Chadds Ford Elementary School students said good-bye to their visiting Chinese scholar during an assembly celebrating culture last week.

Xuan [pronounced Shwen] Yang has spent the first six months of the school year in each of the four elementary schools in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District. She completed her six-week stay at CFES last week and is now at Unionville High School before moving on to the middle school.

During her stints at the elementary schools, students learned Chinese culture including art, calligraphy, music and some gong fu. The visiting Chinese scholar from Wuhan, China also learned a few things herself.

“I learned a lot. This is a marvelous experience for me. I was a teacher in China before I came here. The big difference in the two systems [is] how they arrange the class, how they have all the subjects and how they have the teachers…the teaching style,” she said.

According to Yang, the Chinese system is more formal than the US style. The difference is in “the spirit of teaching.”

“The classroom [here] is very student centered, so [teachers] put more focus on the students instead of just giving out their knowledge. They listen to the kids, they encourage them, they inspire them and let them, the kids, create their own works. In China, teachers are more focused on how to give out…to teach kids from books.”

She said Chinese style is more formal, more academic, but that can limit student creativity.

“So maybe we should give more room, more space for the kids to do some things by themselves,” she added.

Yang said the American students do group projects and learn quickly. In China, students do individual work very well, but don’t handle cooperative projects as well as the Americans.

Both sides, though, have positive elements, she said.

“If we can combine, we can look into each other and that would be great. And I absolutely want to share the experience I have here with my colleagues in China,” she said.

Kindergarten students learned Chinese art from Yang, first and second grade students learned music, third- and fourth-graders learned gong fu and fifth-graders learned elements of Chinese calligraphy.

Samples of student work were on display during the assembly while other students performed.

Chadds Ford Elementary School Principal Mark Ransford said the students received, “A cultural experience they may never have had before…She’s been a fantastic addition to the Chadds Ford family”

He said the assembly was a celebration of all that Yang was able to accomplish while she was at CFES.

Yang is working on her master’s degree. Her major is in teaching Chinese as a second language.

The Chinese scholar program is run through the Confucius Institute and the University of Pittsburgh. The institute is set up to teach Chinese culture and language world wide, Yang said. It’s a nonprofit organization sponsored by the Chinese Ministry and the Chinese government.