Last April’s trip to China has greatly enhanced my teaching. I’ve never seen students as excited to get back from vacation as they were coming into my classroom that Monday. They begged to look at pictures and passed around artifacts reverently. Their questions were endless, about the food, the clothing, the students at Dandelion and everything else you could imagine. Getting to give them a first-hand count of Chinese culture was such a treat and I hope that future classes will be as interested. I feel that many stereotypes were broken down as I talked with the students about schools in China. Most importantly, many spoke of their own desire to visit someday, fulfilling my goal of inspiring students to explore the world.
Historically, the trip was a goldmine of information. The day after returning, I removed many of the internet stock photos from my Chinese history PowerPoint notes and replaced them with ones I had taken. The students are always so much more interested when I can say to them “I took this!” I also enhanced what had been a boring couple of slides about culture with video clips of Chinese Opera and calligraphy, things I learned about while traveling there. I have worked with the other two 8th grade history teachers to incorporate some of my experiences and photos into grade-wide lessons.
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