Casual International Teacher Conference Days 6 - 8: The Conference Itself, and Getting Home

Monday, December 1st, 2025

7:18 PM

Hong Kong International Airport

Ah, now to the actual reason I was here, the conference through which I was able to attain this free trip to China in the first place.

I would break my trip up into 3 parts: Solo Hong Kong, Group Trip Guangzhou, and now this -- the Deeper Learning China conference.

I have enjoyed all three parts of my trip for different reasons. Hong Kong was just so fucking cool. I would have to come back and spend more time here. China was fascinating and so different, and I am glad my first time here was with a guide, as China was "post credit card," which feels insane to me and my Western sensibilities (seriously, they seemed to view credit cards the way we view checks -- they like apps like Apple Pay, but even that was not always something they accepted, as the far favored preference of stores and cafes and restaurants was either the app Alipay or the app WeChat, which seems to be a mix of messaging, social media, and finance for the people of China). 

And the third part -- well. That spoke to my passion as an educator, where I got to learn about how China approaches education in an ever-changing world while also sharing a project I am immensely proud of. I met some really wonderful, kind, and impressive people, and I now have to keep WeChat downloaded on my phone to talk to all my new friends.

So, the first day. Friday afternoon. We had the morning to ourselves, and thank god. I was exhausted, so I fully spent this morning in bed. I skipped free breakfast, because bed was the more attractive option. In fact, I was a few minutes late for 11:45 AM lunch at our hotel, which is mildly embarrassing, and yet I didn't care. I've been go-go-go this whole trip, and I was going to be go-go-go for the remainder of it. I liked my morning to myself in my luxurious suite.

Oop! We are boarding. The discussion of the afternoon, where we arrived on campus and spoke with the leaders of the host school, will have to wait.

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025

5:42 PM

San Diego, CA, USA

Whew! I am EXHAUSTED. Okay, back to Friday afternoon.

We met with some of the leaders, got our schedules and swag bags, and then got shown to a conference room on the 5th floor. This school was beautiful! The bottom floor had huge lecture halls, a gym, a cafe, and a basketball court. Around the corner was an aquatics center, but it was closed, and we weren't able to check out the dorms on campus. 

The school set up for the Deeper Learning Conference.

In the conference room, we had time to go through our presentations and get ready for tomorrow. We were also supposed to get ready for the evening activities we had planned -- one where Nuvia and I spoke about some film clips and made space for conversation. One of the facilitators decided to share a song she made -- with AI -- about the power of education by playing it from her phone, and I swear to God, I have never made myself focus so hard on my work and nothing else in my life.

Also, I looked through the brochure, and I found my Deep Dive listed. Here is a picture of me and my project, originally titled "What's the Beef with Climate Change?" 

Definitely me, and also, definitely the school where I currently teach. I also make a point to my students in my project that the problem is the industry that sells beef and the corners they cut to turn a profit, not us as individual consumers. Glad that came across in the translation!

We then had one of my favorite moments of the conference, where we met with leaders of GUIS (Guangzhou Ulink International School) and The Olympia School, a private school in Vietnam. It was really interesting to hear their approach to education, and how to bring project-based learning and other educational innovations to school systems that are as exam-driven as China and Vietnam. I also learned that, even in China, AP tests are always in English (except for the AP test for Chinese or other foreign languages). Thinking about how annoying the language of AP Stats is even as a native English speaker, I really can't imagine how difficult it must be when English isn't your first language.

Afterwards, we checked out student exhibits from projects they've done, and then we took turns at the book-signing station, where we were available to sign books for interested parties (even though none of us wrote or were associated with these books). We then had our talk, but there was an issue with the translation, and even though "Beyond the Crossfire" was supposed to be about project-based learning, the attendees of the conference assumed it was about school shootings, which is just not a thing in China, so nobody came. 

Dinner was in the cafeteria on the 2nd floor, and it was a delicious catered event. By the time we were done with everything and went back to the hotel, some of the other facilitators stayed up to enjoy a drink, and I went to bed because I am tired all the time.

Saturday morning, I got up early to enjoy breakfast at the hotel before heading to the conference. There, we listened to a couple keynote speeches and a round table, all about what it means to have AI in education. The speeches were in Chinese, translated into English in real time using AI. It is ironic, I suppose that the AI translations for speeches extolling the virtues of AI in education were, ah, not great. But we got the general idea.

The rest of the morning was spent preparing for our workshops, and then a fancy lunch with school leaders and other facilitators. I spoke more with Hansen, the AP director, and the GUIS high school principal (a guy from the Bronx who used to be a lawyer). Finally, dinner was over, and it was time to start our workshops.

I have seen teachers declare that Christmas at school is not fair to students who don't celebrate Christmas. I don't think those people understand just how universal Christmas has become. The Chinese people are majority atheist, and yet, here we are. Everybody loves Christmas.

Also, I am obsessed with these classroom agreements written by middle schoolers.

