Dr. Lyla Berg
State of Hawaii
House Representative – 18th District
www.lylaberg.com
Aloha Yunus,
Thank you for the invitation to participate as a member of the English Team with TWB China 2007! It was, to say the least, an incredible learning experience for me, personally, and a most gratifying professional opportunity in so many different ways.
Thank you, too, for your tireless attention to our comfort and well-being. China, as an environment and culture, can be trying on one’s senses – the weather, air quality, food, number of people everywhere, transportation and building infrastructure, language, etc. Your awareness and patience enabled us to focus on the purpose of our presence there and helped us to offer our ‘best’ service to the participants in our professional development sessions. It was such a relief to have our meals and accommodations already arranged when we arrived at each destination!
The cultural side-trips and excursions that you offered us were also much appreciated and so enjoyable! I arrived in China as an open book, and my pages are now full of mental memories of relationships with people and extraordinary tastes of food, a new awareness about the Chinese culture, and unforgettable scenes of mountains, rivers, wildlife, and the landscape of China. You recognized that in addition to the many hours of preparation and delivery, we also needed time to enjoy each other’s company in varied settings.
From the professional perspective, it was extraordinary, as well as incredibly satisfying, to be able to participate with my Chinese counterparts in regions beyond the typical training locations of Beijing and Shanghai. So much attention is usually given by Americans to those major cities. I was so happy to be able to work and visit areas where foreigners are seldom seen. I felt very “special” to be viewed with curiosity and at the same time, very grateful to able to share our Aloha spirit.
As a former public school principal, I particularly appreciated being able to dialogue – albeit through interpreters (!) — with middle and high school building level administrators who assembled for their professional development sessions in the rural region of Wolong and in the city of Chengdu. Their perspectives on their country’s educational reform initiatives are not so dissimilar from the concerns of our American colleagues. The issues of needing qualified teachers, more resources and stable funding, and upgrading facilities are common concerns that we share as building level administrators. I enjoyed being able to explain how our public education system in Hawaii addresses those same issues. The questions and discussions were quite enlightening.
I must admit, however, that having to speak through a translator and insure that the intent of my words was correctly received, took some additional effort! That reality compelled me to be more succinct and definitive with my thoughts. It was a very revealing opportunity, for me, personally, to be able to articulate what I really believe and think about public education.
Having been an instructor of pre-service teachers in the College of Education at UH-Manoa for many years, I appreciated conversing with the various professional development officers and human resource directors about the content, methodology, and goals of their teacher training programs. Given all the publicity and generated anxiety about how the Chinese youth are excelling over our American children, it was also helpful to see that much of the hype appears to be exaggerated.
From my perspective as a foreign language, reading, and English classroom teacher, I especially enjoyed the many days that we had with the teachers who participated in our English sessions. It surprised me how young the teachers were and the extent to which so many females have chosen teaching as a profession! They seemed very appreciative of our collegial sharing, grateful for their new learnings, and in general, quite satisfied that their week in professional development was well-spent.
In the rural community of Dujiangyan, the teachers were interested more in who we are as Americans and teachers. The extent of their instructional preparation and professional experiences was reflected in their responses to our activities. Although many of them had years of teaching, their inquiries resonated with the kind of questions that our American pre-service and beginning teachers have:
How do we handle children with attention difficulties?
How do we discipline? What are effective classroom management strategies?
How do we insure that learning occurs?
How can we make our classrooms more fun?
How do we motivate students to want to learn English?
What do you mean: “involve parents?”
How do we help children pass THE TEST?
In contrast, the teachers in the city of Chengdu wanted us to share different kinds of instructional strategies to make English language learning meaningful for their students. They came expecting to enhance their own teaching approaches and wanting to be more effective in the classroom. Many of them had already traveled outside of China, a few occasionally watched the English-speaking television news channel, and they all had access to computers with the Internet, as well as videos, television, magazines and other media with English and/or American language.
As a professional development team, Andy, Jen and I had to review our plans after each session and make sure that we were aware of the participants’ needs, attentive to their learning styles, and creative in our own approaches. It was particularly enjoyable to work with Andy and Jen as we challenged OURSELVES to respond to the daily evaluations of
the participants! We laughed a lot, enjoyed the discussions of our differing views of pedagogy, and moved fairly seamlessly together during the classroom time.
I believe that it was VERY beneficial for both the participants, as well as for us, that the TWB English team members were more “veteran” — as classroom teachers — and comfortable working with adult learners. (Sometimes there is just no substitute for having some years of direct classroom experience under one’s belt!) I think that the Chinese teachers viewed the collegial aspect of our participation with them very positively, and I was especially touched by their respect and warmth. For many of them, this was the FIRST time that they were speaking English with an English-speaking PERSON — and for many of them, this was the FIRST time that they had personally met a foreigner!
Perhaps most significantly and unexpectedly for me, however, was what I gained from the experience in my role as an elected official and Vice-Chair of the Hawaii House Education Committee. The statewide structure of our Hawaii DOE system is not dissimilar from the national organization of the China Department of Education – one funding mechanism, state (national) standards, an achievement philosophy based on testing, local administration of facilities and personnel, and a centralized system of accountability. Speaking with Chinese officials and higher level educational officers was revealing. I believe that every elected official MUST visit China, at least once, to fully comprehend and dispel the perception that capitalism and “entrepreneurship” are synonymous with a representative democracy.
It was quite clear that the founding premise and originating purpose of American schools is not the same – or even similar – to the function of education in the Chinese perspective. It was incredibly informative and ‘educational’ for me to see, first-hand, the condition of the Chinese educational system and to hear, directly, how the Chinese officials view their responsibility regarding the education of their youth. As a proponent of early childhood care and education, I was especially surprised that there was little or no acknowledgement about the impact of early learning.
I know that I will continue to review and ‘process’ the numerous experiences that I had in China — as well as reflect on the various new and unexpected situations in which I found myself. I made so many new ‘friends’ as a result of this invitation, and I wish to thank you, again, for your belief in the power of collegial learning and the vision of TWB to link the world in peace through teachers. Please invite me to be a team member again!
Me ka mahalo,
Lyla
