Thursday, May 24th
Today started out like any other day at Sichuan University. While many students ride bikes to class, I enjoy the walk. The building where we hold classes is across the street from a 小学 (elementary school), so every day you can see parents dropping off their kids at school. I found myself growing somewhat jealous of the simpler lessons that they would learn.
In my class time was spent reviewing for our midterm tomorrow. My class, Intermediate I, only consists of four students, so we all get plenty of time to practice our speaking. We went over our homework from the night before and then played a game of charades to help us review the vocabulary for tomorrow's midterm. We had a hard time trying to portray less concrete nouns like 北 (North) and 东 (East)! We then practice the sentence structures that would be on the midterm.
Class ended around noon, and at 1:30 we all met up at the bus in order to go to our site visit for the day. Unfortunately, some students were late so we didn't end up leaving the university until about 1:50. Beforehand, we read an article about alternative education in China. We learned that a number of parents want to give their children opportunities outside of China's strict education system, so they sent them to alternative schools. Our site visit took us away from the hustle and bustle of the city and into the more rural areas of Chengdu to visit one of these alternative schools.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Mr. Chi, Xiao, the Principal of the Curionesty School (whose name is a combination of the English words "curiosity" and "honesty") and were immediately introduced to a strange site: an old bus being hollowed out! He informed us that the students were turning the old bus into a library with three levels as their engineering project for the year. Scattered around the schoolyard were construction tools and slabs of wood.
After a few minutes of looking around, we were lead into the school building. Representatives from four different schools explained to us what their schools taught. The first was the Principal of the Curionesty School, who explained that his school teaches the principles of curiosity, courage, and awareness. They teach students the classics, put that knowledge into action, and have students reflect upon what they were doing. The next speaker was Principal Liu. He explained that in his school, the Pioneer School, the curriculum is decided entirely by the students. He explained that this way, students will be doing things they actually enjoy. The third speaker was Teacher Yuan, who teaches Drama at Chengdu Play House. She said that by participating in the two-hour-a-day Drama program, students are able to explore themselves and what they really enjoy. Our final speaker was 风哥, Brother Wind, the founder of Shanhai Academy, an alternative college program. He explained he plans to expand his program into a major liberal arts college.
After all the speakers, the students allowed us to climb on top of the library bus and gaze out into the distant. We were quite scared that we were going to fall! After we were finished at the Curionesty School, we returned to campus. Most of us returned to our dorms to study for midterms and pack for our long weekend tomorrow. Wish us good luck!
- Carolyn B.
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