Part 5: Learning
With students finally enrolled in the school, Ruan Wenping gradually settled down to normal teaching. To help children adapt to the new lifestyle, he did his best to create an excellent learning environment. The slogan “Please speak in Mandarin Chinese” was put up in the school. He taught bilingually, both in Yao and Mandarin Chinese languages, and put in a great deal of time and energy teaching students to read, write, and learn. His students could read, answer questions, and speak fluently in Mandarin Chinese, and had overcome difficulties in communicating with others in Chinese.
It would have been satisfactory just teaching mathematics and Mandarin Chinese to the Yao people, who lived at the highest elevations in Lingyun County, nestled up in the Dashi mountainous area. However, Ruan increased his workload. He took great pains to provide Yao children with the opportunity and right to receive quality education. Calligraphy and fine arts were also offered in the school and excellent progress was made. The students’ works of calligraphy and art were put up on the walls of the classroom. Childish as they appeared, they represented the children’s love for learning and their progressive spirit, which was deeply touching for Ruan. It was even more amazing to see Ruan’s quiet persistence along the way toward quality education, without applause, flowers, or admiration, no matter how fantastic his performance was; no leaders came to inspect the school. By consciously observing the Party’s educational policies, he advanced quality education in a well-rounded manner,without seeking fame or making a show. Besides the major subjects of Chinese and mathematics, he offered all other minor subjects. Ruan realized through practice that the learning of minor subjects could help improve the quality of learning in the major subjects; they complement and promote one another.
How did Ruan Wenping, a disabled man working on crutches, manage to teach students how to do exercises to radio music, to dance, and to perform on the stage? It was quite beyond imagination. Ruan first acquired diagrams demonstrating sit-up exercises and taught a child helper in his spare time, so that the helper could teach the other students. When some actions were not correct, he was always nearby to point them out and patiently give guidance. This was his way to deal with the difficulty in teaching physical exercise.
To help the students prepare art performances, Ruan Wenping taught himself first by watching discs, and then managed to teach his little helper with gestures. The other students were thus taught by the little helper. Ruan even performed some programmes himself. These art performances not only aroused the students’interest, but also prompted locals to begin sending their children to school. The Yao people believed it was worthwhile for them to send their children to school when they could see their children performing well. Ruan said he wanted nothing but to improve students’ qualities through teaching them to dance and participate in performances.
Ruan Wenping did an excellent job integrating cultural and athletic activities at the school, and his achievements were salient. He took the children and their performances outside of the mountainous region to the stage in Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and to grand television station studios.
To spread quality education among schools throughout the entire township, an on-the-spot meeting regarding quality education was held by the Office of Xiajia Township’s Education Committee at Nonghuai Primary School. The school’s Yao children demonstrated their sit-up exercises to radio music in perfect form and performed for school leaders and teachers attending the meeting for nearly two hours. While enjoying the art, the audience couldn’t help but ask themselves, was it the lower-limb disabled man who had taught these children? Did Ruan’s crutches carry magical powers?
The success had nothing to do with magical powers, but a special kind of perseverant spirit in Ruan Wenping! This spirit empowered his crutches with an invisible capacity to lift himself and others to greatness.
Part 6: Combined Instruction
Teaching at Nonghuai Primary School was suspended for four years before Ruan Wenping’s arrival. Ruan always considered teaching quality the lifeline of the school. He asked students to tell their parents what they had learned in school each day, encouraging them to use what they had learned to help their families with calculations and production. Due to his positive teaching results, more and more students began enrolling in school. Five students enrolled in that first term in 1995, growing to twelve students in the second term and eighteen students in the second school year.
As the school had only one teacher for all grade levels, Ruan combined instruction by arranging students from different grade levels to study in the same classroom, teaching them all during the same class period. While he was teaching one grade level, students in other grade levels were preparing or reviewing their lessons. Each grade was taught for about ten minutes, then encouraged to move on to self-study or homework. Teaching duties were heavy for Ruan, as there were many subjects and little time to lecture. Ruan Wenping’s teaching style taught students how to learn, aroused their interest in learning, and drew on their consciousness, initiative, and enthusiasm for learning to guide them toward developing a passion and ability for learning, helping them master various knowledge sets. To increase direct teaching time, and, to some extent, release himself from the heavy burdens of his post, Ruan Wenping cultivated capable “little helpers.” These helpers excelled in their lessons, had a strong sense of responsibility, and were ready to lend a hand. They helped him complete teaching tasks by supervising students, reviewing exercises and homework, and helping struggling students. Thanks to this method, he could devote more energy to teaching. The communication skills of the “little helpers” also improved, and they also continued learning while helping others. Ruan Wenping not only saved manpower, but also assisted stronger students in continuing to advance in their studies. Their performance continued to improve while they contributed to positive teaching results.
