A pagan saint
01.04.2008
If you live in poverty, how far can your heart go? What can you do for others when you are poor? Perhaps the story of Teacher Dai, an ordinary teacher in a school in Shanghai, China, can tell us something.
Teacher Dai appears to be ordinary at first glance. He stands there, tall and thin, talking or listening with a somewhat shy and anxious smile on his swarthy face.
In May 2007 as graduate students of Fudan University we gave spoken English lessons to some students at Wuqiao School, Shanghai, in order to improve our teaching methods.
These students were in the sixth grade in primary school. They concentrated well in the class, reading aloud and asking questions. They enjoyed the English games we held for them.
I found that these students were willing to fulfill Teacher Dai’s suggestions. They did so not for the reason of being afraid of any punishment from him, for he is always gentle with them. He considers these students his children, while they show their natural trust and dependence on him.
Teacher Dai has been in charge of this class for four years from second grade until now. This is rare at Wuqiao School, since most of the teachers tend to stay only one semester and then leave for better-paid jobs. He is even more valuable because he is concerned for the children’s healthy growth as well as their improvement in study.
These are migrant children who have come to Shanghai with their parents from the countryside, and who are greatly influenced by their parents’ unstable status of life. Apart from poverty, migration itself has a negative influence on them. Teacher Dai told us that some parents consider money more important than education. Therefore education is insignificant. Some parents work and leave the responsibility of taking care of younger children to the eldest. Some other children have nothing to do after class so they just wander in the street.
Teacher Dai worries deeply about the healthy growth of these children. Since he and his wife came to Shanghai in 2004, each summer vacation or winter vacation, he would invite some students to come to his house to study. He wants to give them guidance in their study and offer them a safer and healthier environment.
Each day he and his wife prepare lunch for these children. They insist on not charging any fee except to cover the cost of the food. Teacher Dai told me that the peak number of students studying at his home was 25 last summer. It is a little difficult to imagine how his small and simple rented house can hold so many students.
The salary for teachers at Wuqiao School is rather low. In the first year a teacher can only get 600CNY (AUD$95) per month and 100 yuan more per month with each increasing year. Teacher Dai has been here for four years. His current wage is 900CNY (AUD$142). His wife teaching at the kindergarten in Wuqiao School, is paid the same. Therefore, Teacher Dai and his wife support the whole family including their daughter and son with 1,800CNY (AUD$280) per month.
He also pays special attention to those students whose performance is weak. He thinks that one of the reasons is the absence of right guidance and care, especially after class, when their parents have not returned home. Therefore, from the beginning of the fall semester, Teacher Dai has asked these students (about 10 out of his class) to come to his house after class until their parents come back home.
These students can do their homework there.
"I do not know whether this will work or not. I am just an ordinary person." His students know that they are fortunate to have such a fine teacher.
Thomas Cai is a graduate of Fudan University, Shanghai.
These internal immigrant children get a better start in life than many others.
Thomas Cai is a graduate of Fudan University, Shanghai.
Read more from The Far East April, 2008
