Opening a window to China

Ask history teacher Mary Mahoney to talk about her subject, and she doesn't talk about the timelines in textbooks.

She talks about people.

``I've just been fascinated with people all my life -- what makes people different and what they have in common," she said.

Mahoney, who teaches ancient civilization and world religion at Curtis Middle School in Sudbury, recently spent two and a half weeks studying the people and places of China as part of a program intended to deepen her understanding of the world and improve her teaching.

Mahoney took the trip, which ran from Aug. 3 to Aug. 19, with 22 other educators after winning a grant from Primary Source in Watertown.

Primary Source, founded in 1989, provides funding for K-12 educators throughout the Northeast interested in taking trips to China or Ghana to enrich their perspectives. While abroad, the teachers are required to visit specific sites. Later, they must prepare presentations about what they learned.

Middle-school history courses once focused exclusively on Western civilization, but more middle schools are now broadening their focus to include Eastern civilizations, according to Kathleen M. Ennis, director of Primary Source.

``There's really an understanding that our education system needs to reflect the fact that we're living in an interconnected world, in which the relation between China and America is playing a huge role," Ennis said. ``About 10 or 15 years ago, very few schools were teaching about China."

Mahoney, who majored in education and history at Boston College and received a master's in curriculum and instruction there, said she wanted to visit China to have first hand knowledge of a country she has studied since she began teaching 22 years ago.

The trip took her to some of the country's most notable cities, including Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Kunming.

For her research project, called ``The Many Faces of China," Mahoney took more than 1,000 photographs of historical sites and of the different ethnic minorities in China, such as the Hani and Miao groups.

Mahoney will create a PowerPoint presentation with the pictures, which she will show to her students in the fall.

When she talks about the many faces and landmarks she saw, Mahoney can't contain her enthusiasm. Last week, the night after she returned from her trip, Mahoney read aloud from a journal in which she recorded her impressions of China.

Scattered on her living-room floor near her were paintings that she had purchased from an artist in a rural village.

Mahoney said highlights of the trip included interacting with painters in the village, visiting a panda bear reserve in Chengdu, walking along the Great Wall of China, and attending an opera in Sichuan province.

Though she visited several tourist sites, Mahoney often ventured outside the hotels where she stayed to try to see how the Chinese really live.

``At 10 at night in Beijing, all the stores are open and people are walking around outside," said Mahoney, who ventured out with fellow teachers at night. ``You'd see little kids out at 10:30, 11 at night with their parents."

One morning, while walking near one of the city's many parks, she spotted groups of individuals practicing karate and tai chi. Nearby, a group of fan dancers dressed in colorful garments beckoned Mahoney and a fellow teacher to join in. ``I tried it but it didn't really work out," she said with a laugh.

Mahoney said she was surprised by the natives' caring demeanor and their knowledge of English.

``Most people attempted to speak to us . . . and they were unbelievably friendly," she said.

During a flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Mahoney was treated like a celebrity. A group of Chinese children were intrigued by her curly hair, and lined up to take photographs with her.

``They kept looking at my hair because it had gotten so big" from the humidity, she said. The children dubbed one of Mahoney's traveling companions, Rick A. Thibeault, ``Buddha" because of his large stature.

``Everyone tried to get their pictures taken with us," said Thibeault, a middle-school science teacher in Lexington, who went on the trip partly to develop his understanding of China's environmental issues.

The children's desire to familiarize themselves with Westerners reinforced Mahoney's belief that more Americans should learn about the Chinese culture and the other peoples of the world.

``Almost half the world's population is in Asia -- it might be a good idea for us to understand what the Asians do and why they do it," she said. ``I think people who don't have an open mind and aren't willing to learn about the motivations of other people certainly are doomed to repeat history."