By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — It was “East meets West” right down to the breakfast menu this week as a visiting educator from China toured Pawtucket schools as part of a cultural exchange program for administrators.

Jianyong Wang, the vice principal of a large public high school located about two and a half hours from Beijing, was the honored guest of Schools Supt. Hans Dellith as part of a program called the China Exchange Initiative. Wang was one of a group of five Chinese school administrators visiting Rhode Island school districts this week. Based out of Newton, Mass., the initiative facilitates educational exchange programs between schools in the U.S. and China at the pre-college level. It is funded by the Freeman Foundation.
According to literature on the China Exchange Initiative, educational exchange can take many forms: regular exchanges of teachers and students, principal “shadowing” projects, exchanges of music groups, sports teams and other student activity groups, shared “distance learning” projects and telecommunications conferences. The initiative also introduces the participating U.S. school administrators to viable Chinese “partner schools.”
Pawtucket’s Dellith will be joining a group of four other school administrators from Rhode Island in this exchange program, which involves a two-week visit to China in April. There, he and the others will be the guests of Wang and his fellow administrators, touring public schools and learning about how education is handled by a world leader on the other side of the globe.
While Monday’s snowstorm put a crimp in Wang’s schedule, the vice principal was treated to a breakfast hosted by Dellith at the School Administration Building. While the menu featured typical American fare, Sodexo Food Services, the providers of the city’s school lunch program, also included some Chinese specialties, including a type of porridge and thin scallion pancakes, to make Wang feel at home.
The remainder of the week involved a trip to the Rhode Island State House, where Wang and the other administrators met with Gov. Donald Carcieri and other state and local officials. Accompanied by a volunteer translator, Victoria Wong, Wang made a whirlwind tour of the city’s high schools, junior high schools and a few elementary schools. He met with principals and numerous teachers, visited classrooms, and spoke to students both one-on-one and in large groups during lunch periods. On Thursday night, he was the guest of honor at a cocktail reception at the Pawtucket Country Club hosted by the Pawtucket Administrators Association.
At a visit to Slater Junior High School on Thursday, Wang visited several classrooms and told the students about his school, Hengshui High School, which is considered one of the 10 best in China. The public school has a population of 5,000 students and 500 teachers. It is a residential school, where the students stay on a campus and are allowed home to visit their parents on weekends just twice a month.
Wang also said that at Hengshui High, students attend classes six days a week and from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. They do their homework, however, during this time period. He said that the students also wear uniforms, a concept that he said he knows is not popular with most American public school students. “I know, you like to express yourselves through your clothes,” he said, through Victoria Wong’s translation. 
When asked, through Victoria Wong, what he saw as the biggest differences in American and Chinese students, Wang said it was the freedom in which American students are allowed to express themselves, and the students’ casual relationship with their teachers. Wang explained that in China, the students are expected to sit erectly in their seats and respectfully listen to the teacher. No one speaks out without permission or talks back to the teacher.
Wong said that Wang was particularly surprised to see several of the students come up on their own to greet and chat with Dellith during his visits. By contrast, in China, the school superintendent is such a revered figure that a student would never dream of approaching him or her on their own.
When asked what surprised him the most about his school visits, Wang told Wong that, without meaning any offense, he was taken aback by the presence of a nursery inside Tolman High School. Wong said that principal Fred Silva had explained that the child care center was instituted so that young mothers could continue their education and not be forced to drop out of school. When questioned further, Wang explained through Wong that in China, when a teenage girl becomes pregnant, she is requested to simply leave the school and return home to her parents.
Wang added that Wong was most disappointed to learn that there are currently no public high schools in Rhode Island offering Chinese language courses, especially since the U.S. and China will be the world leaders in the 21st century. She also noted that, during Wang’s shopping excursions, he has expressed surprise at how much merchandise in American stores is made in China.
Dellith noted that while many aspects of the Chinese education system are admirable, there are other things that the American system offers that Wang’s country does not. For example, he said there is no special education and there are virtually no courses that foster creativity. The teaching method in China, he said, consists primarily of the teacher talking and the students listening and taking notes, as opposed to the American emphasis that encourages discussion and teamwork.
 “We have a lot of group work, with the students helping each other,” said Dellith. “Because, when you get out in the world, that’s what it’s all about.”
Dellith said he is looking forward to his exchange trip to China, which he said is being funded partly through grant money and partly out of his own pocket. He will leave on April 10, and spend two weeks with the Chinese educators. Joining him on the trip will be Coventry Schools Supt. Kenneth R. DiPietro, Jamestown Schools Supt. Marcia A. Lukon, Narragansett Schools Assistant Supt. Judith J. Paolucci, and Block Island Schools Supt. Leslie Ryan.
In addition to soaking up the culture and bringing back some educational ideas to Pawtucket, Dellith said he also would like to explore exchange possibilities with the participating Chinese schools that would involve Pawtucket schools and students in some capacity.