Just after we finished grading the final exams on 17-July, two teams of summer volunteers arrived to help lead English camps at our university. One of the groups is composed of teachers from NC and Tennessee:
This team has been working with a large group (125+) of rural teachers, helping them improve their ability to teach their students English. We’ve enjoyed sitting in on some of these classes and have picked up some good ideas for teaching our own university students (remember, we’ve never had “real” teacher training before).
The other group of volunteers is made up of about 25 university students from Wisconsin. They are leading two camps: one for over 100 primary school students and the other for local college students. Here’s the Wisconsin group hanging out in our living room:
These great kids will be here for a month. Our students love them and are learning “college English” (including some of the slang that you’d hear on an American campus). Susan invited them to bring their dirty laundry over and has been busy trying to clean and dry it:
The washing is not a problem, but this is a tough time of year to undertake such a project without a clothes dryer. Since this is the rainy season, everything is taking about 3 days to dry. Fortunately, the students have reasonable expectations in the current circumstances.
Also, I had the chance to speak at the summer camp opening ceremony. Later that day I received a call from the Provincial Education Bureau, asking for me to speak later in the week at a session for teachers heading abroad. It turns out that their department leader attended our opening ceremony and decided that I could help their departing teachers with ideas to get integrated into the cultures where they will serve for a year as visiting scholars:
Everything was ready for my presentation at the Education Bureau until my laptop computer crashed, taking my set of PowerPoint charts with it. But there was just enough grace in that final hour to re-create most of the charts that were on the dead Dell computer right before rushing down to the meeting room. Nothing like a little last-minute panic to get your juices flowing before a talk.
Wow, a lot going on with you guys! But it looks like good times and good opportunities.
Look at those piles of clothes! You go mom!
As I read the saga of your computer crashing right before your presentation, I was reminded how you came to my rescue last June when I did not have the right connector for my computer to go into the LCD projector in Atlanta! I will never forget your kindness.
Helen, your presentation about Sir Isaac Newton at the Classical Education conference was quite a bit more polished than my recent talk at the local education bureau. But China is not like Atlanta, so rushing out to get some computer hardware at the last minute is a bit more challenging.