Students Get Unexpected Education Through Earthquake

DENVER -- As the Chaparral students in Chinese 2 master their speaking and writing skills, they know those skills will become even more valuable in a few weeks.

By early July they'll be in the area near Chengdu, China.

That's within 100 miles of the epicenter for Monday's massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake.

"We have heard that all the students that have been here or and their families are OK. All of the faculty, our colleagues, are OK," said Catherine Channell, a teacher at Chaparral.

Channell will teach English to her counterparts in China, as she has for years.

But this trip to their sister school in Xin Jin, the third consecutive one for Chaparral students, will be unlike any other.

"Well, they said there's quite a bit of damage there. It is standing. They need it to be inspected, of course, before they let the students back in," Channell said.

At least one student seems blissfully untroubled by the carnage there.

"I wasn't really aware of it, " said sophomore Brexton Snow, one of the three students who will be there in just a few weeks.

"It doesn't sound like it's going to be that big of a concern," Snow said.

Channell said the teachers there in China that she has spoken with by landline not cell phone say they want to try and resume their routine.

"They want to get them back in school. They want to make things normal for them. But thousands and thousands of people have been killed. Having some sense of normalcy is a very healthy thing," Channell said.