What Would Confucius Say Today?

During the past week, the students  studied the teachings of Confucius.  After hearing about his life as a scholar and philosopher, we took a look at his book of Anaelcts and discussed some of his sayings as well as six Confucian relationships.  In addition to illustrating one of the relationships in cartoon format, the students imagined what [...]

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Chinese Poetry: The Three Perfections

In Ancient China, scholars believed in the Three Perfections: painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Steven’s lesson today introduced the children to calligraphy as an art. Steven has visited China where he has met calligraphers dedicated to keeping old traditions alive, and hung a beautiful scroll made by Hu Fengquan. After gathering everyone around a large table, [...]

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Chinese Poetry: Your Life is Full of Treasures

On Steven Ratiner’s third classroom visit, he started the lesson by talking with the children about the art of revision.  He shared his personal poetry notebook and showed how he revises again and again, always in search of the perfect words to capture the images.  Sometimes he does as many as 60 revisions over a [...]

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Journey Poems

When Steven Ratiner, our poet in residence, visited our classroom last Wednesday, he started the session with a brief Mandarin lesson.  Steven is studying Mandarin with a private tutor and taught the class a simple greeting. The lesson continued with a discussion about how it is important to choose images for your poem carefully so [...]

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