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| Chinese students from the Tangshan Foreign Language School were in Kennebunk this past week. Here, students listen as Glenn Black, from the science department at KHS, teaches a morning class. (Photo by Tim Gillis) |
By Timothy Gillis
Staff Columnist
KENNEBUNK –
Thirteen Chinese students and their chaperone are in town
this week for a summer camp at Kennebunk High School. They are from Kennebunk
High’s sister school in Tangshan, China.
They arrived a little later than scheduled when a connecting
flight to Maine was cancelled at the last minute. So their first night in the
United States was spent stuck in a Washington, D.C. airport, but the tired
travelers finally arrived in Maine and were greeted by their host families from
Kennebunk.
Principal Susan Cressey went to China last March and visited
the Tangshan Foreign Language School, located north of Beijing. It was then
that she set up the exchange.
“Students are fluent in English,” Cressey said. “I got to
attend classes there. I was very interested in the discussions.” Classes are
held in English in many schools in the area, Cressey said, and most classes
have forty-five to fifty students in them.
“The classes stay put, and the teachers move from class to
class,” she said, adding that – despite the large class size – behavior was not
a problem.
“Only the motivated and brightest get to go to high school
in China,” she said.
While they are here, the Chinese students will take part in
science and math classes, tour the University of New England, and meet with a
guidance counselor about the American college application process.
Each morning, the students will have about four hours of
classes before they head out into the community to take in local arts and
culture.
On Tuesday morning, July 16, Kennebunk High School science
teacher Glenn Black got the students started on a lesson, with some help from
KHS students Jace Valls (senior), Colby Harrison (senior), Kimberly Keithley
(senior), and Caroline Smith (sophomore). Keithley is originally from China.
Also lending a hand is Sandy Cheng, a native of Beijing, who
has been staying with a Kennebunk family for four months now, and plans to stay
a couple more. When she heard about the visiting students, it just seemed
natural to offer to help out.
She created a lesson for the Chinese students’ first morning
session, but the flight delay has caused that lesson to be shelved for now.
“We will definitely find a way to fit it in this week,”
Cressey said.
Black teaches a course called International
Baccalaureate biology, which emphasizes looking at subject matter from a global
perspective, so his involvement was also a natural fit.
Emma Liu, the director of Tangshan’s
international department, is chaperoning the kids this week. She watched
attentively as her students took in Black’s lecture, looking interested and
engaged, albeit a bit sleepy.
The group plans to kayaking as part of an
L.L. Bean outdoor classroom, visit Portland harbor, and have a farewell
reception on July 20 at the Nonantum. They return to China early the next
morning.
