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Learning is hampered by lack of water
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ONE Shanghai educator said he will never forget the day when water first came out of the taps at a Tibetan school 4,440 meters above sea level. The students were struck with awe and excitement.
“Every time I recall that moment, I take comfort in the knowledge that I made a small contribution,” said Yin Zhuangqiu, vice principal at Shanghai Jiuting Middle School. “I have done something that will last much longer than my three-year stay in Tibet.”
Yin, 41, went to the Tibet Autonomous Region in June 2010 under a Shanghai Aid Tibet project that dispatched professionals to Tibet to help develop the mountainous, remote region.
He was appointed vice principal of Dingri County Middle School in the town of Shigatse — the first Shanghai teacher at what is described as the world’s highest middle school.
Yin came armed with a load of teaching materials from Shanghai, but when he arrived at the school on the barren plateau, he found the most urgent need was not books, but water.
The boarding school, with 3,000 students and 230 teachers had only three small wells that didn’t provide enough water to meet the daily needs of the campus. Every day, a hired truck fetched supplementary water from a nearby river at a cost of 6,000 yuan (US$977) a month. Even that wasn’t enough.
The school had two campuses, 500 meters apart. One campus had the two wells; the other had no water supply. The 1,300 students at the “dry” campus had to walk 5 kilometers to wash their clothes and had to line up for at least 20 minutes to wash their eating bowls.
Teachers told Yin they had tried to dig a new well but found no water after reaching a depth of 10 meters.
“Without enough water, the students had poor personal hygiene and wasted a lot of time that they could have used for study,” Yin said. “If the basic needs of living can’t be met, how can students settle their minds for study?”
He discussed the problem with the other five Shanghai officials who had been sent with him to work in Dingri County. One was working as construction bureau director. The group decided that more modern methods needed to be applied to dig a new well for the school.
“We all agreed that education is important and that the Tibetan people who sent their children to the school deserved our best efforts,” Yin said.
In September 2010, workers began a new search for an aquifer. A well was dug to a depth of 100 meters before water was found. A diesel system was installed to bring the water to the surface and distribute it. The quality of the underground water was tested to ensure it was safe to drink. The new well began operation in May 2011.
Yin said workers installed six water points on the campus, each with a dozen taps. Two water storage tanks, each with a capacity of 50 tons, were also installed as a hedge against power outages.
“The students had never seen tap water before,” Yin said. “They madly went around filling buckets and basins once the system was turned on.”
Yin said the whole project was a fight against the elements. Construction hours every day were limited by snowstorms and freezing temperatures.
About 80 percent of the teachers in Dingri County are Tibetan residents. Tuition, meals and accommodation costs of Tibetan students are funded nationally. All Tibetan children are encouraged to attend school, and as enrollment grew, more teachers were needed.
In 2007, 100 college graduates were recruited as teachers, even though half were majors from non-education sectors such as agriculture and tourism.
As vice principal, Yin had to manage the effectiveness of his teaching staff. In many cases, he found pedantic teachers who stood in front of a classroom lecturing students too bored to pay attention.
“A teacher whose idea of education is only speaking from a lectern certainly isn’t doing an effective job,” Yin said.
He encouraged teachers to get out and walk among students in the classroom and develop rapport with them. He organized training sessions for teachers to sit and discuss the best way to reach and nurture students.
“Teachers in Tibet have had very few training opportunities to improve their skills, let alone any basic grounding in modern educational methods,” Yin said.
In 2012, he arranged for eight Tibetan teachers to go to Shanghai to visit his school and Minle School in May 2012. Each of the visitors was paired with a local teacher for three weeks. The Tibetans observed daily classroom sessions and attended training courses.
Yin said his personal classroom work in Tibet was limited by high-altitude sickness. Normally an impromptu speaker, Yin said he had to keep notes always at hand in case of sudden memory loss in air where the oxygen level is only 55 percent of that in Shanghai. He suffered insomnia and had to resort to sleeping pills for a night’s rest. And, of course, he sorely missed his wife and son back in Shanghai and had to fight bouts of homesickness.
The Tibetan people captivated Yin. He said they were simple in their needs and rich in their hospitality. He financially helped one Tibetan student who was doing part-time work in a guesthouse to earn money for college. The girl’s grandmother traversed a 5,000-meter pass to thank him personally for getting her granddaughter a college placement. She presented him gifts of barley wine and dried yak meat.
“I felt so proud to have worked in Tibet,” Yin said. “I’ve learned more from the people there than what I taught them in the three years.”
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