"SMITHFIELD — School Supt. Robert M. O’Brien is still trying to adjust to the time change.
He, along with a contingent of educators from Smithfield, Lincoln, the Southern Regional Collaborative and the Rhode Island Superintendents Association, traveled to Beijing for a week earlier this month to attend the Fourth Confucius Institute Conference. It was the conversations with his counterparts in other parts of the world that amazed him.
“We were talking about things the commissioner was talking about in Rhode Island,” he said, “teacher quality, how to assess programs, a lot of the things we’re talking about in the United States, they were talking about globally.”"
He, along with a contingent of educators from Smithfield, Lincoln, the Southern Regional Collaborative and the Rhode Island Superintendents Association, traveled to Beijing for a week earlier this month to attend the Fourth Confucius Institute Conference. It was the conversations with his counterparts in other parts of the world that amazed him.
“We were talking about things the commissioner was talking about in Rhode Island,” he said, “teacher quality, how to assess programs, a lot of the things we’re talking about in the United States, they were talking about globally.”"