School Board Hears Of Educators Efforts To Reach Out To China

By Eliza Hallabeck

A few months ago Newtown High School Assistant Principal Jason Hiruo and Social Studies Department teacher Martha Parvis traveled to a school in China where the school library was three stories high and contained no books.

The two educators were welcomed by faculty and administrators in Liaocheng, China this past April. Mr Hiruo and Mrs Parvis were welcomed with a party, which included karaoke and hours of entertainment.

During the Board of Education’s meeting on September 2, Mr Hiruo presented slides and stories from the trip for the board. A large portion of the images showed what it is like for students in China to attend school.

Mr Hiruo said there were five signs welcoming them to the city when they arrived. The administration from the school and the English department met with them. The thing that struck Mr Hiruo, he said, was the fact that teachers who were roughly in their 30s could speak fluent English, and teachers older than that range had some difficulty with the language.

“It was just so impressive,” said Mr Hiruo. “We were warmly welcomed.”

The purpose of the trip was to build a relationship with the administrators and to work toward a partnership. As soon as this fall a teacher may come over from Liaocheng in an exchange program to teach at NHS. The situation is dependent on finding a finding a family for the teacher to live with, and who will also be responsible for providing transportation.

Eventually this process will lead to a teacher from Newtown going there, and an exchange program for students to be set up.

“We visited one classroom and they had a party for us,” said Mr Hiruo while going through slides from the party for the board.

Karaoke with music by Frank Sinatra was sung, and the party lasted for three hours, he said.

The school Mr Hiruo and Mrs Parvis, who was not at the meeting to present the trip to the Board of Ed, visited was a middle school, but it is comparable to high schools in the United States. Schools in China are divided up differently then they are in the US, according to Mr Hiruo.

The school that the teachers visited was one in a campus of schools. The entire area of schools teaches roughly 16,000 students a day. The middle school Mr Hiruo and Mrs Parvis visited holds lecture-style classes that can teach up to 1,000 students.

The three-story library was built to accommodate all of these students, and a good number of the students dorm in the schools. Mr Hiruo and Mrs Parvis were not allowed to enter the student dormitories during their stay at the school.

“Mrs Parvis and I made many classroom stops,” said Mr Hiruo to the Board of Ed. “It was so overwhelming.”

During morning routines, students are woken early in their dormitories, they report to their homerooms, and they attend a morning workout session.

Each classroom, according to Mr Hiruo, lines up and has a chant they call out as they do their morning run. The students chant and run for roughly one to two miles a day, and the chant is used to show pride and spirit in their different homeroom groups.

Another aspect of the school Mr Hiruo said he was impressed by was its student newspaper.

“Their student newspaper is actually very popular in Liaocheng,” said Mr Hiruo, “and it is actually the second most distributed paper in the city of Liaocheng. They are very proud of that.”

During the visit Mr Hiruo and Mrs Parvis participated in teaching a classroom. Mrs Parvis, he said, gave a lecture on Connecticut history, and Mr Hiruo described things that are specific to Newtown. He said he taught them about Newtown architecture, historical houses in town, and the flagpole.

Three days were spent talking to the school administration there about setting up the exchange program and the sister school relationship.

“We’re going to be looking for Newtown families to host probably for an eight- to ten-day period,” said School Superintendent Janet Robinson at the end of the presentation. Ms Robinson also made a trip to Liaocheng, but she was not yet an officially recognized representative to the Newtown School System at the time.

Mr Hiruo said 78 students have already told him they are interested in the program for participating in any way.

“It’s popular already,” said Mr Hiruo.