VGCC Instructor Tours China
Vance-Granville Community College Psychology instructor Peter Metzner took what he saw as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to visit China in June while representing the college. “I feel blessed and fortunate to have been selected” by VGCC’s International Committee as a World View delegate, he said. World View is an international program for educators based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The program partners with public and private K-12 schools, community colleges and universities throughout the state to help students succeed in an increasingly inter-connected world. Metzner reported to his colleagues on his experience at VGCC’s fall convocation on August 15.
Metzner, who has served as a full-time VGCC instructor for the past four years, was able to learn about Chinese primary, secondary and post-secondary education systems. He saw the strengths of their systems as well as the areas in which the United States has a competitive edge. Comparing American and Chinese community colleges, the most obvious difference to Metzner was that he could find no evidence that the Chinese taught his own area of study, psychology, at the community college level. But, just as in the United States, community colleges in China try to make college education more accessible, and to fill certain jobs in high demand, such as nursing. Metzner called the visit to a community college “a great exchange of ideas.”
At Beijing Yumin Primary School, Metzner observed that the school children were “loved by their teachers. The culture has high expectations of the children, and the children were enthusiastically living up to those high expectations. They seemed to have an uncanny discipline, focus, motivation and drive to excel.” Nevertheless, Metzner concluded, “kids in China are much like kids in America.”
Metzner saw first-hand how closely the world is connected in the Information age, as he checked his own e-mail mere feet from a type of “third-world bazaar,” where chickens and other products have been sold in almost the same way for centuries. China is rapidly developing its schools and transportation systems to “catch up” with the West, according to locals that Metzner encountered. He noted that most Chinese “put out the red carpet, and they were very curious about Americans.”
Metzner praised the program that took him to what is, for many Americans, an alien land. “The World View program helps bring fresh perspectives into our classrooms,” he said. He recalled that seeing the Great Wall, which has existed in some form for over 2,000 years, put history in perspective, since the United States is less than 300 years old. He brings back to his psychology students “awareness of Chinese culture, and of how the Chinese educate their children. It’s understanding you can’t learn from a book.”
Metzner feels that travel expands the mind and shows us our similarities as well as our differences. “I’m so glad that Vance-Granville is part of World View. It makes the world a neighborhood.”
Above: Metzner at the Great Wall.
