About a month ago I contacted Corinne of Stepping Stones – a Not for Profit started by her and based here in Shanghai. Taken directly from http://steppingstoneschina.net :
“The objective of this project is to assist students in migrant schools in Shanghai to gain interest and confidence in their English language abilities and to help them pass their middle school entrance examinations.”
If you aren’t familiar with the educational system of China…if you don’t get into a good middle school, you don’t get into a good high school – therefore, more than likely not passing your college entrance exam. your life is determined very early in life – it’s very unfortunate that innocent children just have to deal with the hand they’ve been dealt.
From the city center of Shanghai – it took about 45 minutes to get to the bus station. From there, I met Bernice with Stepping Stones and waited for 2 additional people with ai Community. From there, it took an additional hour to get out to the school.
You could hear the English repetition across the school yard – there are 4-6 large classrooms having class. Ages ranging by a couple of years in each room – along with attention span and studious attitudes. I did notice that the girls were paying closer attention than the boys and really trying. I was watching the behavior and games…and kids are really all the same, no matter where they live. There are little boys wrestling and punching one another in the groin while the little girls huddle together talking quietly with cute little dresses on.
I spent a couple of hours there, and you can tell through the progression of my photos, of how they adjust to my attendance. At first they are waving and jumping and a bit of obnoxiousness from the boys. I feel so bad about disrupting classes so I go sit outside during some of the class and chat with some of the kids sitting in the school yard. Between my elementary Chinese and their English – we have some pretty good little conversations. One boy is pulling needles off the pine tree and picking flowers and he asks me what it is and I tell him in English. And I also ask him questions about it, “What color is that flower?” He tells me he likes to draw. I ask him a couple of times, “What do you like to draw?” And he kept responding with “Yes”. Dang – now I know how I sound when people speak to me in Mandarin and I say “dui” – when it wasn’t a Yes/No Question. At least children can get away with that, I just seem like a moron.
The little boy in the picture above was sitting alone in one of the classrooms during break time. The two teachers are there as well. He looks up briefly from his folded paper with a slight smile, but a sense that he is very involved with his current task. “Hello” I say to him.
“Hello.”
“What’s your name?”
“—-”
“My name is Ellen”, and I walk over to him and he stands up, we shake hands (him almost handing me is left hand but switches) “it’s very nice to meet you”.
The teacher translates, he smiles “it’s nice to meet you too.”
During the last hour, some children are playing “SandBag”. It’s kind of like Dodgeball…but way more intense and you get hit by a cloth bag packed with sand/rice/something rather than a ball with air. I ask one of the guys working on the library if he want’s to play basketball with me. So after a couple of attempts, I notice about 6-8 little boys gathering around me and we start a game. Guess who is the only one to make a shot? Yeah, that’s me! I kind of amazed myself but again I was playing with little boys – some half my height. I am not sure how they felt about a girl making a basket, so I laid off and just rebounded the ball.
Eventually we lead into playing soccer – my bad – football. I have the same group of little boys, and I am kicking the ball high into the air, with 2 cameras around my neck. We play a watered down version of a game, a camera in one hand to prevent from slamming against the other. I’m running, I’m sweating…I’m having fun…what a day!