Reports(2010)

Liberty students become tutors for their counterparts in China

By ROBERT A. CRONKLETON  Posted on Sun, Mar. 21, 2010 10:55 PM

The Kansas City Star

DAVID EULITT/The Kansas City Star

In preparation for a trip to China with other students studying the country and its language, Joshua Harmon, a senior at Liberty High School (center), practiced chopsticks skills with senior Max Parker (right). Teacher Shianguu Hsieh (left) had prepared the meal.

Two nights a week in Room 514 of Liberty High School, the world becomes a bit smaller for 14 teenagers.

 

Through the magic of computers, the Internet and the free program Skype, they can see and talk with students in China, helping them speak and write English.

“They also get a sense of what it is like in America,” said Mary Coogan, secondary science coordinator for the Liberty School District and one of the sponsors of the China Skype club.

The online videoconferences are a chance for the Chinese students to pump up their test scores.

“Tests are very important in China — they have a lot of high-stakes exams,” Coogan said.

For the Liberty students, the rewards include an opportunity to travel. Five of the students spent their spring break last week in China, visiting students they’ve tutored.

This is the fourth year Liberty students have gone to China. This year they’re visiting Tian Jia Bing Experimental Senior Middle School in Liuyang and Ersha boarding school in Zhengzhou, both cities south of Beijing. The students each paid $2,200 for the trip.

“China is more than I could ever imagine,” 18-year-old senior Kyle Norris wrote in an e-mail last week. “All of the pictures and history we have learned does not compare. The people of China are very interested and curious about Americans and gave us a great welcome.”

Pamela Bray, assistant dean of the University of Kansas Edwards Campus and former assistant director of KU’s Confucius Institute, said Liberty’s program is unusual for the high school level.

“And it’s live,” said Martin Jacobs, Liberty High’s co-principal. “They get to see the person they are talking to, which is really cool.”

As Jacobs tells it, serendipity played a big role in the program’s birth.

A Liberty High graduate, Mark Godfrey, participated in a similar program at Yale. After returning from a visit to a school in China, Godfrey called Jacobs.

Godfrey wanted to put his former principal in touch with a classmate’s father, Watson Lin, a computer software engineer in California. Lin was interested in bringing the program to the high school level.

In the summer of 2006, the Ersha principal invited Jacobs to China so he could see how such a program would work.

” Jacobs said. “I came back and said, ‘I think we can do this,’

Now program leaders are working on having some of the Chinese students visit Liberty at the beginning of the next school year.

During the tutoring sessions, the Liberty students go over paragraphs that the Chinese students have written, cover lessons in their books or just talk about things teenagers are interested in — favorite classes, sports, what they do after school.

Responses sometimes elicit puzzled looks.

“It is just interesting to hear how their school differs from ours or what they like to do as opposed to what we like to do,” said sophomore Paige Alley, 15.
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Chinese students get a taste of American football

By GLENN E. RICE      Posted on Tue, Aug. 31, 2010

The Kansas City Star

Mike Ransdell/The Kansas City Star

Liberty High School students have been Skyping with students in China and in March, Liberty students traveled to China; now the Chinese kids have made the trip here.

 

On Friday, the students, including Li Wang, 17, at left, got a lesson in American football with the freshman football team. Above, Qu Qing (right) tried kicking while her school’s vice principal, Li Chenbai, held the ball.

Qu Qing’s introduction to American football began with a giggle as a gentle pass bounced off her fingertips.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.
 

Still, it didn’t take her long to catch on.
 

Qing, 17, was one of a dozen Chinese students who journeyed from Liuyang, China, to spend a week and a half with students they’d met through the China Skype Club at Liberty High School.
 

The Chinese students got a lesson Friday in how to punt, pass and kick. They watched Liberty High’s freshman team practice. They laughed when Li Chenbai, their vice principal at Tian Jia Bing Experimental Senior Middle School, tried on a football helmet.
 

The trip from China took 34 hours, but their schedule left little time for jetlag.
 

On Thursday, the students and their adult chaperones attended a reception at Liberty North High School. They spent Friday at Liberty High School and saw a high school football game that evening.
 

Other activities during their 10-day visit include shopping, a Royals game and a sampling of American-Chinese cuisine at Bo Ling’s restaurant in Zona Rosa.
 

“We think it is a good opportunity for their students to learn about American culture, make new friends and learn about different teaching methods,” said Julie Miller, one of the sponsoring teachers at Liberty.
 

Last school year, Liberty students traveled to China to visit the students they had been tutoring in English using Skype, the free online videoconference service. The Liberty students would go over paragraphs the Chinese students had written, cover lessons in their textbooks or just talk about things they have in common.
 

Miller said the cultural exchange should benefit both Chinese and American students.

“We are hoping they will get a broader awareness and appreciation of both cultures,” she said.