Reflections on our "teaching support" activity - Li Yanjun

The teaching support activity has been brief, and although I cannot seem to understand the length of these days, I can really appreciate their depth. My life during these few days has been completely different to anything I could experience before, not only for me but also for the children living there. I just want to say: Fly with confidence, have the courage to say goodbye. I have many complex feelings when I want to talk about my journey.

Because of my previous experience, I am completely sincere about the "teaching support" activity. Even when cannot take the children out of the mountains, we can still let them have a new vision and see a different kind of world. With this wish, we made our journey towards the west, willingly and without any regrets.

I still remember clearly the first day when we arrived to this isolated mountain village. The children and the adults were observing us with great curiosity. They were very shy because they were facing people they hadn't seen before, but after we said "How are you?", they immediately relaxed. We were very happy, and the children were very happy as well, so, regardless of our tiredness from our trip, we started to arrange our material immediately and to communicate with the curious children. The children look at us with eyes full of admiration and respect and we answer their questions patiently. Apparently everything is no nice, but this is only the beginning.

Afterwards, the huge gap in their life’s and learning brought us back to reality. Many of the classes that we had prepared could not be used because we simply could not ignore the enormous difference in between the urban and rural areas in China. A common word like "street" is completely unfamiliar to them. We have to redo everything, and all the previous requirements of the mission have to be pushed down and our enthusiasm gradually turned into frustration and anxiety and lost the patience we showed before.

Probably, only a teacher really knows a teacher's responsibility and difficulties. In this short period of time of a little more than 10 days, we had 2 accidents with injuries. In both of them, the children suffered injuries in their heads. We shouldn't bear the main responsibility, but I can also see this place's backwardness. The village has no doctor, so, if you get injured or are sick, it is impossible to receive treatment immediately. Only if they are seriously sick, they come down from the mountains to receive treatment. But if there is bad weather, the road could be closed. Because of the accidents of the children, I got angry at them for the first time. As a student, and from the point of view of the children, it is difficult to understand this kind of angry behavior in a teacher, but as teacher, I have made the same choice.

As our stay and our exposure grew longer, we also gradually discovered that things here are different from what we are used to. We would like to do something about it, but we feel powerless. The first one is that here the students of first or second year of Primary School are generally older than normal. They are absent from school frequently or, if they go to school, are often called by the parents and forced to go to work in the fields. But, when we went to visit the families, all of the parents said that they support their children being educated. The second one is that here the concept of marriage and childbearing is very antiquated. The children normally mature earlier than normal and, according to the Miao customs, all the children aged 15 or 16 are already married. They arrive at school very late and, after graduation from Primary School, they go to do labor in the fields, so, even the second grade students are very concerned about their marriage issue (especially female students) and want to know where the family wants to marry them. These words came from the mouth of a second grade students. They really shocked me, but I can do nothing to change these practices and customs. The only thing I can do is to teach them some more knowledge, so they will not be cheated in their future life. Secondly, they lack sense of security. There are episodes of domestic violence in almost every family. Our conversation with the children is full of sad stories: "My mother was beaten by my father". At home, they lack the most basic sense of security or sense of belonging. We could sense this fear even in the male students.

Finally, at last, I gave up my desire of changing things here, because they are already used to this kind of life and got some peace of mind. I cannot look at our way of life as the standard and criticize theirs. In spite of their poverty, they are happy. I do not even expect that, through me, they are going to know much more of the world outside, open new horizons. I only hope they are more literate and not be cheated like their parents. I do not hope that they can leave the mountains, but I do hope that they can know life and happiness. The hardware here can be changed overnight, but their deep-rooted way of life can only evolve a little bit. And those of us working in the "teaching support" activity can only give them life skills, another different kind of human warmth.

We cooked the last meal for the children and they ate it very happily. Many children know we are leaving, so they chose not to go home, but to stay to say goodbye to us. Despite facing our departure, children are still children, and their smile is still so bright.

Maybe, in the future, they are able to leave the mountains, but maybe they will stay here forever.

I just hope the kids forget me, forget that we came, but remember that there is love in this world. I now want to tell the kids: you actually very good, have the confidence to fly, the courage to say goodbye to yesterday and pain, the world is as beautiful as you want it to be.