If you looked out at the Dandelion schoolyard two days ago, you would have seen: a long row of ping-pong tables adjacent to the 7th grade boys dorm, the kitchen, and the student restroom; the mosaics made of jewel-toned tiles and pieces of mirror, lining the gates and some of the walls, the administrative building with a façade of colorfully painted flowers and a large rainbow; murals depicting more scenes of flowers and trees; 2 rows of 3 basketball hoops each, and 4 fully-grown, 20 year-old college women flailing around on the court, trying to steal the basketball from at least 10 young, energetic Chinese boys – students of Dandelion Middle school. Those women were Alex, Meng, Kim, and me.
The boys showed us girls up, but I should say that we didn’t intend on playing a full-out game. The afternoon began innocently enough; Right before the last class ended at 5:15 p.m., Meng and I decided to shoot some hoops. So we walked onto the schoolyard, where some class was still in their 体育 (physical education) class either practicing flips, or playing games such as ping-pong, badminton, and basketball. There were still some empty hoops left, so Meng and I started shooting (terribly). Soon, class let out and students poured into the schoolyard. A few 7th grade boys, some of whom we knew, stood on the edge of the court and stared at our ball, which we took to mean that they wanted to play. We asked if they wanted to play. They said yes. A whirlwind of action ensued – Kim and Alex joined in, and the boys started expertly dividing us into teams of four by random selection. Before I knew it, I was running around and trying to intercept passes and catch rebounds, playing against students who were all shorter than me. And better than me.
Dandelion Middle School is a dynamic place. The same afternoon, I also observed students playing donated violins and brass instruments in the open space between the music room and some student dorms. Later, a 7th grade student took me to a classroom where students could read English picture books for fun and explain them to each other. I helped this student read through The Little Cricket.
The murals and mosaics that I mentioned earlier are a project initiated by Ms. Lily Yeh (www.barefootartists.org), who has done art projects in different schools back in the states. She collaborates with the art teachers and students, who all contribute to making these amazing works. Kim, Alice and I wanted to help out, so they had us outline a new design on the wall in chalk - so the students and teachers could begin attaching the tiling and mirror pieces on the design. Also, there are multiple different kinds of flowers in these designs, so many that Meng was inspired to use these as icons in the layout she is designing for the new Dandelion English website.
The second day we arrived at Dandelion last week, there was a ceremony for the return of a past volunteer who taught English at the school. She came back from Britain with English awards for the students. This event was held in the back of the school, in a large building used as an auditorium. It was quite an experience for us – all the students brought their chairs from their classrooms in order to sit down in the auditorium. That very same day, a professor from Bei Da (Peking University), came to Dandelion to give a lecture on neo-Confucianism and how it can apply to modern pedagogy.
The third day at Dandelion, the 7th and 9th graders went on a field trip to two different places: the Old Summer palace (Yuan Ming Yuan圆明园), and the botanical gardens (Beijing Zhi Wu yuan 北京植物圆). Highlights of the day included the students dragging me to climb up a hill, only to laugh at me when I slipped on the downwards slope and fell, and our students “adopting” our cameras for a few hours, taking pictures of everything from their teachers to their classmates, to the little fish they caught in the ponds.
Alex and Anna have been working hard on the volunteerism project. I’ve seen them sort through the volunteer guestbook and struggle with reading cursive Chinese – which is really difficult to read if you didn’t grow up writing it – I know I can’t. (Anna: “It’s like scribble-scratch!!”). They’re putting a database of information about the volunteers over the past few years, and they will be working on designing a more user-friendly volunteer information card for the future, among other things. Kim, Alice, and I have been working on health matters concerning the school. We have compiled a database of dental information from the dental examinations we helped with on last Sunday, the first day we arrived at Dandelion. Hopefully we can help some dental hygiene experts with identifying the dental needs of the students and in developing programs to improve their oral hygiene. We’re also researching information on alternative toilets, as opposed to the current pit latrine system, and working on developing health education curriculum for the school. Meng is devoted to her website layout, and now she has direct access to the school server and the website! In addition to using the flowers as icons, she’s focusing on streamlining the website to make it look elegant and user-friendly.
Last notes: Some of us started teaching English to our classes this week because one of the English teachers needed time off to take care his sick child. It was all pretty much improvisation because none of us expected it, and it was also a little intimidating because our 7th grade classes are on average about 40 students each. (We will begin proper teaching next week.) But if Alex hasn’t mentioned it already, the students are extremely generous, polite, and adorable. They’re all very eager to practice their English on us. One of my students turned to me and said in one sentence without pausing:
“Hello how are you, I'm fine thank you!”