EA 3rd grader Kira H. is having the unique experience of living in China, for the spring semester, as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world.
She recently Zoomed with her classmates in Paulette Petrie's (Hon.) class to talk about living and going to school in Anhui, China. Kira's mother, Bryn Mawr College Professor Dianna Xu, is a guest professor in computer science at the University of Science & Technology of China.
"It was wonderful for my class to connect with Kira. My students were extremely curious about learning about what life is like for her in China," shared Mrs. Petrie. "Actually what they learned was that COVID-19 also affected Kira's ability to attend 'live' school, the same as what they have experienced here."
"How did your quarantine go?" asked one of Kira's classmates? "I got impatient because my best friend was right below me [in her apartment] and I could not play with her," explained Kira. "I had to stay in our apartment until we could go out, unless we had to take out the trash."
When Kira and her mother arrived in Shenyang, China in January the city had very few COVID-19 cases and Wuhan, where the virus first erupted, was nearly one-thousand miles away.
"Where we were in Shenyang was very far away, so even Chinese people didn't think it was that serious," explained Ms. Xu.
They remained quarantined in Shenyang for two-months before heading to the University of Science & Technology campus in the Baohe District, Hefei, Anhui, China. Kira attends a school connected with the University. She initially took classes remotely and was permitted to return in-person in the middle of May.
"How is it taking class with 40 students?" asked Mrs. Petrie. "It's pretty weird," said Kira. "Because there are a lot of names and Chinese names have three characters and there are like 41 kids, so that's probably at most 123 characters to learn."
The curriculum includes English, Chinese, math, art, and PE. "We just walk around a circle to exercise. At first, we walked around the track because you can't run in a mask. Now we are running one time around the track. In the school boundaries we don't have to wear a mask anymore."
"What do you miss most?" asked another classmate. "I miss a lot of stuff. First, in art- being able to draw instead of just talking about art history and being able to do normal English writing. And I really miss my friends!" shared Kira.
Kira and her mother plan to return to the United States in July. "I'll miss the food," said Kira.
"The children realized that Kira had been going through similar experiences as they have, even though China is thousands of miles away," said Mrs. Petrie.
"Bye, thank you!" said Kira.
"We miss you!" remarked a classmate.
