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FARMINGTON – The assistant superintendent for Mt. Blue Regional School District recently attended an educational workshop, which was an experience slightly different than going to Augusta or Portland.
Susan Pratt spent eight days in China as part of the 2009 Chinese Bridge Delegation, as a representative of one of 400 schools visiting the country. The trip, which is sponsored by the College Board and China’s Hanban, is designed to help develop Chinese language programs in the United States. Pratt said that the Mt. Blue Regional School District was given an opportunity to attend through a competitive application process due to the district’s Mandarin Chinese language and culture program.
“It was an unbelievable experience,” Pratt said of the trip. “A once in a lifetime experience with a different culture, a very different culture, based on very different values than what I have. It was an unbelievable experience.”
Spending some time in Beijing, Pratt then traveled to Chongjing, a city of 32 million people, to spend time within the school system and the teachers and the students. Pratt noted that the differences between the Chinese and American educational systems were extreme; schools functioning more like all-day college campuses. For instance, many schools utilize onsite housing for students, from kindergartners to high school seniors. Students begin lessons at 8 a.m. and end at 9:30 p.m., with breaks for meals and a two-hour “rest time” in the middle of the day.
The trip was designed to improve the Chinese language programs in the United States, which are growing in number as educators begin to realize the likely importance of the language in the future global economy.
“There is a direct connection,” Pratt said. She noted in a written statement that “as an educator, it is very evident to me that the Chinese language should be taught to our children just as the Chinese schools teach at least five years of English to their students.”
Hanban is the Chinese agency responsible for promoting the Chinese language throughout the world, functioning like the British Council in the United Kingdom and France’s Alliance Française. In addition to providing some financial support for the school district’s Mandarin teacher, with the school district itself paying $21,000 annually, Hanban provides material for the district’s language program.
Pratt said that discussions between both the Americans and Chinese educators focused on ways to streamline and improve language programs in the states. Mt. Blue educators and the school board have now had a year and a half of experience with the Mandarin program, and Pratt exchanged tips with other educators on things that work and things that don’t, from housing and transportation for the teacher, to programming decisions.
“We’re encouraged by the enthusiasm educators have shown for the Bridge Delegation in both the U.S. and China,” said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, in a statement. “Since the program’s inception in 2006, we’ve taken 2,000 U.S. educators to China to experience firsthand the culture of a country that is rapidly changing and growing on the global stage.”
Pratt said she intends to maintain contact with people she met during the trip, to continue to exchange ideas.
