Many college students have actively participated in volunteer service activities in recent years. They went to the west, into the mountains, to volunteer for teaching. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students have stepped up to the front lines whenever needed. The youth of students in the College of Management and Economics is not only in the west, but also blooming in every inch of China.
Tian Shuo, Ji Yuan, and Tian Lipeng, participated in the 23rd Graduate Student Volunteer Teaching Program of Tianjin University to teach in the west of China.
Tian Shuo
Speaking of the reason why she chose to be a volunteer teacher, Tian Shuo shared her story. In the second year of high school, her father chose to support Tibet, which made her understand the meaning of dedication and responsibility.
Two short-term volunteer teaching experiences confirmed her idea. Because of the clear eyes she looked when she heard "you are my favorite teacher", she wanted to enter children's hearts and become their closest friend. She hoped to change or improve the fate of even one child, to be worthy of the "teacher" they call her.
Tian Shuo during short-term volunteer teaching
During her week as acting head teacher, she arrived at school at 6:30 am each day.
At most, there are four classes a day plus evening self-study classes, which made her, who always boasted that she had the golden voice to sing karaoke all night and still could shout the next day, often took the Golden Throat Lozenge.
It used to take her more than an hour to grade the homework of 120 students in two classes every day.
Tian Shuo is correcting students' homework
During the break time, Ji Yuan and her would organize some activities, such as doing calisthenics and playing sandbag.
Tian Shuo in volunteer teaching daily life
From 9:00 pm to 10:40 pm is the second evening self-study class, and she usually stayed in the classroom to answer questions from the students.
Volunteer Teaching and the work at the university must be combined, and she usually had meetings at 10 pm to make some arrangements.
As a senior high school math teacher, she felt the teaching pressure relatively large.
However, she thought her volunteer teaching trip benefited a lot to her.
The students gave her an award for "The best Math teacher". They made her a hand-woven bracelet that she wear all the time. Students wrote songs for her about the day they first met and left, and they wrote long letters to her. They folded paper clips into the shape of hearts for her. When she was sad, they put sticky notes with comfort words in their homework and handed them to her. They also secretly put "apology letters" on her desk after making her angry. They even offered to let her math class occupy the evening self-study classes of other subjects, which she never imagined when she was a student.
Photo with students
It has been nine months since she became a high school math teacher. During these nine months, she understood what is called "to be a learned teacher, but also to be a moral example". She also felt the joy and pride of devoting her youth to people. “In the future, I will continue to run on the youth track”, she said.
Ji Yuan
Ji Yuan’s family is in a small town in the west of Inner Mongolia. Fortunately, she was admitted to Tianjin University and had access to more comprehensive and high-quality resources. Therefore, the idea of volunteer teaching has always been in her mind since she entered university. She hope to return to the western region to pass on some of what she have learned. She knew a lot about the short-term volunteer teaching practice of the college before, but she missed it due to the time arrangement, so she felt a little regret. Later, she tried to sign up for the graduate student volunteer teaching program and was lucky to be selected. After joining the program, she received systematic training on ideology and politics, teaching methods, and communicated with previous seniors. She also looked up some relevant materials and asked relatives who were teachers about their experiences.
As the only independent high school in Tanchang County, School No. 1 attaches great importance to teaching. English self-study time is 7:55 in the morning. In addition, she had 12 regular classes, two self-study classes in the afternoon and two self-study classes in the evening every week. English listening practice is from 6:30 pm to 7:10 pm, so she stayed in school most of the time.
Ji Yuan in class
When there is no class, she would prepare lessons, correct homework, attend teaching and research meetings, and complete some work of the graduate student volunteer teaching program. She stayed three days a week to answer questions after the evening study and went home at about 10:30 pm. There wasn’t much time for rest. During the spare time, she liked to walk around the county with her partners.
Ji Yuan is correcting students' homework
Ji Yuan is answering questions from students
The most difficult time was when she first arrived last year. She had just found a room to rent and had to start teaching the next day. She was new to the school and had little teaching experience, so she felt flustered in the first week or so. But the students were very understanding. They assured her not to be nervous. During that time, she encountered some difficulties in the teaching process. She had known before that the children here were weak in English, but did not have a particularly specific perception, so she prepared some content beyond the students' ability. This period was equivalent to a running-in period.
Due to their weak basis, their average score in English was around 55 out of 150. Most of them could hardly get any sense of achievement in English learning, so they had no confidence. She may not be able to improve their scores, but she hoped to help them build up their interest and confidence in English learning. She was also happy when students like her class and were delighted because "the next class is English class" and "the correct rate of listening questions is higher". This year, her most significant change was in the aspect of mentality. She was easy to fall into a negative mood. But during the volunteer teaching period, she faced the children every day, and always reminded herself to enter the classroom in the most favorable state. The simple and comfortable smiles of the children also infected her, making her more positive and outgoing.
Photo with students
Tian Lipeng
During his first year's summer vacation at the university, he went to Liutun Town, Xiuwen County, Guiyang city, Guizhou Province, to carry out volunteer teaching practice activities. They had set up a teaching practice base of the college of management and economics at Liutun Middle School. After that, he could see familiar faces of TJU students in Liutun on many news.
Tian Lipeng, a volunteer teacher in Guizhou
That was the first time he felt what front-line education was like. Seeing the establishment of the dream classroom from nothing, the promotion of the systematic curriculum, and the light in the eyes of the children in Liutun, he deeply felt the extraordinary significance of volunteer teaching for rural education.
Before volunteering as a teacher, he improved his teaching ability by studying courses, returning to the campus to attend lectures and asking former teachers for advice. By participating in the actual work of the service place, he understood the local situation and let himself enter the role earlier.
In Xinjiang, there was a two-hour time difference. The classes were from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm and from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Apart from classes, he wrote lesson plans, corrected homework, and prepared for lessons.
Tian Lipeng in class
After work, he occasionally invited his friends to cook, chatted and communicated with them about cloud classroom work.
He was probably better at having fun. He usually made coffee, played guitar, drew and did exercises in the dormitory.
In the process of volunteer teaching in the town, the most significant difficulty was that parents generally did not pay much attention to their children's learning. As a result, students' learning was primarily confined to school or even just 40 minutes in class. It was difficult for students to complete the necessary review and preparation after they went home. When he arrived there, he was shocked and helpless about such kind of learning. He tried all kinds of ways to alleviate that problem. Through continuous communication and requirements, he achieved specific results.
The biggest gain was that through his efforts, the children could see more of the outside world, and improved their knowledge and academic performance.
Equally important, he realized the real situation of education in the most frontier and front-line areas in China and the attitude and determination of China to gurantee the equality of educational opportunity. Every student deserves to be cared for, and every teacher's efforts deserve respect and admiration. It's not something you can compare a month or two of practice. It was acquired by spending time with local teachers and students.
Photo with students
Based on this understanding, he believe that in the future, he will pay more attention to and understand the education cause, and put it into practice in his words and deeds.
By College of Management and Economics
Editor: Sun Xiaofang
