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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Budding Writers -> 
Teaching in a poor village
    2015-10-14  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    “Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.”

    One day, I was sitting in front of my teachers learning all kinds of things. The next, I was a primary school teacher. Together with 32 classmates, I spent two weeks in a primary school in a poverty-stricken region in Ningxia in Northwest China teaching local primary school students.

    After a long flight from Shenzhen, I finally arrived at Xuyi Primary School in Pengyang County, Guyuan City, in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. I was surprised by the shortage of classrooms and teaching facilities at the school. It is demanding for a teacher to teach in such a condition, not to mention that the kids have difficulty concentrating on schoolwork.

    As one of the team leaders, I organized a group discussion on the arrangement of teaching projects. After rational analysis and discussion, most of my classmates agreed to be divided into smaller groups and each group took responsibility for a particular subject. Finally, I decided to separate our team into six groups, with five members per group.

    I was assigned to head the Chinese subject group. I decided to use a formal Chinese textbook and picked up several articles that might be appealing to kids. After preparing for difficult words, sentences, phrases and the core concepts of the articles, I was finally ready for class. However, teaching proved to be more difficult than I expected. I was nervous in front of 40 students and even made some mistakes in my first class. Soon, though, I was able to control the class, assuring that it was neither too oppressive or constrained, nor over-exciting or over-enthusiastic. I became comfortable in guiding the progress of a class and at the same time letting students express themselves. When I acted like a flexible and passionate teacher, I also felt ready to be a good leader.

    I was deeply impressed by how the school dismissed classes. Music would play, followed by a voice that said, “Time’s up for this class. Thank you, teachers.” This phrase didn’t mean anything to me when I was a student. However, as a teacher, I had a new appreciation for it. After a 40-minute class, I often felt exhausted, but that sentence refreshed me, as if I had made a huge accomplishment.

    The living and education conditions in different parts of China vary greatly. Despite this, students in poor villages are even more eager to obtain knowledge than those from big cities.

    Since the learning conditions in poor villages are not good, students tend to focus on their schoolwork and are grateful for their teachers. In comparison, students in rich cities tend to ignore their teachers’ hard work. I often took the help and care given by others for granted. After teaching at the school for only two weeks, I was moved by the sincerity of my students and started to realize that I have been not grateful enough to my teachers.

    As the class bell rang again and again, I felt honored to be a teacher and took pride in the accomplishments my students made. After only two weeks of classes, my students were able to understand the basic themes of Chinese essays and express their ideas clearly. Those kids also appreciated their teachers’ devotion. On the last day of our visit, some kids gave us foods from their hometowns, handmade postcards, greeting cards, etc. One little girl who was 10 years old asked me, “Mr. Zhao, will you visit our school next year?”

    After arriving home, I turned on my phone and was greeted by a voice message sent from thousands of miles away: “Thank you, my dearest teacher.”

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