Located along the Xiangjiang river, Changsha is a province of China that has a population of 6 million. Changsha was also home to Lisa Spaulding for 135 days while she taught at Hunan Normal University. Spaulding, a member of the Penn Valley faculty, arrived in Changsha in late August of last semester and began teaching her English courses at a university that has been around since 1938.

Living rent-free in a two bedroom apartment, one and a half miles from campus, Spaulding realized she'd been awarded the the biggest kitchen out of all the foreign teachers she knew there. "And I didn’t cook at all!" she said.

Some of Spaulding's Students

Naturally there were drawbacks, too. "Being illiterate sucks! I couldn't take the bus because I couldn't read the bus schedule; I couldn't take a taxi because I couldn't talk to the driver. I either had to bring someone with me or I had to walk. I did a lot of walking," Spaulding said.

Though Spaulding went to China to teach, she wanted to do some learning herself, about the country and its future. The following are Spaulding's top three lessons learned from her time in China:

1) "America should be scared....I have a job, but I don't know if you will have a job." She says that America should be worried because education in China is about to shift. This means that more Chinese people are going to start going to school, and more will make their way to America and become successful in many careers Americans say they want. This will likely lead to fewer job opportunities for everyone in the future.

2) "As a culture we do not value education...I had parents who sold their houses to send one child to college." Since their families are making huge sacrifices to send their children to college, there's tremendous pressure on students to do well in school.

"My massage guy over there was a countryside guy, no education, you know. You don't go to school to massage, you just get trained and you do it. He and his wife brought their daughter from the countryside where she was being raised by his parents, which means that they probably can't have another child due to the one child law...[He] quit his job to go get another one so that he could be more available to help supervise her education. His daughter is 4 years old!"

Schoolyard

3) "I am so grateful for the Gen. Ed. Core." Over in China they don't have those core classes. Students begin their learning entirely in their choice of study. "Their thinking is not flexible because they have been trained entirely in their major... they cannot draw on those core classes." She said that America's capability to draw on those core classes might just be the only thing that can save us when the Chinese educational system expands.

It is safe to say that Spaulding had a good experience in China - it certainly won't be her last visit. She plans to go back in May for two weeks. She said she will return to Changsha to visit the students and teachers that she met while she was there last semester. Spectrum will have some additional stories on Spaulding and her lessons learned.

Copyright 2008 Metropolitan Community College