ORONO, Maine — Thanks to a successful expedition by a delegation from Orono High School, up to 20 Chinese students could experience a very different sort of education next year.
Principal Jim Chasse, international program coordinator Mackenzie Grobmyer, guidance counselor Peter Buehner, two teachers and one student returned from the trip this week after visiting eight Chinese schools, including some with as many as 6,000 students, in late March.
About 20 students sat down with the Orono High School staff to interview for a chance to come to the United States for their last year of high school.
The school of approximately 370 students has been trying to draw a larger group of exchange students in an effort to increase diversity and expose local high schoolers to more cultural traditions, Grobmyer and Buehner said Wednesday. Orono High School currently has nine Chinese students enrolled, along with 11 other international students from other nations.
“We think [the trip] was very successful because we have a teacher delegation that now understands the Chinese culture and that will advocate for our international students and encourage them and help them through their year,” Grobmyer said. “We can now appreciate the culture shock they’re going to experience when they come.”
The biggest lesson the group gleaned from the trip, Grobmyer and Buehner said, was that a Chinese student learns in an environment that differs widely from that of an American student.
“Their curriculum is just completely handed down by the Ministry of Education [of China], and everyone pretty much follows the same curriculum across the country,” Buehner said.
Classes run from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., followed by a break for dinner until students attend a mandatory study hall from 7 to 10 p.m. That leaves little to no time for extracurricular activities or recreation when school is in session, Grobmyer said.
“Honestly, at first, we had to force them to enjoy free time” by setting up basketball games for the students or sending them on shopping trips, she said.
Courses usually hold between 50 and 75 students and there’s little, if any, time for interaction between students and their instructors. During physical education classes at some of the larger schools in the country, thousands of students line up in formation and run circles around the track until class ends.
Grobmyer said most Chinese schools show vast interest in the American education system and hold it in high regard.
“They want to learn from us as American educators. They’re very curious about how we teach and what we teach,” Grobmyer said.
In recent years, more and more Maine schools have turned eyes to China while seeking higher enrollment. Lee Academy will host 100 students this summer for four-week Advanced Placement or college-level courses.
John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Wiscasset High School and Stearns High School in Millinocket, among others, also have thrown their hats in the ring.
American universities are widely lauded and promoted in Chinese high schools, the Orono educators said. Coming to spend a year of high school in America allows the international students to get acclimated to life in the U.S. without the added stresses of a college workload.
The Chinese students pay $21,000 for a year of tuition at Orono High School. The school gets $13,000 and the other $8,000 goes to the University of Maine, which allows international high school students to live in Somerset Hall dormitory rooms. Gobmyer lives on the same floor as the students, acting as a residence director.
The students get to take advantage of most of the benefits of being a UMaine student, including a MaineCard, meal plans and access to campus facilities and events.
“They love the fact that they can be part of the university at the high school level,” Buehner said.
Each student has a host family in Orono that takes them in during weekends and holidays and attends sporting events and musical performances to show support, according to Chasse.
Chasse said the international exchange program is entirely self-funded. International student tuition covered the costs of the six-person trip to China, educational materials for the program, as well as substitute teachers to cover the classrooms of those traveling overseas.
Whoopy Do ! I am so impressed. What is the problem, too many Mainers dropping out of school. Why not invite some inner city AMERICAN kids to be educated in all white Orono instead?
Notice how the students are marching by company, military style? I agree. Why flood our schools with immigrants when we could educate our own?
They look like they are jogging to me.
Yeah, let’s educate our own. Too many aren’t willing to do that (including many posting in these forums).
Exactly!
So you can then complain about all those kids too? Stop trolling.
If you have heard anything on the news you would realize that enrollment is dropping in a lot of Maine schools, not because the students are dropping out, the population of young people is dwindling. Give schools a break will you please? We are all trying to do our best. Sometimes the I should never look at these columns because all it is used for is to complain about something…ANYTHING! Try to find the good in things…it makes life a lot more bearable.
Does anyone remember all of the Iranian students at MMA? We should not get overly dependent on China or any other country for school dollars. World tensions could send these kids home in 24 hours.
You provide excellent insight and good note of caution.
When I was in the military I always wondered if I was ever going to run into any of the many foreign classmates I knew and trained with while facing them at the same time looking at the business end of an AK47 they were holding.
Just to be clear I’m not worried about foreign students being potential enemies-I just don’t think our schools should be overly dependent on the dollars they bring that could just as easily dissapear. These students enrich our schools in many ways. One would have to wonder if some of these stduents will want to attend schools where there are so many of them that their experience is deminished.
These dollars easily diminsished? Just like the promised dollars out of Augusta?
Here’s a free tip for Orono…Don’t pull some of the Nativist foolishness that Milinocket did and your program might actually be successful. Start cloaking jingoism as “concern for test scores” and they’ll walk away from you faster than you can say “Jack Robinson.” Trust me…20 Chinese kids will boost BOTH your math and English scores. Sad but true.
The People’s Republic of Orono, home of the “RED” Riots, welcomes our comrades from the PRC. Since many will be 18 years old, and IDs are not required to vote, they can all vote for Premiere Obama and local Commissar Caine in the next election.
Actually this may work out well. Since apparently there is no incentive for United States Schools to improve, perhaps we can “dumb down” our international competitors.
Can you imagine the hue and cry if we had mandatory school attendance from 0730 to 1730. That’s a ten hour day–while I am sure even our grade school children could handle those hours, the teachers and civil servants that run the schools would all suffer from PTSD after only a week.
If your first paragraph is tongue-in-cheek, hilarious. If serious, dlusional, partisan hyperbole.
I do believe we should be sending more of our students to China. If nothing else it might teach them good work ethics.