Sanderson High has hosted a delegation of four teachers and eight students from Zhonghua High School in Nanjing, China, as part of an ongoing exchange program between the two schools.
The Chinese students have been visiting at Sanderson March 21-30. The students have been staying with a family of a Sanderson student.
To prepare for the visitors, Sanderson developed an Asian Studies class which focused on China. Part of the time in the class is devoted to helping our students learn Chinese so they can be good hosts
The goal of the exchange program has been to break down misconceptions about the people from each country and to establish a relationship for working on joint academic endeavors. One such example would be since both cities have air pollution and clean water issues that students from each school could study. Then the students could exchange information and see if their communities were developing solutions to the problem. Teachers say they could make assignments where the students may study authors and histories and compare what each culture says about the same author or era of time. The schools hope to establish an electronic link.
The exchange program between the two schools started in 2006 when Sanderson was invited to a meeting about possible school partnerships with China. In the spring of 2007 a delegation of four teachers from Zhonghua High School in Nanjing, China visited Sanderson. Then Sanderson sent a delegation of four folks to Nanjing in October of 2007 where the schools signed the formal documents establishing the partnership. In the spring of 2008 Sanderson hosted two visitors from the school to prepare for the current delegation.
The Sanderson students that have served as hosts to the current Chinese visitors will be a part of a reciprocal hosting arrangement in the fall on 2009 when Sanderson sends a delegation of four teachers and eight students to Nanjing. The Asian studies class will help prepare these students for their visit to China.