Chinese Han culture is extensive and profound. From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to hundreds of schools of thought, from Tang poetry and Song poetry to Yuan songs and Ming and Qing novels, it has an incredibly long history of over five thousand years. Confucius once said: “If you don’t learn poetry, you can’t speak.”
At SUIS Qingpu, we have set up different Chinese culture exploration projects for children of each grade, capturing a few waves in the vast culture, exploring the most beautiful Chinese stories with children, and through learning, sharing and experiences, sowing the seeds of splendid Chinese culture while cultivating outstanding spokespeople who are confident with Chinese culture.
In May, SUIS Qingpu students from all primary school grades carried out a variety of online Chinese culture-themed activities: outsmarting the Three-Character Classic in “Xieyouji”, where students learned the Three-Character Classic in the interesting “Idiom Amusement Park” and felt the wonderful charm of idioms; experiencing the classic poems of famous masters from the Chinese Poetry Garden; following Confucius’ “The Analects of Confucius” to absorb the wisdom of the sages. The activities served to immerse students in traditional Chinese culture and to help them enjoy the feast of Chinese civilization.
Grade 1: Outsmarting the classics of Chinese studies in the “Three Character Classic”
The “Three Character Classic” has been one of the most splendid elements of classic traditional culture in China over the last five thousand years. It carries the history and spirit of the Chinese nation, and reflects its unique educational thought and cultural charm. The “Three Character Classic” is composed of three characters and two rhymes. The language is simple and easy to read. The content is extensive and rich. It can be called a “traditional culture encyclopedia”, and is very suitable for first-grade students for purposes of learning to recite. In order to promote traditional Chinese culture, create a scholarly campus, and increase interest amongst Grade 1 students in reading ancient poetry and classics, teachers led the students to carry out the activity of “Xie You Ji”, an activity which shows the student’s learning after one school year. Look! The students are already gearing up and ready to give it a try! As a result of the reading, they have subtly learned rich and profound life philosophies such as: respecting teachers, treating others with generosity, being diligent and cautious, aspiring to study diligently, and striving to be strong.
Grade 2: “Hello, Idiom Leader!” – the collection of idioms
The Grade 2 “Hello, Idiom Leader” activity was full of fun. The idioms embodied the essence of thousands of years of civilization of the Chinese nation, as well as the fine works of modern Chinese vocabulary. In learning the idioms, we also gave students a chance to be ‘group leaders’, where they could accumulate many idioms through ‘group purchases’. On May 11, students brought their own idioms from the ‘group purchase’ to get admission tickets to the Idiom Amusement Park and have fun with Idiom Breakthrough. Here, they participated in idiom solitaire, along with some guessing games where they looked at pictures to guess the correct idioms, and other interesting idiom projects. The students’ enthusiasm for learning idioms was greatly motivated by the different forms of entertainment and teaching. If each idiom were a star, I believe that the Grade 2 children would have experienced a bright idiom starry sky. Every child is a star at SUIS – we not only want to help them learn to shine, but to also create platforms for letting them continue to shine!
Grade 3: “Poetry Competition” in the Poetry Garden
Grade 3 students took turns serving as little teachers during a three-minute period before the start of classes. Even during the online learning period, they used different methods to expand on many extracurricular poems for their classmates. It is precisely this kind of preparation that makes many children both gradually fall in love with ancient poetry and also build an interest in exploring ancient poetry. During the Han Culture Week, the long-awaited ancient poetry competition was finally ushered in. In each class, three class representatives, “Little Poetry Saint”, “Little Poetry Fairy” and “Little Poetry God”, were selected through an intense preliminary round of answering questions. In the end, the “Little Master of Grades” from this semester’s Ancient Poetry Competition was chosen from the long-awaited final stage from the grade. The children enjoyed the wonderful world of ancient poetry in this Han Culture Week and opened the door to an in-depth exploration of ancient poetry.
Grade 4: “Traveling through the Poetry Forest, Traveling in Beautiful China”
Although they were isolated at home, Grade 4 students had a free online tour of the Poetry Forest with their teachers and travelled throughout beautiful China. In the classroom, they explored the world of poetry with poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, and Wang Wei. They could also freely choose to recite ancient poems after class. In an online poetry competition, interesting activities such as poetry solitaire, a poetry maze search, and poetry and painting tracking, made for not only a competitive competition for poetry, but also a gathering for children who love ancient poetry. Students not only learned ancient poetry through many fun activities, they felt the beauty of Chinese poetry and rhythm through these activities.
Grade 5: Reading The Analects of Confucius and realizing the wisdom of sages
As a collection of quotations that records the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples, The Analects of Confucius concentrates on the political propositions, ethical thoughts, moral concepts and educational principles of Confucius and the Confucian School. It is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of Confucian teachers and students. As Mr. Liang Qichao said, “If there is no Confucius, then China will not be the China of the past two thousand years.” In order to inherit traditional Chinese culture, the Grade 5 teachers led students to learn more about the famous sentences of “The Analects of Confucius”. They carried out a series of Chinese cultural activities with the theme of “walking into the “Analects of Confucius” and inheriting the classics”, with activities such as: introducing “The Analects of Confucius”, performing “The Analects of Confucius”, singing “The Analects of Confucius”, reciting “The Analects of Confucius”, praising “The Analects of Confucius”, and the preliminary and final ‘knowledge contests’ of the “Analects of Confucius”. Through this series of activities, the students walked into the Analects, experienced their profound meanings, and consciously became lovers and inheritors of the Analects. They also enabled the teachers to take Confucius as an example and learn from him.
The newly released 2022 “Chinese Curriculum Standards” regard “cultural confidence” as the primary task of the core language literacy: “Through language learning, a love for the national common language, Chinese culture, they are able to inherit and carry forward Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture. They are able to pay attention to and participate in contemporary cultural life, to initially understand and learn from the outstanding achievements of human civilization, and to have a relatively broad cultural vision and heritage.
Han culture is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese nation. Let us all travel through the ages, through the rich and colourful classics, creating “poetic hearts”, and choosing the most beautiful poems and moving stories to share with you. Let students feel the charm of classic culture as they tell Chinese stories well, gaining huge cultural self-confidence from them as they gradually become Chinese teenagers with ideals, skills and responsibilities!
“When culture becomes a strong foundation, literature and art allow us to discover beauty and to be good at expressing, thus enriching our lives. All these support our personality and make us an ideal Chinese person.”
– Yu Qiuyu