“You can communicate over email easily, but to look a person in the eye was important to do,” Hobin says. “These parents want to meet the principal who their child may go to school with thousands of miles away. You don’t realize that until you get there.”
CHS’s very own principal, Mr. Hobin, recently made a trip to China where he learned about the nature of their culture, their education, and how it compares to American education. He even visited the Great Wall of China!
The main purpose of the trip was to go to three different school systems near Beijing and build relations with the students and parents interested in participating in a foreign exchange program with CHS, in partnership with the Project of Global Access. “You can communicate over email easily, but to look a person in the eye was important to do,” Hobin says. “These parents want to meet the principal who their child may go to school with thousands of miles away. You don’t realize that until you get there.”
The trip was eight days in total, from November 13-20. Hobin first landed in Beijing, and visited one school there. He later visited another in Kunming, and a third in Juang-Chou. He claims that there are actually hundreds of schools just in Beijing, but these three are connected to the Roosevelt International Academy, and the 2+1 program.
To understand the program, it must be noted that in China, high school is three years, not four. Under this program, Chinese students will remain in China for two years of their high school career, following America’s curriculum. Then, as seniors, they will come to America for their last year. From there, the Roosevelt Academy will help them get into one of the top 100 colleges in America.
To qualify, a student must be able to read and speak English fairly fluently, but this is not as much of an issue as one might think. The Chinese are very accommodating when it comes to English. In fact, Hobin says that most signs in Beijing have the English translation right next to them. As a result, many students do understand the language to some degree.
According to Hobin, the difference in education in China has to do with the structure, not the students. Just like many students back at CHS, the students he met with in China were attentive, respectful, lively, and they responded to what he had to say the same way an American student would. “Kids are kids!” Hobin says. When he met with students, he handed out T-shirts and chocolate, which is quite hard to come across in China.
However, school for these kids is quite different. They start at about 8 am, a little later than most American high schools. They wear uniforms that Hobin thinks looked like gym suits, with stripes on one sleeve to indicate their grade level; one for first-year students, two for juniors, and three for seniors. The Chinese are known to value their education, so school hours are much longer and run into the evening. To make up for this, schools also have a structured, built-in recess, something that most American districts do away with by middle school. In addition, just like college, the students actually stay overnight at their school Monday through Friday. This allows schools to offer study groups and tutoring late into the night, even after 10 pm.
School is such a significant part of the students’ lives that they cannot afford to be employed just yet. In contrast, most upperclassmen in America have part-time jobs. Some even have two. Schools in China also do not hold any social events like American schools. They do not host dances, pep rallies, or the like. Hobin says that there are some sports activities students can sign up for, but it is not at all to the extent of America. “I think a lot of the students are yearning for this,” he remarks.
The Roosevelt Academy, therefore, encourages Chinese exchange students to participate in these events. They will provide the students with dorm rooms in East Providence, but will also offer transportation to every dance, play, sporting event, etc. “They really do expect students to get involved,” says Hobin. “These activities are expectations for our community, but privileges for them.”
Mr. Hobin had many more details to share about his entire experience. “The travel was brutal,” he says. He apparently was travelling to an entirely different destination every day. However, he maintains that when he was not travelling, the experience as engaging and fun. He particularly thought it was cool that his flight flew over the North Pole, which is actually less of a distance than flying over the Pacific.
Some other facts Hobin learned included how the massive population of 1.3 billion has affected Chinese culture as a whole. So much pollution is being produced that people carry around masks with them every day. Despite the air quality being considered good while he was there, Hobin still snapped a picture of the sun with a reflective red ring of smog surrounding it. Because the people of China are often surrounded by other people, Hobin observed that they seemed to have forgotten the concept of personal space. “They are not afraid to be physically near you, and yet there was never a time that I felt unsafe,” he says. Another fun fact he shared was that there are so many people in Beijing that the city passed a law in which a car with a certain last two digits on its license plate is forbidden to drive into the city on certain days.
Lastly, Hobin also had the opportunity to visit the Great Wall of China. He describes the experience as a “demanding hike,” due to the structure residing in the mountains, but he was still greatly fascinated by it. “To think that someone built this thousands of years ago is absolutely incredible,” he says. He trekked through twelve different “forts” built into the wall, and at one point, bought something via negotiating the price. Almost every item for sale is negotiable in China.
Overall, it seems like Hobin had a great experience on the other side of the world, learning and seeing so many new things and spreading Oaker pride.
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