Who Illuminates the Future of “Crayfishes”?

Nowadays, it is common that college students volunteer to become teachers of village schools in remote areas, which is one way of Chinese Poverty Alleviation through Education. This is not an easy task, and sometimes it is controversial. But Yuwei, a graduate student from Fudan University who used to be such a special teacher, does believe that her efforts will make sense.

In Yuwei’s diaries, she described her past students as “my little crayfishes”. “Because they were always likely to be deaf and blind.” She shrugged. The word “crayfish” has the same pronunciation with “long xia” in Chinese which stands for deafness and blindness. “My little crayfishes always drive me mad. They are not able to digest what I’ve taught in class and even make mistakes by copying words directly from the blackboard. If I criticize them, they will bow their heads and wear an expression of sincere as if they would do whatever I request. But when I go away, they will do whatever they want, like throwing away their textbooks. ” Yuwei complained in her diary.

It was in an ordinary middle school of Pingfeng Town, Xiji County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, one of Chinese remote areas with extreme poverty, where Yuwei became a volunteer teacher one and half a year ago. Children were brought up as family labour there and spent all their free time on housework and farm work. They treat studying as something optional.

“Jack Ma is a millionaire.” A crayfish wrote such words in his composition. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Company, had been ranged as the world’s richest Chinese on Hurun Global Rich List 2019 with 260 billion yuan. ”We all know Jack Ma owns much more money than a millionaire. It is common sense while he doesn’t know.” Yuwei said, ”however, it was too hard for me to laugh at him because I also know definitely that in his world there’s no one richer than a millionaire.” “I do not want to judge but I have to say, poverty limits them in imagination and vision.“ She added.

Statistics have shown that at the end of 2018, there were still 16.6 million poor people in China and most of them lived in the villages of remote rural areas where the geographic environment is inaccessible and treacherous. The Chinese government has taken many measures to improve this situation and one of them is called “Poverty Alleviation through Education”. To provide poor children with easier access to education, a famous example is that in 2016, Chinese authorities made perilous cliff-face school run safer by installing new metal ladder on side of the mountain and cut journey time by an hour for schoolchildren in Atuler, Sichuan Province. ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/chinese-authorities-make-perilous-cliff-face-school-run-safer)

Xuefeng Li, a Chinese scholar studying Poverty Alleviation had pointed out, the main restraints of education in those poverty-stricken areas are weak education foundation, insufficient teaching staff and difficult introduction of high-quality teachers. Therefore, many universities run programs to yearly send outstanding students as volunteer teachers to remote areas helping with the development of education there. In Fudan University such program is called Students Teaching Support Team. Yuwei is one member inside. She graduated as a bachelor in 2018 and spent one gap year teaching English in Pingfeng Middle School. In 2019, she came back to Fudan University and studied for a master’s degree. “Normally, senior students apply for this program. They need to pass the exam and receive professional training. Afterwards, they become formal teachers of Students Teaching Support Team and prepare to leave school for voluntary teaching.” Yangchen, the team leader of the same team who went to another village school in Xiji County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region introduced. Before going to meet the students there, he had prepared himself well with more than two short-term teaching experiences.

During Yuwei’s one-year stay in Pingfeng Middle School, she had to deal with those children in their teens who knew nothing about the Internet, metropolis…and the updated outside world. When she got closer, she thought more.

“I noticed that my previous understanding of those children was not accurate. I thought they need new technologies such as multimedia teaching equipment and laboratory experimental equipment. In fact, these things are not lacking. What they lack are the motivation to learn and the conscious of the meaning to learn. ” Later Yuwei thought she could touch the deep concerns and doubts from her little crayfishes: “Can I go outside the village and live better through education?” Therefore, she and her teammates paid special attention to giving children psychological education and goal motivation. “We told them about life in the city through photos, videos, dictation… and made them realize that as long as they study hard, they would have the opportunity to live that kind of life.” Yuwei said.

Many people doubt the meaning of these one-year teaching activities on how much change they can achieve. There are also debate competitions focusing on the relevant topic around the campus. When Teacher Jiao, Secretary of the Party Committee of Fudan University, visited the schools where those young volunteer teachers devoted to on the twentieth anniversary of Students Teaching Support Team, she claimed, “the precious two decades has demonstrated the value orientation of contemporary youths to take on the responsibility and pursue excellence. From their work, we can see that uninterrupted efforts do make sense.”

“You are not a hero.” Yuwei reminded herself again and again especially when she got depressed with her crawfishes. She knew she could not change much more things there. But she said: “All of us treasure the sense of mission to illuminate their life and their future. ” Just as Teacher Jiao used to encourage them, “One year may not change one person, but two decades may change one place.”