On Thursday, the Mills Park Elementary media specialist will travel to China and take part in a 10-day professional development program. Fiedler is one of 10 teachers chosen by the Borchardt Fund Award to participate in UNC's Center for International Understanding program "China: Then and Now." The teachers will visit schools and businesses to learn more about how to train the next generation of students for high tech careers in a global marketplace.

The trip has been a long time coming. For two summers in high school, she was a nanny in Germany, which gave her a wanderlust she tried to satisfy by joining the Air Force. She was ready to see the world. But they sent her to Illinois. Her husband works for IBM, a company with opportunities for overseas assignments. But it never panned out.

Fiedler said Mills Park has a large population of Asian students, whose families can't wait to see her photos, read her blog and share more about their culture.

Q: How did your students respond to your award?

A: All of my students were excited. But it was a nice surprise how the people of Chinese descent came and introduced themselves. It gives me goose bumps. That I care about their culture and country is a real compliment to them. Several of the kids are going to be staying with grandparents and family in China this summer, and I hope to get a photo on the Great Wall with them.

Q: What is an example of what you will do during the visit?

A: We will visit Wuxi, a province that is identifying itself with green energy and green technology. The area is trying to learn more about environmental issues. We will take a bullet train from Shanghai to Wuxi and tour the manufacturing plants there. We will meet a lot of executives.

Q: How have you prepared for the trip?

A: We all got together for a two-day conference in May. The Borchardt Fund group and the Beattie Foundation group along with some international businesspeople met for a TelePresence teleconference at Cisco. It was amazing: a horseshoe-shaped table with three HD-TVs and no pause time. The people in China had the same exact set-up.

We spoke with a Cisco executive - a global talent scout. We asked about what he sees when he interviews Chinese graduates versus American graduates. He said Chinese students always have a graduate degree, and they know math and science cold. What Americans have going for them is creativity.

When Chinese and American students are asked to come up with an innovation, the Chinese student might say, "You can't do that because it hasn't been done yet." But an American student may have 20 different ideas, none of which has been tested.

He said he is looking for team players, people who can collaborate and bridge that gap.

Many of us as teachers just looked at each other when he said Americans had the creativity piece. We are moving more and more towards standardized testing, but we can't lose our creativity and problem-solving. Programs like Odyssey of the Mind focus on that creative problem-solving.

Q: What will you do at the schools you visit?

A: Primarily, we will be looking at how they use technology in the classroom. I did ask my fellow teachers and students what they are interested in so I can ask while I'm there. The students want to know what students there eat for lunch. The teachers want to know things like whether they have bulletin boards, and P.E. teachers want to know what they do in P.E.

Q: How easy will it be to ask questions? Do you have restrictions?

A: It seems surprisingly open. Everything is on the table, even politics and government. We can even ask about communism versus democracy. The few things they have suggested we don't discuss involve Taiwan and Tibet.

Q: How much research did you do to prepare during the application process and after you found out you would be going to China?

A: I did a fair bit of research during the application process and got plenty of ideas about the lessons I'd like to do. I studied the history of innovation in China. We also listened to speakers, like a professor of sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill. I came across an interesting statistic: It takes about 18 months here in America from concept to execution when creating a cellphone. In China, it takes two weeks. We may have the iPhone, but they have things like cell phones with cigarette lighters built in.

Q: How will you use your experiences as you teach next year?

A: The UNC Center for International Understanding has asked that we teach at least one lesson about our trip, but I imagine that my experiences will weave throughout all of my lessons next year. At least one lesson will compare Chinese and American folktales, but of course, I will share what I saw and experienced in China.

I will share what I learned during staff development so that we can all teach more culturally relevant lessons. I'll also present at the North Carolina School Library Media Conference in October in Winston-Salem.