Beijing -
Monday, March
20, 2006
Beijing 101 School
Starting first thing in the morning, the whole delegation went
to Beijing 101 "Middle School", which covers grades 7-12. It is one of the premier high schools, and perhaps
the very best, in China. The headmaster explained that its name
was due to their desire to have students perform at better than 100%! Take a
look at its web page (http://www.beijing101.com)
and you’ll see that it is also the home to the current and future leaders of China.
The school is located in the Haidian District of Beijing, an area of three million people that is known as the high tech and university
district of the city. It is also the location of many American corporations in
China, including IBM and GE.
Beijing 101 has approximately 3,500 students.
It is a very selective school, taking only 5% of the applicants from
across the nation each year. For a Chinese school, it has relatively small
classes – 50 per room. The student days are long and the curriculum is
rigorous, including three science classes each day as well as English.
It was a difficult time for us to arrive since today was the 60th
anniversary of the founding of the school and many of the students and faculty
were busy with celebration activities. Nevertheless, the school was very
hospitable toward us. The administration spent much of the morning with us and
the Briarcliff contingent was able to spend more time in the afternoon with
students and teachers.
We had a tour of the large and modern campus. You can see it in
a relief model here.
We visited classrooms and spoke to the students. Here’s a photo
of County Executive Spano and Superintendent Wills talking to a senior class.
We also met two 9th graders at the school along with
a 9th grader from suburban Nashville who was visiting for the day. You can see
the video of our discussion with them – clearly all bright and
fluent in English.
The whole delegation sat down with the school administrators and
leading faculty for a discussion of the educational exchange. This was
concluded by the formal signing of an exchange agreement in both Chinese and
English by both government and educational officials.
There was also some proof of the power of promotion. In the
initial part of the discussion, the high school officials were interested –
maybe mildly interested – in the exchange with Briarcliff. Then we presented
highlights from the electronic magazine about Westchester and their interest
became much more acute. Clearly, explaining, in Chinese, the position and
strengths of Westchester was going to help us a lot.
continue
March 2006 Report
by Norm Jacknis, Westchester
County Chief Information Officer
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