Taking A Global Perspective
By: North Dakota United
Tags: China, Global Learning, Education, Ndu Member Profiles

Neal said that right next to the square is the capitol building, known as the Great Hall of the People, and close by, the Forbidden City, which they were able to walk through.

Day two, the group visited Wenhui Middle School in Beijing. Neal said one of the top priorities of the trip was to get the teachers into schools to talk to students. She said it’s broken down like an American school system (grades 6–8) with the students immersed in an English language program. She said the students spoke excellent English.

Part of Amy Neal’s trip to China involved a visit to the Wenhui Middle School in Beijing.

Neal said that was impressive, but what really caught her attention came after a visit with the vice principal. “As Americans, we’re asking how she deals with behavior problems and parents. The vice principal honestly just shook her head. They don’t have behavior problems at their school. Their families put education on a pedestal, and teachers in China are on a pedestal,” Neal said.

She said parents there demand excellence and good behavior from their children. Neal visited with one student whose mother was a doctor and father worked in the military. That student got to go home every day, but because the city is so large, Neal said some students lived nearby during the week.

Another wake-up call came after the teachers spent the rest of the day receiving a designed cultural immersion lesson at an open market, bartering for things like water, and later at the mall where they had to try to overcome the language barrier to order lunch. “I went and ordered something, and I ended up walking back to my table with a plate full of tofu. And I can’t return it! How do you return a plate of food? I don’t know how to explain this to someone who doesn’t speak English. My friend who ordered a rice and chicken meal shared it with me so I didn’t go hungry that day,” Neal said with a laugh.

The Great Wall

Neal said visiting the Great Wall of China had been on her bucket list since a college friend had visited. That dream became reality the next day. She said the part of the Wall they visited was about a two-hour bus ride out of Beijing, called the Mutianyu Great Wall, built around 1400 A.D. She said the experience was overwhelming, bringing one teacher to tears. “To stand on the Great Wall and touch some of the rocks, it was honestly like it was alive. You think about how many people built it, and they were slaves or they were peasants who worked for the Chinese government to keep them safe back in the 1400s, and how many people have walked on it since then. It was incredible to me; it was breathtaking,” Neal said.

Amy Neal poses for a picture with the rest of the NEA Global Learning Fellows on the Great Wall of China.

While on the wall, Neal heard another woman speaking English and approached her. The woman ended up being a kindergarten teacher working in Dubai. The two exchanged email addresses and plan to connect their classes this fall so their students can meet.

Neal also realized the Great Wall isn’t one giant wall across China, but a series of pieces of wall built during different eras. In total, it measures over 13,170 miles. The largest portion, the Ming Great Wall, measures just over 5,500 miles.

Terracotta Warriors/Army

Neal’s history lesson continued in central China at the city of Xi’an. She learned it was the original capital of China, and it’s where she experienced the extraordinary story of the Terracota Warriors (built 200 B.C). “After being at the Great Wall, which I thought was the most amazing thing in the world, we go to the Terracotta Warriors, which are 600 years older than the part of the Great Wall that we were on,” Neal said.