GORHAM – If a new international exchange program is successful, Gorham High School students could be well prepared for the international job market.
The school has just launched an innovative, non-tuition exchange program in which Gorham could send students to Beijing, China, for a semester beginning as early as September 2012. Chinese high school students would also travel to Gorham for study.
Plans are under way to offer Gorham High School students a Chinese cultural, history and language course. The exchange program and a Chinese course taught in Gorham would be geared to help prepare Gorham students for futures in international job markets as China’s global impact increases.
To begin preparation, Gorham High School world history teacher James Welsch embarks for China on Wednesday, July 6, to study the Mandarin Chinese language.
Welsch, of Sanford, will spend three weeks in a Mandarin Chinese teacher’s workshop program run by Beijing International Education Exchange Center and held at Capital Normal University in Beijing.
“It’s an adventure,” Welsch said. “It’s an amazing opportunity for me and the school district.”
Gorham Superintendent Ted Sharp, who traveled to China this spring, signed memorandums of understanding with school officials in Beijing to initiate the exchange program.
“We’re excited. It’s a great opportunity for our kids,” Sharp said.
Gorham High School now teaches French, Latin and Spanish. If Gorham graduates are conversant in either Spanish or Mandarin, which is the official language of the People’s Republic of China, or both, Sharp said, “Doors will open for these young people. Chinese is rapidly becoming a language of international diplomacy and business.”
Sharp, who once taught Chinese history in Cape Elizabeth, has witnessed first hand China’s growing economy.
“Construction derricks are everywhere,” Sharp said.
A city the size of Houston, Texas, Sharp said, is being constructed in China every 10 months. China is “rapidly industrializing and becoming a more urban society,” he said.
“Let China sleep for when she awakes, she will shake the world,” Sharp quoted Napoleon as prophesying in 1803.
Now, two centuries later, China has the world’s second-leading economy, trailing only the United States, according to the CIA World Factbook website. But, the U.S. agency also reports that dollar values of agriculture and industrial production in China surpass those of the United States.
Sharp, who also visited China five years ago, was accompanied this year on the trip by Yarmouth High School Principal Ted Hall.
Gorham’s school exchange program could someday expand into April school vacation visits for students in groups of 10-15.
Sharp also signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese elementary school so younger Gorham students and their Chinese counterparts could visit one another’s classrooms using Skype, an Internet resource – though a 12-hour time difference between Beijing and Gorham would be a hurdle to overcome.
Teachers could also someday be involved in the exchange program. But for now, Sharp said, Gorham is moving to establish its own in-house staff for Chinese instruction.
Chris Record, Gorham High School principal, approached Welsch about the opportunity, and Welsch said his wife was supportive of him accepting it. He said he never envisioned saying to somebody, “I have to go to China for work.”
Welsch, who has taught in Gorham one year after four years on the Massabesic faculty, will begin learning to speak conversational Mandarin, and studying curriculum design and methods of teaching Chinese. The program in Beijing starts Monday, July 11, and continues through Sunday, July 31.
When he returns home, Welsch will be continuing his Chinese studies.
The opportunity for an exchange program in Gorham developed when Sharp visited Beijing in April after Liang YuXue, vice principal and senior teacher at the High School Attached to Capital Normal University, visited Gorham schools in December.
China Exchange Initiative in Newton, Mass., paid for the trips of both Sharp and YuXue. The organization works to promote the expansion of exchange relationships between elementary, middle and high schools in America and China, primarily through its U.S.-China Administrator Shadowing Project.
“It works with the Chinese Ministry of Education to promote education and cultural exchanges,” Sharp said.
In Gorham, YuXue, who was called by the western name Maria, spent most of her time at the high and middle schools. Welsch met YuXue when she popped into his classroom in Gorham, as his students happened to be studying for an exam on ancient China.
Her school in Beijing teaches moral education, and the school has already learned from an example in Gorham. Gorham High School emphasizes its code of conduct that is posted throughout the school. Sharp said YuXue took the idea to her school and a similar code is now posted in classrooms there.
“She was impressed with what she found in Gorham,” Sharp said.
Linking up with the Beijing school stemmed from Sharp’s trip to China in 2006. The High School Attached to Capital Normal University in Beijing, Sharp said, has 1,100 students in grades 7-12.
Gorham High School has an enrollment of about 850 in grades 9-12.
Sharp said the Beijing school is a blue ribbon one. Sharp visited classes and spoke to the student body there.
“These students have been learning English since the second grade,” Sharp said. “It’s basically a private school,” Sharp said, but the government invests in it.
The Beijing high school had 200 students enrolled in its international program. Its graduates will attend more than 50 leading colleges and universities in the United States. They include New England institutions Boston University, University of Connecticut, Babson College, Worcester Polytechnic, Colby College and Brandeis University.
Hall spent his time in a different school in China from the one Sharp visited. Participating in an exchange program with China is in the idea stage at Yarmouth, Hall said last week.
Hall found that Chinese students spoke English fluently and the students were curious about American food and music. Hall described Chinese students as serious, but they displayed no difficulty in introducing themselves.
“They were comfortable approaching adults,” Hall said.
Chinese high school students, Sharp said, were familiar with names of professional basketball players in the United States and he spotted one wearing a Boston Celtics jersey.
Sharp was asked to referee a basketball game, although he didn’t have an official’s uniform or sneakers. But, Sharp, who looks like an academic with a suit, button-down shirt and bow tie, agreed to officiate the game wearing khaki trousers, T-shirt and loafers. He did have a ref’s whistle.
“It was all over campus,” Sharp laughed. “I became a celebrity.”
Sharp said the next 12 months would be required to work out details of an exchange program. But Welsch’s participation is a step toward introducing a Chinese course at Gorham High School.
Last week, Welsch applied for a visa.
“It’s starting to become very real,” he said.
A world history book featuring a cover with the Great Wall of China depicted on its cover was on Welsch’s desk last week. Welsch is leaving for China five days early to see the sites, including the famous wall.
He’s been corresponding with a Chinese school administrator he knows as Betty and said email has served as an icebreaker.
“They’ve made me feel incredibly welcome,” Welsch said.
Welsch said the experience in China would be an opportunity for him and Gorham’s school district. “It’s a challenge,” Welsch said last week in his classroom. “I’m ready to take it head on.”
Gorham Superintendent Ted Sharp visits a high school in Beijing,
Comments are no longer available on this story