I was a little nervous to get started on my 6-hour presentation (2.5 hours Saturday, 2.5 hours Sunday) about the climate change project I've done the past several years at High Tech High Chula Vista. The project is about using data collected from food sources to create functions about carbon emissions increasing over time and making predictions based on those functions. And you know what? I kinda killed it. I felt really comfortable. I know how this project, and I can adapt, and all of the attendees in my room were excited to be there and learn. The first 2.5 hours kinda flew by, actually.

I had about 22 people, 3 of whom were... middle schoolers? I have literally never seen a student take one of these workshops, and mine in particular requires doing more advanced math. They also weren't super comfortable with English so... I don't know. God bless those three boys, they were quiet and sweet and mostly kept to themselves. One of them did try valiantly to understand what was happening, so kudos to him.

Dinner -- our last dinner together as facilitators -- was Cantonese food, a veritable feast, in a private room where we also could do some karaoke. I sang "Pink Pony Club," because that is an excellent karaoke song, and also they didn't have "Devil Went Down to Georgia."

This multi-story playground area in a Coco Park mall. The restaurant was on the top floor (of the mall, not the playground).

The restaurant.

On Sunday, our last day of the conference, we jumped right into our deep dives. We then exhibited our projects, and while my exhibition wasn't the best (I'm bad at this part), I had multiple teachers tell me that my project was inspiring and they really got a lot out of it, even with the language barrier. Everyone was so kind!

He didn't speak a lot of English, but his colleagues kept forcing him to speak it so he would get more comfortable with the language.

A final product that a group created with this project.

Oh, I'm fully bragging now about some of the messages I received from people who attended my workshop.

Sunny, an educator at an institution in Hunnan, a province in Western China, was a delight to teach, and really was outspoken in finding me "inspiring." She helped set up the WeChat for everyone to share documents, as is necessary for the project. On the last day, she told me I should come to Hunnan because it was the best food in China.

"I love American food," she said. "Oh, sorry, can you tell I'm being sarcastic? That's just my personality!"

Lowkey, Sunny, was really fun, and I get where she's coming from with American food because the only American restaurants I saw in Guangzhou were McDonald's and KFC. Like, that's so rough. (They also had Starbucks and 7-11, because East Asia LOVES 7-11.)

Dr. Houbin Fang, a professor who lives in Georgia but is from China and who really put this whole thing together, gave a nice speech about how wonderful it is to make connections at a place like this conference, and how meaningful it was to him to meet new people and see old friends. We took more pictures, and then the conference was over.

Rose and Madison had a 9:50 PM flight direct to LAX from Guangzhou airport, and my flight, with a layover in Hong Kong, was leaving at 10:15 PM. I don't know why I didn't book the direct flight and instead chose the one with the 20 hour layover in Hong Kong. I think it was cheaper? I can't recall.

We walked around a cute neighborhood in Guangzhou, a small island in the middle of Pearl River. Houbin had arranged a car for us for our last hour in town. We bought souvenirs, and we talked about HTH and the state of their union. 

I landed in Hong Kong at midnight and went to an airport hotel to grab a room for the night. At that point I realized I didn't know where my car key was, so I prayed it was in my checked luggage. That morning, I panic dialed the hotel I stayed in a few days earlier, but they found nothing. I had my last few egg tarts in Hong Kong.

I slept probably about 2 hours on the flight, which was less than ideal, and then landed at around 4:30 PM. Global Entry is amazing, and it made my re-entry into America very easy. I think my bag was literally the absolute last bag to make it out of the airplane, and then I had to take a shuttle in order to get in the 6-minute uber to Eamon and Allegra's house. I also still wasn't sure if I had my car keys, which was very fun and cool and speaks well of my ability to be an adult who can take care of herself, but it was in my checked luggage and I was able to get in my car after all.

And then a simple 2.5 hour drive home, with nighttime construction 3 exits away from home, before getting home at 10 PM and falling asleep by 10:15.

In 2025, I've been lucky enough to travel:

• on a cruise (first time!) for a bachelor party that allowed me to see Key West (bizarroland, maybe the weirdest place I've ever been) and the Bahamas 
• to Catalina Island (also for the first time!)
• to London, Zanzibar, and Doha (London is great, Zanzibar is amazing, Doha lowkey sucks) for my honeymoon
• to New York City (for my goddaughter Brigid's graduation!)
• to San Jose (to see an old college friend!)
• to Las Vegas (to see Lady Gaga! She was amazing! But also, Vegas lowkey sucks -- $8 for a bottle of water is a bummer)
• to Healdsburg (for my BIL and SIL's wedding!)
• to China

What a year! I think we have plans to travel to the Dominican Republic next June for a big Turner family vacation, but I don't know if I'll be able to do as much traveling in a year anytime soon, but I've been very lucky. The only other place I'm visiting is of course LA for Christmas, and that works for me. 2025 has been a heck of a year.