In 2001, the first batch of students graduated from Nonghuai Primary School. Though there were only three graduates: Wang Gongqiang, Wang Ziyong and Luo Shouan, they represented primary school graduates in the truest sense in the context of the history of the Yao Village. Wang Rongmei bid the school goodbye and went to work before graduation. Luo Donglin quit school for some time and had to enroll at a lower grade-level when she resumed schooling. In the Lingyun County unified primary school graduation examination in July 2001, the three graduates’ marks in Chinese averaged to second across Xiajia Township. Four Yao students in Xiajia Township passed the 2002 entrance examination for fourth grade at Lingyun Minority Primary School, including two from Nonghuai Primary School, though they later returned to Nonghuai Primary School due to financial difficulties. In 2004, the second batch of primary school graduates entered junior middle school, their excellent marks ranking third. In September 2005, the number of students at Nonghuai Primary School increased sharply to eighty-one. Nonghuai Primary School maintained a 100% enrollment rate for Xiajia Township. Because of the school’s excellent reputation, even parents who lived outside of the school district were eager to send their children to Ruan Wenping’s Nonghuai Primary School. The school became a demonstration site for national education in Linyun County. Though new schoolhouses had been built, its two classrooms were still too small to hold eighty-one students. After conferring with leaders from the township Xiajia Central Primary School, Nonghuai Primary School students at higher grade levels were transferred, albeit reluctantly, to study at the Xiajia Central Primary School.
In the past twenty years, Nian’en Primary School has seen its first college student, Luo Shouan, and first female college student, Luo Caiyun, who studies at the Guangxi University of Science and Technology. There have been a host of secondary specialized or technical school students, including Luo Donglin, Luo Cailan, Wang Gonghai, Yang Xiulong, and others, creating a rich history for the small village.The school has also cultivated dozens of practical talents like Wang Gongqiang and Luo Shoutang, who set up their own decoration business in Nanning. They give a ray of hope to both Nonghuai Nian’en Primary School and Ruan Wenping.
Part 7: School Construction
The narrow and short schoolhouses of Nonghuai Primary School were built in the 1950s. Weathered by over half a century, the dilapidated structure had drooping earthen walls, sparse roof tiles, and no doors or windows, becoming dangerous to both teacher and students. With the increase in students, the school’s conditions needed improvement.
In 1996, the villagers made several sets of desks and benches themselves, and sent them to the school under Ruan Wenping’s direction, a direct result of discussions with village cadres a parent-teacher meeting. These donations alleviated temporary difficulties, but classroom floors were still bumpy with exposed stones. Seeing the children running around after class, Ruan Wenping grew very upset. He kept scrimping and saving for half a year, setting aside thirty yuan out of his eighty yuan monthly wages. He accumulated over one hundred yuan, buying five bags of cement and some old steel to make the floor tidy. The villagers were moved by both his actions and determination to run the school, and they spontaneously went to help. At the same time, Ruan Wenping went to Longgantang in Longfeng Village, three kilometers away from the school, to carry stone sand with the students, despite his difficulty walking. They built stone table tennis tables by themselves. Ruan Wenping bought the school a Ping Pong ball and a basketball, which the students had never before seen. They called the basketball “big ball” and the Ping Pong ball “small ball.” But money would be a big problem if a basketball court was to be built. However, Ruan Wenping spent over four hundred yuan, earned from his father selling piglets, to buy the basketball basket. The villagers donated wood for basketball stands and a backboard, and the Yao children could finally play basketball at school. Meanwhile, Ruan Wenping also raised over 3,000 yuan, and built “a ground water tank” to save water, solving the students’ water problem.
In 2005, construction began on new schoolhouses. Sponsored by the “Help” Education Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, and matched by a local fund, the building was financially guaranteed. Ruan Wenping did what he could to get locals actively involved in the construction; he set an example by personally participating in the construction. Every day, he worked with thevillagers, making the foundation flat and getting the sandstones ready. He organized several parent-teacher meetings to mobilize villagers to carry building materials, so as to facilitate the construction and to cut expenses. To avoid the loss of any materials left un-carried at the end of the day, Ruan Wenping walked, using his crutches, to the road three kilometers away from the school so he could keep watch every night. When sleepy, he would lean against the cement bags for a short nap. The summer evenings were very quiet in the wilderness, and Ruan Wenping had only mosquitoes for company. In the morning, he had to hurry to the school for another day’s work. He was occupied for over twenty days in this manner, ensuring the building materials were ready and greatly accelerating construction. Through the community’s efforts, a row of buildings covering 180 square meters was finally built, saving the school nearly 30,000 yuan.
All of his efforts paid off. Nian’en Primary School finally has a basketball court, table tennis tables, a water tank, and houses for teachers and students to live in. Classrooms have been beautified. With the campus landscaped and endowed with culture, and brightened by lights, the school has a new look and lease on life. Teaching equipment also improved significantly. Through sponsorships and donations by kind-hearted individuals and civic authorities, the school now boasts of a stereo system, computers, audio-visual education, and other teaching equipment. This primary school of the Yao People now has access to science, technology, and advanced culture.
By Gu Ye