Quishi (Jingzhou) Primary School

As usual our day began with about three hours of class, followed by lunch. For lunch today we went to the cafeteria around the corner from our hotel that we go to often, and I got my usual chow mein and bottled water. It’s not a bad lunch, and after having bananas, peanut butter, yogurt, orange juice, and a multivitamin for breakfast, I don’t need that great of a lunch usually. After lunch today we had a visit planned to a local elementary school, so naturally I was excited. I had my bag of goodies from Brooks School Elementary (pencils, pens, key chains, erasers, t-shirts), my new presidential dollar coins, and my Indianapolis calendar ready to give away. Having lugged these items from the States, I was anxious to rid myself of them. Plus, it is always fun to see an elementary school in another country, and to learn more about how children are taught similarly and differently from the United States. Well, upon arrival at the school (pictured below) I found out that there were no kids present since they were on summer vacation!

We took a tour of an empty building and then had a sit down session with the two principals of the school. Needless to say I was very disappointed. We did get to ask questions of the principals, and we found out some useful information such as the average class size here is 50 kids per class. Also, about half of the teachers at the school are part of the Communist Party (club or group or association), and half are not members. In the picture below of the meeting with the principals, the two principals are on the left and our leader Professor Lin is on the right. Be sure to notice the hammer and sickle red flag of the communist party. This is displayed in the Party Member Activities Room.

One other note of interest to me is the eye exercises that each class does twice per day to supposedly delay near-sightedness. Of course this does not work, but all children still do these exercises each day. Take a look at the classroom poster below displaying these exercises, and the eye chart beside it.