Morris teachers return from China

Three retired teachers have found another calling after leaving their positions in Morris School District 54 grade schools.

Rollin and Gloria Varness and Kathy Schaefer just returned from six-week stints in Dalian, China this summer, where they helped Chinese teachers learn better methods of teaching English to their students.

This was the Varnesses’ fifth year teaching the international summer program. Their first time was in 1989, when they stayed an entire year in Harbin, China. They brought their first- and fifth-grade children with them that time and were completely immersed in the culture and education system of the city of 3 million.

At the time, Rollin was a music teacher at Shabbona Middle School and had just gotten laid off in a reduction of force. His wife, Gloria, taught third grade, also in District 54.

Rollin was exploring what to do for work and came across the teaching program. The couple decided it was just the thing for them, and although Rollin’s position was reinstated for the following year, they already had made plans for China.

It was an experience they never will forget.

“That year really put a love of China in our hearts,” Rollin said. “We fell in love with the people.”

The Varnesses returned to China four more times to teach six-week sessions during the summers.

They knew their friend and former co-worker, Kathy Schaefer, would love the China program just as much. Schaefer taught English language arts at Shabbona and retired from the district in 2011. They were right.

After the Varnesses had Schaefer over for dinner one night to tell her about it, Schaefer went home and signed up.

“For me, it actually goes back to Jan Wendling’s accident,” Schaefer said of her reason for joining the program. Wendling was a teacher at Shabbona with Schaefer and Rollin Varness when she and her husband, Mark, were killed in an accident while bicycling.

“She was a very dear friend of mine,” Schaefer said. “She was such a giving person. She was always giving.

“She was always there for people, and that made a huge impact on me. When she and her husband were killed, I just made that decision that I wanted to give more. I’m not going to be here forever. I could be gone next week. I never really thought about putting myself out there in a giving way before, but I knew that was something that I should do.”

Chinese students excel in math and science, Schaefer and the Varnesses said, but they always need help with the English language.

There are major tests Chinese students take that determine whether they go on to high school, then later to determine whether they can go to college, and English is one of the subjects tested.

If they don’t pass the test in ninth grade, Gloria said, they are not allowed to continue in school and are placed in the workplace. The Morris retirees helped Chinese teachers who taught grades 7 to 9. The English skills of the teachers determined what their students learned about English and how well they did on the test.

It was important to the teachers to be able to speak and teach English the best they could, the Varnesses said. Some of them had never spoken to a native English speaker before.

All three of the Morris teachers praised the support Chinese children receive from their parents. It’s not always the same in the U.S., they said.

“The families were so supportive of the education of their children,” Schaefer said. “They want nothing but the best for their child.”

Most families in China still have only one child, Gloria said, and all of their hopes center on that child.

The job of Schaefer and the Varnesses was to teach the Chinese teachers, but they ended up gaining as much from the experience.

“The whole culture was a learning experience for me,” Schaefer said. “I stepped out of my comfort zone.”

Schaefer said she even got lost her first day there when taking a run near their hotel. The blocks don’t run square there, she said, and the people she stopped for directions didn’t speak English. She finally got her bearings and arrived home safely.

The Varnesses said the city has changed quite a bit from the first time they taught there. Before, Gloria said, everyone rode bicycles. Today, almost everyone has a car.

“They park them everywhere,” she said.

“Including the sidewalks,” Schaefer added.

Grocery shopping used to be very difficult, as well. Gloria said everything was behind a counter, and she would have to ask for each item by name. The past few years, they have stayed in hotels, where the meals are cooked for them.

The three enjoyed trying new foods, too, such as pig intestines, duck tongue and cow tendon.

Another difficulty, they said, was using what they called “squatty potties,” which were basically a hole in the floor. There was one restroom in their building that had Western toilets. The Chinese called them toilets for the handicapped.

The Morris teachers became close to many of the Chinese teachers, getting to know them personally and going on excursions with them and their families on Saturdays. With them, they visited the Great Wall, museums, beaches and their families’ homes and businesses.

Schaefer said they were nice and respectful people.

“They respect people, they respect each other, they respect their culture and their way of life,” she said.

The teachers were excited to show Schaefer a Buddhist temple. It was a part of their history, she said. They told her they didn’t believe in Buddhism, but they had respect for it.

The cultures the Morris teachers and the Chinese teachers exchanged might have been just as important as the English lessons. The Varnesses and Schaefer taught the Chinese teachers about American culture and holidays, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and even flash mobs. The Chinese shared their culture, as well.

“It’s a huge deal to be able to be that entrenched in another culture,” Rollin said. “The way we do things is not the only way to do them. We talked about our cultural differences and said they’re just different. They’re not right or wrong. And that is a very valuable thing.”

“When people travel to other countries,” Gloria said, “they never get to experience culture the way we did for that month. We’re invited to their homes. We get to see their children grow up. You really get to know them on a different level.”