The following is a day in the life of 2nd grader Tanner Niegel, written by Sean Nelson. Sean is Tanner’s brother and a student at Oregon State, where he studies business and marketing.
8:25 a.m. I arrive at Ms. Denise’s class, get settled in and begin to work on my spelling packets with fellow classmates. After spelling packets, the class begins to work on “Weekly News”, where we write about what we did this past weekend; I wrote about seeing the movie “Rio” with my neighbors. We then welcomed the Spanish students that were visiting our campus from Mexico. We sang our national anthem for them.
9:40 a.m. As 1st recess begins; I leave class to enjoy the splendors of our campus on this early spring morning and race to the monkey bars. Hanging upside down, I watch kids from all grades running, playing, and letting their imaginations develop together on the swings, slides, and play structures while some older boys play basketball on the black-top. Spring recess is different from winter recess due to weather conditions. When it’s raining outside, we stay in and color, play board games, have free-time, and go to the library to check out books.
10:00 a.m. After the riveting monkey bar session, I gather myself for Art. We create sea animals out of construction paper and cloth for a mural about taking care of the world’s environment. I construct a Portuguese Man O’War, which is a purple and blue jellyfish, and also happens to be one of my favorite sea animals. After Art, we move on to Math where we have been working on story problems involving addition and subtraction.
11:30 a.m. We go to the cafeteria/gymnasium for lunch. They bring multiple tables out for us to eat. After lunch is 2nd recess, more running and playing on our beautiful campus.
12:30 p.m. I return to class for “Monday Meeting”. During this time we discuss different issues, like picking up trash around campus, especially the playground. We also take this time to sing happy birthday to any classmates with birthdays coming up. After “Monday Meeting” we go to P.E. and play games. The games vary from running super-fast laps around the campus to playing “Capture the Flag” and “Kick the Can”.
1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Our class works on more writing and math story problems. Our writing story problems deal with paragraphs that have grammar and punctuation errors and we fix these errors to make the paragraphs correct. During this time we also go to our library where we read and check out books.
3:00 p.m. I leave my classroom and go to “Mandarin Club”. Here I get hands-on experience developing Mandarin Chinese skills through pronunciation and flash cards. We sing songs in Mandarin and learn about the Chinese culture.
4:00 p.m. After “Mandarin Club” I walk over to “Kid’s Club” until I am picked up from school. Here we work on projects, do homework, and have free time. My favorite thing about Oak Hill is hiking on the long trails. I also think it’s really great how much my teachers care about me.
The following is from Sean’s perspective, and the thoughts he had as he compared Oak Hill to the public school he attended as a child.
I arrived to pick my little brother up from school early to spend some time with him and see what he did in his Mandarin Club. As I walked across campus I was approached by a teacher asking to help me. Not knowing where the Mandarin room was, I was grateful for the friendly caring attitude. She took me to the Mandarin classroom and told me how much she enjoyed my little brother. I wasn’t sure of the protocol, arriving unannounced, but Miss Sophie, the Mandarin teacher, was happy to accept me into the club and made me feel comfortable and included.
As I sat in the back of the classroom, I notice the ratio of teachers to students. There were 6 students, ranging from 2nd grade to 4th grade, and 2 teachers. The students were split into 2 groups, one group practicing audio learning while the others were practicing visual learning and writing. Each group had their own hands-on experience. The students practicing the pronunciation would say the words together and then the teacher would spend time with each student and make sure they were able to correctly pronounce the word before moving on. This came as a shock to me because when I went to public school, classes were too big for a teacher to spend time on individuals. Students who did not understand pretty much had to fend for themselves.
The second group practicing visual and writing skills had stacks of flash cards of things that would interest kids of that age. The flash cards included pictures of fun foods like ice cream, candy, sandwiches, and burgers. The second half of the stack had healthy foods like apples, carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, strawberries, and tangerines. The teacher opened a book that had both English and Mandarin and taught the students how to say and write about different family members: mom, dad, brother, and sister. Half-way through the session, the teachers switch groups, which I thought was a great idea. This gives the students two different teaching styles to work from and should enhance their learning. In public schools, I had the same teacher all year and if I didn’t relate to a particular teaching style, I was on my own. At Oak Hill, every teacher seems dedicated to the education and development of each student.
As I looked around the room, I was amazed by all of the decorations on the wall. Not only were there words and phrases written in Mandarin, there were posters and projects about different aspects of the Chinese culture: Chinese inventions, Chinese foods, Chinese festivals, and even a paper Mache dragon. The most impressive thing about the décor was that Oak Hill students had made them. They weren’t mass produced pictures that you find in other schools but individual works of actual proof of the hands-on education these students receive. Another impressive feature of this club was the environment the students were in. Students were allowed to have snacks and talk amongst each other, which in turn led them to help each other if one student didn’t understand something.
As the session came to an end, the teachers combined the groups. One teacher put on a video while the other handed out a sheet with lyrics written on it in Mandarin. The students practiced a few times and then the teacher played the video and the students began singing along. Before we left, my little brother showed me his individual folder he had for Mandarin Club. The folder had all the work he had done and had a big colorful dragon he had drawn on the cover. It makes me feel good knowing that Tanner is getting this kind of education.