in Beijing, as a result of the smog, or "fog," as the Chinese call it.

Beijing was different in at least one respect from how Mitchell had been led to believe it would be, she said.

"The street vendors were all moved out," Mitchell said. "Everyone said we would be bombarded. There were none."

When her group visited the Forbidden City in Beijing, Mitchell said she was surprised to see so many Chinese tourists.

She learned that was because "travel restrictions were just lifted several years ago," meaning until then, many Chinese people had never been able to visit their own country's cultural treasures.

A Communist Party official greeted her group at the airport and stayed with them for their visit, Mitchell said, so the information they received was "very controlled," she said.