Teaching Classical Chinese Garden in K-12 Classrooms

Bin He is a Chinese Language and Interdisciplinary Studies teacher at Harvard-Westlake School. He has led three Chinese garden–based professional learning programs in collaboration with The Huntington’s Chinese Garden (Liu Fang Yuan 流芳園) and CLTA-SC, using Chinese gardens as an interdisciplinary context for teaching language, literature, history, aesthetics, and ecology. He also leads an interdisciplinary faculty group at his school and serves as President of CLTA-SC. In addition, he has advised multiple local public and independent schools on the design of Post-AP Chinese courses.

Lois Chung is the founder of the Upper School Mandarin Program at Polytechnic School, where she has developed a vertically aligned curriculum from Introduction to Mandarin through AP Chinese. She believes Mandarin teaching is not only about language proficiency, but about cultivating curiosity, emotional growth, and meaningful engagement through active learning grounded in authentic cultural settings.

For several years, Lois has designed thematic learning centered on the Huntington Chinese Garden and has brought her students to the Garden as an extension of the classroom. She has co-hosted educator workshops at the Huntington Library and facilitated online workshops to share her experience designing engaging, garden-based language projects. She enjoys using the Chinese Garden as a living cultural space for observation, reflection, and purposeful language learning, and values sharing her experience with teachers through in-person and online workshops as they design and adapt garden-based projects for their own students.

Yuan Zhao received her B.A. in French Studies from Barnard College, Columbia University and received her MA in Childhood and Early Childhood Education from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a high school Chinese and French teacher at Mamaroneck High School. Yuan worked as curriculum specialist at GLP Startalk 2019 and student program lead teacher at GLP StarTalk in 2018. She also worked as Teacher Program Practicum Facilitator at the University of Virginia’s Startalk program in 2016 and she served as assistant to the lead instructor in the teachers program at the University of Vermont’s Startalk program in 2014. Yuan Zhao received Teachers College’s Klingenstein Fellowship in 2012 and she was teaching fellow at the Asia Society where she worked under the leadership of Dr. Weiling Wu and produced model lesson plans, And videos of her own classroom are published by Asia Society TEQ website. She looks forward to working with teachers to share her passion for Chinese teaching.