BRISTOL, Tenn. – Bristol Director of Schools Gary Lilly said he was sitting at a dinner table in Beijing when he got a real lesson in how small the world had become.
“I looked down at my phone and saw I had a text from Bristol, which is 13 hours behind China, letting me know the weather was bad and we might need to call off school,” Lilly said with a laugh. “Here we were, thousands of miles away from Bristol, but a simple text message just eliminates the distance in a split-second.”
Lilly said the moment “really symbolized how we don’t live in our little separate worlds anymore.”
“We have to be willing to explore other horizons and be open to new opportunities, wherever they are,” Lilly said. “Geography is a whole lot less important than it used to be.”
It was one of numerous lessons Lilly and two other Bristol district administrators – elementary school supervisor Dixie Bowen and secondary school supervisor Annette Tudor – brought back from a week-long December visit to China with a delegation of American educators and other officials.
The trip was sponsored by the Confucius Institute, a Chinese organization overseen by that country’s Ministry of Education, as part of an ongoing program to send Chinese educators to U.S. classrooms to teach Chinese to students here – while also learning about the American educational system.
The program has resulted in four Confucius educators teaching Chinese in Greeneville, Tenn.’s school district, and Bristol’s school officials went to China because of their interest in having a Chinese instructor in Bristol’s district during the 2011-12 term.
“The reality is China is and will be a major force in the global economy,” Lilly said. “And Chinese is already the third-most spoken language in the world, behind English and Spanish. So the prospect of having a Chinese instructor in our schools is more than just a fantastic opportunity for our students to expand their knowledge today. It can also be another asset that will help them compete in tomorrow’s world.”
Added Tudor: “Ideally, our long-term goal is to have every graduating student in Bristol fluent in one or more languages besides English, and for Mandarin Chinese to be one of them. It won’t happen overnight. But we really feel it can be an important aspect of our students’ futures.”
Lilly said the school district already has applied to the Confucius Institute for a grant that would pay for a Chinese teacher to spend next school term in Bristol.
Under the grant, the teacher’s salary, teaching supplies and living expenses would be paid by China’s education ministry – while the school district would pay the teacher’s monthly health insurance (estimated at $80 to $85 a month) and provide housing and transportation.
“We’re pretty optimistic about getting the grant, especially after actually spending time in China and spending time, face-to-face, with the officials who oversee it,” Lilly said.
He said Bristol should learn within several weeks if its grant application was accepted – but added that Bristol’s Board of Education must also approve adding the Chinese instructor.
Lilly said the Dec. 3-10 trip cost the school district some $3,000 in all for the three educators, while more than 80 percent of the costs – including half of each educator’s airfare from Memphis to Beijing (via Seattle), hotel accommodations, daily meals and transportation for tours, panel meetings and work sessions with Chinese educators – was covered by China’s Education Ministry.
During the trip, the Bristol officials spent time in Beijing and Wuhan (a city some 650 miles south) and visited the Chinese version of elementary and middle schools, as well as a college.
Bowen, Bristol’s elementary school supervisor, said she was struck by the focused, attentive nature of Chinese students, who often study in tightly packed classrooms – and while wearing jackets, because the heat had been turned off to conserve energy.
“They really enjoyed the chance to use their English skills in conversations with Americans, and they were just as eager to learn about our lives as we were theirs,” said Bowen, who was also interviewed by a Chinese television reporter during the trip.
Lilly said he is sure Bristol students would equally embrace the opportunity to learn – and speak – Chinese with an instructor sent from that country.
“We’re excited about what this could mean for our students, and we think they would be, as well,” Lilly said. “If they can be fluent in a second language that 1.3 billion people also speak, they’re going to have a tremendous advantage in the future professional world.”
rbrown@bristolnews.com
(276) 645-1512
Student schedule in China
Bristol Director of Schools Gary Lilly and two other district administrators spent a week in China in December as part of a delegation of educators and officials. The Bristol district is interested in participating in a program sponsored by that country’s Education Ministry that puts Chinese educators who teach Chinese-language courses in American classrooms. During the seven-day trip, Lilly asked Chinese students – many of whom attend boarding schools and live on site five days each week – to describe an average day at school. The students said this was their typical daily schedule:
7:30 a.m. to noon – classes
Noon to 2 p.m. – lunch and nap
2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. – classes
5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. – activity time and dinner
7 p.m. to 10 p.m. – Mandatory study time, under the direction of a teacher
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