The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was no consensus. Cunard's sources are quite convincing and span a wide time range, addressing many of the WP:NOTNEWS concerns. Two people generally don't constitute a quorum for a decision in that direction though, and I don't see relisting as having a realistic possibility of resulting in deletion, so I am closing it now as no consensus. King of♥♦♣ ♠ 06:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I don’t think IE applies as this isn’t a biography. I also think there’s enough sourcing to pass GNG: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and others. Mccapra (talk) 09:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Per nom. Absolutely non-notable; other than one event, solely run-of-the-mill coverage. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:20, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 10:40, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 08:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Certainly not notable for other than one event, and it's unlikely the exchange program's article has any likelihood to be expanded upon except by students or faculty involved after resources on the 2014 incident are exhausted. Khu'hamgaba Kitap talk 01:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: The sources for the article and the sources mentioned above are all either passing mentions of the program in books, or pertain to WP:NOTNEWS with coverage of the 2014 incident. Zoozaz1 talk 20:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.
Carlock, Marty. (1985-05-12). "The study of Mandarin is on the upswing in high school: Americans respond enthusiastically to cultural exchanges" (pages 1 and 2). The Boston Globe. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2 on 2020-04-18. Retrieved 2020-04-18. – via Newspapers.com.
Axelrod, Joan. (1986-11-30). "TV to feature Newton-Peking exchange" (pages 1 and 2). The Boston Globe. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2020-04-18. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
In 1986, Massachusetts Newton Public School sent four American exchange students to study in China for a short period of time in accordance with the agreement reached with Beijing Jingshan School. Henderson, who was then the art teacher of the school, led the team.
These are the first high school students in American history to go to China to participate in exchange student programs. At the time, only the Newton Public Schools had the program. Today, schools participating in the U.S.-China high school student exchange program have spread throughout the states, with more than 20 in Massachusetts alone. The number of American students who go to China for exchange each year has also reached the scale of hundreds, and is constantly increasing.
...
In the spring of 2006, Ms. Kwong and another teacher of the school led 9 12th grade students (equivalent to senior high school students in China) to spend an unforgettable time at the sister school of Newton Public School, the famous Jingshan School in Beijing . As exchange students, these American teenagers eat and live in Chinese homes, and "go in and out with Chinese students", and have the most direct contact with Chinese culture and Chinese life.
Colgan, Craig (April 2003). "Interest in International Studies is Back!". Education Digest. Vol. 68, no. 8. p. 63. ISSN0013-127X.
The article notes:
The oldest high school exchange program between the countries of the United States and China is still going strong. The Newton-Beijing Jingshan School Exchange Program, which is based in the city of Newton, Massachusetts, works with private foundations and has raised an endowment which has kept the exchange operating since the year 1979.
Each fall, a group from China visits schools in Newton, and two Newton teachers and five students live with Chinese families. American teachers teach English while they are in China, and students attend classes in language, history, art, math, science, and martial arts, all in Chinese.
The exchange has inspired the Newton school system to make a strong commitment to teaching Chinese language, history, and culture. Students can study Mandarin as early as third grade and continue all the way through high school. Several school districts throughout Massachusetts have adopted similar programs, including Boston, Brockton, Brookline, Belmont, and Dover.
Weingarten, Jane (1989-06-22). "Returning From China, Newton Student Keeps Flame". The Jewish Advocate.
The article notes:
Tamar [Shay] was one of five students from Newton who spent this past semester at the Jingshan School in Beijing, and who lived with Chinese families while they studied and participated in daily Chinese life.
Although this group of students and the two Newton teachers who accompanied them knew their lives in China would be vastly different from what they had been used ot in suburban Boston, and commented on the initial shock of seeing their cramped quarters, adjusting to cold showers and 30-minute bike rides to and from school, these experiences became secondary when the students and teachers developed close bonds with their new friends and adopted families.
And for Tamar and others in the group, their attachment to the people they attended class with and lived with for four months had a profound effect on them, causing their emotions to "gain in volume, and ultimately led them to Tiananmen Square in May, where they marched along with the students who were seeking a more open, democratic society for China."
The article later notes:
"Not all students were behind the movement. In school, I sat two seats away from Deng Xiao Peng's granddaughter, who was a voice box, reflecting her family's view. She thought the students who led the action should be beheaded," Tamar says. But many of the government leaders have grandchildren who were involved.
That was the first jarring question one of his new Chinese high school students directed to American Peter Twomey when he reached the Jingshan Country School in northern Beijing.Despite its stark appearance, Jingshan is a boarding school for Chinese children from elite homes. It sits in quiet isolation on flat terrain in northern China. Despite its young age of two years, the school is dirty and plaster falls everywhere in the shabby interior.
...
Next, he contacted key people in the Newton, Mass., school system, to learn about their China exchange program. Surprisingly, Newton invited Twomey to be one of two teachers to go to China representing their city, and Brockton High granted him a four-month leave.
...
Just as the Chinese send students and teachers to Newton, the Americans send five Newton students, plus two teachers, to spend February to June in Beijing.
The major fear of Chinese officials is that students visiting America will defect. In exchange programs, the rate of Chinese defection is more than 50 percent. But since the Newton project was organized in 1985, they have never had a defection.
Over the past 21 years, Newton has maintained an exchange program with the Jingshan School, sending more than 30 students and 14 teachers to spend a semester in Beijing.
In return, 38 Jingshan students, including Li and five others who are here now, have spent time taking classes and sampling life in the Newton schools.
The Jingshan students, who are visiting Washington, D.C., this weekend will meet with US Secretary of Education Richard Riley and Chinese Minister of Education Chen Zhili tomorrow.
