Sichuan Tent School

On July 5th I flew to Chengdu with a group of Chinese teachers from my school to work at a tent school for two weeks. Let me give you some facts.
After the May 12th earthquake many schools were destroyed and closed. Not long after we sent some national staff to the area and began opening up tent schools. Each international school was responsible for staffing one of the tent schools. Our Teacher assistants taught all the core classes and then a few (3 max) foreigners went to teach English.

Our site was in front of a Temple. Many years ago the monks had planted trees so we were in the shade thankfully. We slept in tents and had bamboo/wooden cots in the tents. They were VERY hard!
The school offered grades K-9 and it was a huge benefit that we had trained teachers. We had two classes in the morning and two classes in the afternoon. However, the kids were there pretty much all day. They all lived within walking distance and there certainly wasn't much else to do there so they would come and color or read or just play together.


The children were really great - and I think they had come a long way. The first people that arrived there said that when they got there the children were sad and everyone was depressed all the time - rightly so when they all lost friends, loved ones, as well as their home and everything they owned. By the time we got there the children were laughing and smiling and just wanted to play.  Although language was a barrier I was able to communicate with them some and we enjoyed walking through the fields and playing in the river among other things. They were so generous and kind and it was fun to be with country kids.

In general, the two weeks were hard, the living conditions were not easy (and I enjoy camping and such). But I'm glad I went. It's one thing to hear about an earthquake, it's another to actually see what it does and to visit with the people that experienced it.