Ni Hao from the Dandelion Migrant School in Beijing, China
Ni Hao! We have been in Beijing for almost 2 weeks now and so far it has been filled with great speakers, great food, and 600 energetic middle schoolers. We got to the migrant school (called Dandelion) on Sunday after spending a week orienting ourselves in Beijing and being quarantined because of swine flu. In Beijing we had a series of speakers about issues concerning migrant labor as well as various other topics on China. On Sunday we came to the school along with 10 dentists to do dental screenings for the kids. They were tested for cavities, plaque and missing teeth. It took about 6 hours to get through everyone but it was a great baseline for the dentists to assess the needs of the school.
The school is really amazing. First you walk in through a gate tiled with all sorts of different colored tiles, which extend all the way around the main courtyard. In the center are four basketball courts (which is basically just cracked cement and some hoops). The classrooms border the courts on the left and the bathroom and kitchen are on the right. Facing you is a two story building of more classrooms and offices. The dorms, the library, the multimedia center and various other rooms are in the back, behind the offices. It is a fairly small space for 600 students but even so it really creates a sense of community. You can tell by the way the students interact with each other and their teachers that they love being at school and love to be around each other.
On Monday we met with Zheng Hong the principal and were assigned our homeroom classes, where we will teach English. I thought they were putting me with someone who spoke fairly good English since I am still beginning Chinese but I think they messed up because my teacher speaks no English. When I went into the room I was greeted by 32 thirteen year olds screaming Hello! and Welcome! It was overwhelming how nice and adorable they were. We spent the rest of Monday as well as Tuesday in the classroom. On Tuesday we were also assigned our main projects for the summer besides teaching English. Alice, Kim, and Linda will be working on bringing better health care and hygeine to the school. This includes analyzing the dental screenings, fixing sanitation issues in the bathrooms and handwashing, as well as looking at the daily practices of the students. Meng will be working on coding for improvement of the school's website in both Chinese and English as well as a study to work component that the school needs help with. Anna and I will be working to organize the volunteer aspect of the school, which will involve sorting through data and analyzing what parts of volunteerism are valuable and which parts they can do without. These projects will undoubtedly keep us occupied for the next 8 weeks.
Today we went on a field trip with the 7th and 9th graders. It was a great time to bond with the kids and our teachers. We went the Summer Palace and the Botanical Gardens. The kids loved it but we were all exhausted after waking up at 6 am and staying until 3pm. They have tommorrow and Friday off for the Dragon Boat Festival and we are heading into the city for a long weekend.
More to come soon!
Alex