Shanghai Bound!

With much excitement and anticipation, we are beginning our 2016 China Study. Our NC State University 12-person delegation consists of CED faculty, graduate students, and staff from the Friday Institute. The Study Tour is part of the grant, Suzhou North America High School: Connecting to the Future, which I received in 2014. The focus of the grant is to help design and implement a state-of-the-art high school in Suzhou. The new school facility is scheduled to open in September 2016 with about 200 students.

We’re conducting a 3-city study tour, which includes Nanjing, Suzhou, and Shanghai. Of the 12 people traveling, 8 will experience China for the first time. The goals of the Study Tour are:

1. Visit Nanjing Normal University to explore educational research collaborations with faculty.
2. Visit K-12 schools to learn firsthand about Chinese education.
3. Visit Suzhou North America High School, which we are partnering with, to further explore collaborations.
4. Learn about Chinese culture.

As part of our study, we are all reading Jin Li’s book, Cultural Foundation of Learning: East and West. Dr. Li was born in China and is now a professor of Education and Human Development at Brown University. Dr. Li addresses an important distinction between the East Asian virtue model and the Western mind model of learning. By tracing the cultural origins of the two intellectual traditions, Dr. Li explains how both models play out within the learning process. She also notes that despite increased cultural exchanges between east and west, these learning models have endured.

As we launch our tour, we are eager to learn more about each other as well as make new friends in China. Traveling to another country is always mind expanding. To me, China, with its high context culture, is fascinating and exotic. This is my ninth trip and I have only scratched the surface in understanding Chinese culture. In about 14 hours we will be landing in Shanghai. The Oriental Pearl tower will greet us as we open our minds and hearts to a new adventure.