Thomas Carrington

Pictured above is me posing with a Chinese acrobat after their performance in Shanghai on my first day in China. The Chinese acrobats performed with precision and accuracy and entertained the audience with its kinetic movement.
In the picture above, I connected with Will Yi, the head of the development center at Moonshot Academy in Beijing. We talked about how to cultivate students and build compassion towards others, how to focus on competency education, and how to build relationships with all students. During our conversation, we found a common interest in basketball and discussed the NBA playoffs. In this picture, I am holding my hands in the shape of a basketball and Will is raising his hand joyfully in the hopes of blocking my shot.
In this picture, I prayed with the local community during a visit to a Buddhist temple in Shanghai. People in China come to temples to pray for the hope of change, comfort, and prosperity. I followed their praying forms after observing how locals pray and through modeling by Michael, our Shanghai tour guide.
The picture above shows me explaining to students American Football and complex concepts. As an activity, the students used a paper football and played a scoring game with their partner to practice American Football scoring. The students kept track of their progress during the game and took turns finding ways to make sure the paper football goes through their hand-created field goal. Students also changed how they flicked their paper football to increase speed and accuracy.
This picture captures the joy of connecting with others through a common interest. In Suzhou, I had the opportunity to play basketball with the local students at Suzhou North American High School. The students were amazed by my athleticism, asked me my favorite players, were eager to share the ball, and enjoyed playing with an educator. Overall, the students and I found a common interest, basketball, and bonded fondly over the course of game play.

Thomas' Experience in china:

Award recipient in Summer 2019

Over the summer, I had an amazing opportunity to Study Abroad in China. During my experience, I learned a lot about ideas and customs unique to Chinese culture.

In Shanghai, I learned how it was nicknamed the “bright city” during a visit to see the Pearl Tower, the tallest building in China. I also confirmed my notion that Shanghai was the capital city and learned about is history with its old town and new town buildings, uniquely shaped architecture, and exploring the Shanghai Museum to compare past life and modern life.

In Suzhou, I instructed students on American Football and provided them an opportunity to practice football concepts by playing with a paper football I taught them how to create in the hope they will share with their peers. I also discovered its rich local history by touring local shops and monuments in the city. Suzhou also provided me an opportunity to connect with local students by playing basketball with them and discussing common interests.

The last city I was able to learn about was Beijing. In Beijing, I taught an interactive read aloud with the assistance of my co-teacher and was immersed in the culture at the Pearl Market and food restaurants.

As my experiences in China ended, I have learned many ways how this experience with transfer over and help me grow as a future educator. In Suzhou, I found how out how I can use manipulatives and objects to teach abstract concepts and complex ideas to a diverse group of students. All the young learners in the classroom were eager to practice football concepts with a paper football. Because of flexibility and time management, I was able to inform the students step-by-step on how to create paper footballs so they can share the instructions with their peers.

As a future educator, I must be flexible and manage time wisely to make sure I can provide extensions to lesson instruction and connect to the students why we learned what we did for the day. In Beijing, the interactive read-aloud lesson showed me how I can engage students who are learning another language in the classroom. I adjusted my interactive read-aloud lesson to meet the needs of the English language learning students. The students followed along with me and read aloud the book together as a whole class. Reading along the texts helps students recognize high-frequency words and sentence structure, which in turn helps them build reading fluency, comprehension, and accuracy. As an educator, I will use strategies that help my students discover the joy of reading and help them figure out how to become efficient readers in the modern world.

During my time, I discovered how I can use open-ended questions to find out what my students are thinking during book discussions. As an educator, I will use these questions in inquiry-based lessons to help students fundamentally understand topics and ideas.

Finally, as I reflect on my time abroad, I hope to apply for a position at the school in Beijing upon graduation. I have learned there are opportunities globally to educate people about the world. This transformative experience has informed me the importance of being a role model and leader for the future leaders of the world and to engage young learners about concepts by recognizing their strengths and finding ways to help them progress as readers.