We had another team meeting tonight and our first Mandarin lesson! I learned the 5 tones of Chinese and how to say some basic phrases. I've downloaded a couple Podcasts and free programs from the internet to aid in the language-learning process. Learning Mandarin is proving to be quite difficult for me as it is completely different from my English and French background. It's very interesting, though, and I look forward to learning even more of it from the kids in Beijing this summer.
We also had a visit from some Golden Courage guests this evening. One woman, Lucinda, is the executive assistant to the founder of GCI and two other staff flew in from China to help us develop our curriculum and serve as translators for us. They're going to be shadowing us and our every-day routines to get to know us better before we go overseas this summer. They staff hope to sit in on some of our classes, go out for lunch, and hang out with our team members to learn more about what/how we're planning on teaching this summer and to give us more background information on the children and GCI.
We also talked more about the kids and how to be culturally sensitive to them and their past experiences while teaching this summer. Lucinda shared stories with us about some of the children and their traumatic pasts - and how learning fine arts opened helped them in their healing processes. The stories are utterly heartbreaking. It's so unfair that children as young as 5 years old are forced into the sex industry or forced into working 60 hour work weeks just to have enough food to survive. The experience thus far has shown me how fortunate I am to live in a country that values freedom, to have parents, and money, and food, and shelter, and an education. I am so lucky to be able to make this trip to China this summer to help give back what I have learned in the arts and in the American school system, so I can help others (ie: children) improve their lives and give them a future to look forward to. And in return, learn from them and their culture.
The movement/dance team I am on for this trip consists of 3 people. (I guess not that many people wanted to bust the moves in a new country). We're going to meet on Saturday to discuss our curriculum and how we're going to go about implementing the National Standards for Arts Education (it's intense.) I like to think of myself as pretty competent in dance and movement but I am a believer of the theory that you do not know a topic until you are able to successfully teach it to another individual. The standards are really pushing me out of my normal context of thinking when it comes to dance. Some of the standards can be found here:
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/teach/standards.cfm
While this project is already proving to be a challenge, I cannot wait to meet with my group and start planning our lessons.
That's about it for now. I have my GIEU retreat all weekend where we will discuss more cultural competency (like the conference I attended over Spring Break) and strategies for effective teamwork.
Zi jian! (Goodbye!)
Love,
Morgan
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