CIS organizes China presentation for LMS seventh graders
World traveler, Ruby Osia, displays several artifacts from her recent trip to China.
Seventh graders at Lexington Middle School added a stamp to their virtual passports Monday when they “travelled” over 7,000 miles from North Carolina’s Piedmont to China via a presentation given by Ruby Osia.
Pat Ellison, the Communities In Schools Site Coordinator for LMS organized the presentation as a supplement to the seventh grade social studies curriculum, which includes a unit on the world’s most populous country.
“The students study China in seventh grade,” Ellison said, “so I thought it would be nice to invite her [Osia] to talk to them about her experiences.”
A retired schoolteacher, Osia says she just can’t shake the inborn desire to share knowledge with others, especially children. So over the last 20 years, she has made a point not only to see as much of the world as possible, but to come back to the U.S. and give presentations on her travels to students.
Though Osia has set foot on six out of the seven continents (Antarctica was just too cold, she said), and visited more than 11 different countries, she still calls China one of the top two most fascinating places she’s ever seen.
“What I try to do is highlight the things I loved most about China,” she said of her plans to discuss cultural icons like the Great Wall, panda bears, tea plantations and the mysterious terra cotta army guarding the tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi.
Armed with a map of the Chinese cities she visited and several long tables full of Chinese artifacts and photos, Osia planned to begin her last presentation of the day for students in Danielle Kerr and Virginia Lemons’ classes with a description of her 15 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean.
“I’ll also share with them the differences in culture that I noticed,” Osia said, explaining, “In China, you never pile your dinner plate on like we do here. And when they drink tea they don’t add in all the sugar and stuff that we do.”
Aside from fascinating facts and cultural observations, Osia said she always tries to encourage the students she visits to feel grateful about what they have here in the States.
“I share with them how fortunate they are to come to a school like this, with air conditioning and libraries and a custodian,” she said. “The school we visited [in China] had no libraries. The students there clean their own schools.”
For many Chinese students, Osia said, going to school isn’t even an option after they complete fourth grade due to expensive school fees and familial obligations.
But if the LMS seventh graders walk away with just one thing after her visit, Osia said she wants it to be a desire to see the things she has described for them firsthand.
“I want them to walk away thinking, ‘One day, I’m going to see the kind of paces she talked about.’ I want the children to travel and see the world and know that there’s something outside of Lexington,” she said. “They have a lot to contribute to the world.”