Barbara Bosworth

By Barbara Bosworth

By BARBARA BOSWORTH
...
LINCOLN - Hours of bouncing on English Channel waves, blasts of Allied and German bombardment, men falling on the sand of Omaha Beach - a Lincoln man still remembers the day he hit Hitler's Atlantic Wall as if it were yesterday.

By BARBARA BOSWORTH

By BARBARA BOSWORTH

By BARBARA BOSWORTH

By BARBARA BOSWORTH
...
CORNWALL , He Ping is not a complete novice when it comes to teaching.The 24-year-old has taught biology for two years at a secondary school in China.

But when the young teacher arrived in Cornwall early this month for a three-month hitch teaching biology and Chinese language and culture to elementary school students at Bingham Memorial School she could hardly have found herself in a more unfamiliar position.

At the Affiliated Secondary School of Beijing Normal University at Haicong, which has 2,000 students ranging to age 18, He (that,s her last name) taught middle and high schoolers in classes as large as 40 students.At Bingham, which has 89 students, she teaches only a handful of 10- and 11-year olds at a time.

And in addition to having to think on her feet in a foreign language, she,s teaching children who are quite different from the ones she,s used to.

,The students here are very young, so I must learn how to teach them,, she said in an interview last Thursday.

,At the beginning I was maybe very nervous,, she added with a smile.

He Ping arrived from Xiamen, China, at Bingham Memorial in early November, her visit is sponsored by the Asian Studies Outreach Program (ASOP) at the University of Vermont.She was greeted in Cornwall by welcome signs and a welcoming atmosphere.

,It,s a really nice opportunity for the school to have a direct experience with someone from another country, to bring life to our understanding of the world,, said Principal Rich Isenberg. ,That,s something we often overlook.,

Despite the initial nervousness, He has proved to be a conscientious educator.Leading a Chinese language class of 25 5th and 6th graders on Thursday, the young Chinese teacher was clearly a natural.

She seemed totally at ease and delighted with her role.All her students were engaged and responsive.An onlooker who didn,t know better might have thought she was a seasoned member of the school,s faculty.

That,s not to say she hasn,t noticed differences between her students in China and her new charges in Vermont.Cornwall students are ,very lively, very free in class,, she said. ,When the teacher teaches they can move around.But in China, no,, she said.

Chinese students also are quieter, she added.

Cornwall kids have been eager to get to know He, and to learn about Chinese clothing, sports, music and school.

They are ,very friendly, very lovely,, she said.In their exuberance, ,sometimes it,s very difficult to understand them., She has asked them to ,slow down,, but she finds that as the days go by the language barrier is shrinking.

At the moment she is teaching the upper grades about plants and about the human body, and observing the 4th grade.Eventually she will teach all grade levels at the school.Late this winter she will move on to a bigger, secondary school in the Burlington area, and will return to China in May.

He found out about ASOP from her principal in China, who is a friend of the program,s manager in Burlington, Juefei Wang.He Ping is the first teacher from her school to participate.