Those involved with the Newton-Beijing program say it was among the first to offer an up-close look at a foreign culture by insisting that participants stay in private homes. They are pleased that federal officials have taken an interest in the opportunity they've been offering students since 1978.
...
Many of the exchange program's major expenses are covered: Participants with host families, students pay for their own airfare, and the School Department pays to hire two substitute teachers to fill in for those who leave.
Carlock, Marty. (1985-05-12). "The study of Mandarin is on the upswing in high school: Americans respond enthusiastically to cultural exchanges" (pages 1 and 2). The Boston Globe. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2 on 2020-04-18. Retrieved 2020-04-18. – via Newspapers.com.
The article notes:
The student exchange program between Newton South High School and a secondary school in Beijing (Peking) will get under way next year. "So far as we know, this is one of the first, perhaps the first, in the country," says Elizabeth A. Quinn, director of secondary education for Newton schools.
Like many US–Chinese relationships, the Newton exchange grew out of personal friendship. Special education teacher Claire Kanter accompanied her husband on a business trip to China in 1979. There, she met Fang Bi Hui, a teacher of English at Jingshan School in Beijing and author of English-instruction textbooks.
...
Kanter and Fang Bi Hui compared notes for hours, rapidly became friends and proposed that their two schools initiate an ongoing relationship. A delegation of Newton teachers and administrators followed up with a formal vist to their counterparts in Beijing the next year; in 1983, Jingshan School reciprocated by sending four staff members to Newton South.
Invited back last fall, Supt. John M. Strand agreed to go, provided Jingshan School would lay the groundwork for a student-teacher exchange. Jingshan officials have now confirmed the plans, and, next fall, four high school students and two English-speaking teachers will live with Newton host families and attend Newton South for a semester. Newton students will then go to Jingshan for a semester.
Jill Shapiro, a Newton North senior, and two English teachers, Mary Doolin and Carolyn Henderson, made up the group that also spent three and a half months at the Jingshan School, a Chinese public high school. The unprecedented exchange came out of a vacation trip to China in 1979 by Claire Kanter, a Newton special education teacher, who developed the idea with Fan Bi Hui, a teacher of English at the Jingshan. The Chinese school sent three students to spend a semester in Newton schools last year and to live with American families.
Students from Newton North and Newton South high schools were chosen to return the visit by submitting essays and by recommendations from their language teachers, said John Strand, superintendent of schools in Newton. They studied Chinese at school and took intensive summer courses at Harvard.
...
The level of classes at Jingshan is similar to that in Newton, students said. Chinese students spend three years, six days a week, in high school, majoring in science or liberal arts, and also studying history, geography, math, politics, chemistry, literature and music.
Axelrod, Joan. (1986-11-30). "TV to feature Newton-Peking exchange" (pages 1 and 2). The Boston Globe. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2020-04-18. Retrieved 2020-04-18.
The article notes:
This was one of the cultural revelations that is taking place as part of a pioneering exchange program between high schools in Newton and Peking. The exchange, touted as the first of its kind between a Chinese and an American public school, is the subject of a documentary called "The Beijing Mirror" made by producer Carol Ratney of the Newton Television Foundation. (Beijing is another spelling for Peking.) The film, which tells about the stay of Wang Hua and two of his classmates in Newton last year, will air Dec. 13 at 9:30 p.m. on Channel 44.
The Chinese exchange students have returned to China, and four Newton high school students, accompanied by two teachers, currently are studying in Peking. ...
...
The cultural exchange was the brainchild of Claire Kanter, a special education coordinator, who accompanied her husband, an accountant, on a business trip to Peking in 1979. There she met a Chinese woman who taught English, and, after years of planning an exchange program with the Jingshan School in Peking began to take shape.
Two public high schools in Newton, Massachusetts—Newton North and Newton South—run an exchange program with the Jingshan School in Beijing, China. Created by two teachers in 1979, the exchange enables U.S. and Chinese teachers and students to spend time in one another’s schools every year. The program has served as a catalyst for districtwide curriculum change, bringing the study of Asian cultures into various academic disciplines, from social studies to science, and adding Chinese to the district’s broad array of language options. The leaders of this exchange now help schools around the United States develop exchange programs with China as a way to internationalize their curriculums.
The incident referenced by editors above happened in 2014: "Newton North High School senior Henry DeGroot was visiting a school outside Beijing on a semester abroad this year when he decided to have some fun and also make a point by writing prodemocracy messages in the notebook of a Chinese student."
The sources I have found were published in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2007, and 2009. The exchange program has received sustained significant coverage in reliable sources.
The Xinhua News Agency article said that Newton students were "the first high school students in American history to go to China to participate in exchange student programs. At the time, only the Newton Public Schools had the program." The Education Digest says, that the "Newton-Beijing Jingshan School Exchange Program" is "[t]he oldest high school exchange program between the countries of the United States and China [and] is still going strong".
A 1989 article in The Jewish Advocate notes that Newton student Tamar Shay while participating in the exchange program at Jingshan marched in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in May "with the [Chinese] students who were seeking a more open, democratic society for China". Shay notes, "Not all students were behind the movement. In school, I sat two seats away from Deng Xiao Peng's granddaughter, who was a voice box, reflecting her family's view. She thought the students who led the action should be beheaded".
A 1998 article in the Deseret News noted, "The major fear of Chinese officials is that students visiting America will defect. In exchange programs, the rate of Chinese defection is more than 50 percent. But since the Newton project was organized in 1985, they have never had a defection."
Reliable sources have provided substantial coverage of the Newton-Beijing Jingshan School Exchange Program, including noting that it is the first and oldest student exchange program between America and China. It clearly passes Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.