One Year in A Foreign Country, What Would You Do?

If you were traveling to a foreign country for one year, what would you want to do? Would you travel to all of the major cities? Check out the country's greatest national parks? Would you spend your time teaching the youth and learning what they can teach you?

Xiaona Wang did all of this in more during her year-long visit to Hopkinton.

"The first thing I noticed when the assistant principal was driving me to Hopkinton was all of the trees," Wang said. "No one was out walking. It was very different than my home city with six million people. When you walk here your only company is the trees."

That wasn't the only change Wang noticed immediately in Hopkinton.

"My colleagues had told me that American students are very engaged, which turned out to be very true," she said. "Some times when you are trying to learn Chinese characters it can be hard; so you need to use games to get the students engaged in learning. American students want to learn and have fun, which is very different from Chinese students.

While she was here Wang had the opportunity to travel the country during the school vacations. Her visits included New York City, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Yosemite National Park.

"Boston was my favorite, it has a great mix of modern and historic," she said. "Every time a different teacher in my program came to Boston, we would do the walking tour and it was so beautiful."

It seems like Wang got to see and do everything there is to do in this country except for one classic place so American it is almost ever present in daily life.

"I have dreamed of going to Walt Disney World, but I never got a chance to." Wang said. "I will need to come back and bring my daughter there when she is older." 

Primarily to teach our student's the language and culture of China, but also to bring back knowledge of our culture so she can better serve the students at her home school year after year.

"I'm so excited to go back and teach, maybe I'll even play a game in the classroom," Wang said. "But I don't know if that would make them not do as well on their exams."