Birdsong family answering call to education in Chengdu, China

For the vast majority of students and teachers in Houston County, the hard work ends May 25 with the last day of school. There are exceptions, though.

Jennifer Birdsong, director of federal programs for the Board of Education, will be moving with husband Jeff and children Jillian, 13, and Noah, 10, to Chengdu, China.

She will be elementary school principal at the Chengdu International School, Jeff will teach high school English, and Jillian and Jonah will be students.

“We’ve pursued this for quite some time,” Birdsong said Thursday in her office. “We are extremely excited about this.”

She will leave work June 15 and head out to Buffalo, N.Y., for training. The family will leave for Chengdu in mid-July.

“I’ve been watching the weather there on an app, and the climate has been exactly the same as we have,” she said. “It’s a peach-growing region, and they also have the panda bear hospitals and they’re known for their food. We have to get used to eating some spicy food there in the Szechuan Province.”

She said they started the application process last summer and heard in December they were accepted. The elementary school serves students beginning at 3 years old through the fifth grade, she said.

“Although the majority of students there will not be native English speakers, the content is taught in English,” she said. “And in the elementary setting they also have a Chinese-speaking teacher in the classroom.”

The school is proud of the fact that they graduate students who can speak two languages – English and Mandarin, she said, and some of the others know their home language.

“I’m just excited about the immersion of culture, and I think that will be the biggest plus for being there,” she said. “The school serves multiple nationalities, mainly expatriates that come into the area with business.”

To help her get adjusted to the area, the school follows a North American curriculum, and school starts the first week of August and ends the second week of June. The school’s class sizes are an added bonus, she said.

“They really subscribe to having smaller class sizes. I’m really excited about the early intervention, starting so young,” she said. “We’re really making strides in Georgia with our pre-k and continuing to expand that, but to know that they’re starting at age 3, that’s really fascinating.”

The school is very active in service projects in the community.

“That’s one of their missions – to serve others,” she said.

Last year when the Philippine Islands were flooded by a typhoon, one of the school’s service projects was taking a group of high school students and helping out with the clean up after the flooding.

“So I’m excited about being in a school that not only is about great education – it’s an International Baccalaureate School with AP courses – but also is service-oriented,” she said. “It’s part of their philosophy and their mission – we have to serve in some way. That’s one of the things my husband and I will be doing when school’s not in session – we’ll be working with summer projects throughout the city and serving the community.”

School lunches will offer another change.

“They have school lunch every day with a Western menu and a Chinese menu you get to choose from,” she said.

The school itself is very Western in the way that it’s structured, she said.

“That is a comfort. It is a nonprofit Christian school. It’s out there on the Internet; China knows it’s a Christian school,” she said. “It is great to work in a school where the key desire is to grow the whole child, not just academics but spiritually as well.”

Though the initial term is for two years, Birdsong said that’s just the beginning.

“We feel like we will be there long-term. Most of the people we’ve talked to stayed there 10 to 15 years,” she said. “Both of us feel like even if we move past Chengdu, we’ll just move to serve somewhere else. We know this is what we’re led to do for the rest of our lives.”

HHJ News