Learning From Each Other

Our time at Dandelion is coming to an end. Today, we taught the last full set of lessons, and tomorrow we will spend time debriefing with teachers and celebrating our accomplishments with students.

The Dandelion School is a unique school; the students who attend the school are the children of migrant workers and many of them live on the campus.
Three meals are served each day, and lunch at school is very different from lunch at school in the United States. Students here in China eat together as a class in their regular classroom. Two students go to the kitchen to pick up big pots of rice and vegetables or meat, and bring the lunch back to their classroom to serve to their classmates. Each student keeps a bowl and spoon in the classroom, and when lunch is over, they clean their own dishes! For the past three days, we have eaten lunch with the students and we all agree that this is a wonderful experience; we love the food, and the conversations are always interesting!

Kate W. and Mark Q. have been teaching students about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. They have introduced challenging vocabulary words like segregation and shared quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.

Students in Ralph W. and Pam L.'s class are learning about the author and artist Eric Carle. Students learned about the author's life and practiced vocabulary words from his books. Then, they created their very own pop-up book using tissue paper in his style.
Jennifer M., Christine S., and Allison W. introduced their students to the study of habitats around the world. Students learned about the rainforest, coral reef, savannah, desert, and polar regions. As a culminating activity, they created a Habitat Mural that included examples of plants, animals, and weather in their assigned habitat.


Tomorrow we will return to Dandelion for our final day of teaching and learning. We have so enjoyed our time with the students and teachers at Dandelion; it will be difficult to leave but we will take away many wonderful memories.