School of thought

Xiao Shijian, founder of Tianzige, an NGO. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Many of the graduates from the school say they can feel the teachers' affection for them.

A girl, now in first year of senior high school, recently told Xiao that she has learned to be polite and inclusive. Being average with school work, she considered taking vocational education. Xiao says she feels relieved that her students are actively planning their future on their own.

Ren Xifu, a student at the school, used to be unruly and disruptive in the classroom, running about, gossiping loudly and even hitting classmates. However, he has since become one of the most attentive students, regularly raising hand to answer questions and always willing to offer a helping hand, as well as displaying the best English proficiency in his class and composing a collection of poems.

Since 2020, Tianzige has been promoting its education method and part of the curriculum to 45 village primary schools, serving altogether 3,600 children, while also developing teaching plans and instruction manuals and training the teachers on how to implement alternative teaching methods.

To further her educational experiment, Xiao is preparing to take over another primary school with around 200 students in the province's Bike village in Zhenfeng county.

While Tianzige's volunteers make up the majority of the teachers at Xinglong school, Xiao, born in 1964, prefers to let local teachers take the lead at the new school.

The biggest challenge is to persuade local teachers to stay on and adjust their own mindset to accept a demanding method that greatly adds to their workload. It's a lot easier for the younger generation of teachers, Feng says.

Xiao's positive, though, especially when seeing the teachers at the Bike school lead the students in reading aloud every morning within a month of her arrival. They never did that before.