Nichols School Chinese teacher Yajie Zhang was recognized with The Confucius Educator Award by the University at Buffalo’s Confucius Institute last weekend.

 

Ms. Zhang is the founding teacher of the Chinese program at Nichols. Since 2007, she has established a Confucius Classroom to foster appreciation for Chinese language and culture, developed an AP Chinese course and curriculum, and coordinated an international exchange program with a school in Wuhan, China.

 

Students from the Nichols Chinese Song Club performed at the awards ceremony as well. As the world looks ahead to the 2022 Winter Olympics beginning soon in Beijing, this group sang “Beijing Welcome You” at the ceremony, which was the official welcome song of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

 

The Chinese Song Club is led by Giselle Jou ’23 and Gabby Radford ‘23. Jou and Radford were joined in the vocal group by Elizabeth Berdysiak ‘23, Christina Jiang ‘23, Saniya Kalra ‘23, Rebecca Korsh ‘23, Gabe Maddox ‘22, Rick Ren ‘23, and Alyssa Rich ’23. Fengyu Zhan ’24 accompanied the group on piano. You can watch the recording of their performance here.

 

Congratulations, Ms. Zhang and students!