For Yan Hu, a graduate student in education at China’s Southwest University, the most memorable thing about her recent day-long tour of three Detroit schools was the energetic, enthusiastic way the U.S. teachers interacted with their students and responded to questions about their work.
“The teachers were very passionate about their jobs,” Hu said. “In China, teaching is just a way to make a living. Here, it is a noble profession worthy of respect.”
Hu is one of 11 masters and doctoral students from Southwest’s College of Education who are spending six months visiting Michigan State University’s College of Education. They are part of an on-going collaboration between MSU, home of the top-ranked teacher education program in the US, and Southwest, one of China’s best teacher education programs.
Detroit was an interesting place for the Southwest students to tour for several reasons. Schools in Michigan’s largest city are challenged by the fact that many of their students are living in poverty, which means they may arrive at school hungry and distracted from learning. In addition, the Detroit Public School district has been rapidly losing students and thus state funding. This has triggered school closings and contributed to other administrative problems that prompted Michigan’s governor to appoint an emergency manager to take over the district’s operations.
Detroit also is home to the largest concentration of charter schools in the country. A charter school gets money from the state – the same amount for each student that the state would give to a public school. But charter schools are run by nonprofits or private companies, not by local government school districts. These alternative schools are loosely overseen by a “chartering agency,” such as a university.
On March 26, the Southwest students visited two Detroit public schools – one a high school for special education students, and one a kindergarten-8th grade school with a foreign-language focus. In addition, the Southwest students visited University Prep Math and Science Middle School, which is part of one the most successful charter school chains in Detroit. The Southwest students’ last stop was Charles Wright Museum of African American History.
“I’m so touched by the special education teachers,” said Fang Fu, a Southwest master’s student from Szechuan province, after the group toured the Jerry L. White Center for special education students. “They are really trying so hard to help the special education students. When I see these kids, I’m so impressed. They’re never giving up. They’re so strong.”
Some differences that the students observed between schools in China and those they toured in Detroit:
- In China, both class sizes and school sizes are larger
- In Detroit, the teaching style is more interactive and student-centered, though this style is becoming more common in Chinese cities
- In China, school administrators are more formal with guests, whereas the administrators who hosted the Southwest graduate students in Detroit were more “easy-going”
- In Detroit, classrooms were equipped with more technology such as interactive white boards and laptop carts; teachers were guiding students as they used online sites that gave the teachers immediate feedback on students’ understanding of the material they were studying.
University Prep administrator Gail Georgette Parks was interested in learning about Chinese teaching methods that result in high scores on standardized math tests. Recognizing that the Southwest students are returning to China to become leaders in their country’s educational system, Parks invited the Southwest students to stay in touch and think about ways that University Prep classes can engage in collaborative teaching projects with Chinese classrooms.
At Detroit Public School’s Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies elementary school, the students from China enjoyed eating a soul food lunch of ribs, collard greens and corn bread while talking in Chinese with some Detroit students who had been studying Chinese since kindergarten. Although the kind of intensive language study offered at this Detroit school is unusual in the United States, it is more common in China.
The Chinese graduate students, who all speak English well, applauded a kindergarten class that serenaded them with Silent Night in Chinese. The educators from China understand well that this kind of language and cultural literacy can give both themselves and the young Detroit students more opportunities in the future.
By Emilia Askari, a doctoral student at Michigan State University’s College of Education. She was lucky to be part of a group of about 20 education faculty and doctoral students from MSU and the University of Washington to visit Southwest University and other parts of China in May 2014.