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Retired teacher reaches out to students by uploading videos
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FOR retired mathematics teacher Xu Yonghai, teaching never stops.
The 74-year-old Xu, who retired from Shanghai High School in 1999, has produced and uploaded 81 teaching videos on the Internet that are benefitting children from the mountainous areas of China. The videos carry the essence of his 50 years of his teaching experience.
Soon after retirement, Xu picked up a job as a private math tutor, but it did not interest him for long. He volunteered to teach at the Libo High School in Guizhou Province from 2007.
“It is wrong that so many students today gain knowledge by paying for extra classes. Knowledge should not be exchanged for high fees,” Xu said.
But after his health deteriorated in 2011, Xu took the advice of a student who suggested he post his lectures online so that the students could continue to learn without him being personally present.
In April 2011, Xu and his students in Shanghai bought a video camera and a projector which cost about 10,000 yuan (US$1,630) and decorated a room at Xu’s home as a classroom.
Xu said the recording process took much longer than he had imagined. He was not used to talking to the camera so he invited some students from less-well-off families and gave them free tutoring classes as if they were in a school.
Xu said the feeling of teaching came back and he became more natural in front of the camera with students sitting in front of him. In the videos, Xu explained in several steps how to solve tricky math equations on the blackboard.
Xu said every 10-minute video involved over 100 minutes of teaching to ensure the videos are concise and correct. He also added subtitles, half-joking that his Mandarin was not up to the standard.
The contents of the videos are based on Xu’s book on how to deals with math questions for gaokao (China’s college entrance exam). The book was once a best-seller, Xu claimed.
On youku.com, where the videos are uploaded, they have been played more than 65,838 times. Many students have left comments thanking Xu for his efforts and generosity in sharing his teaching materials online.
Young teachers also commented, saying they had learnt how to teach their students by watching Xu’s videos.
Although Xu could never go back to Guizhou again, he still receives letters and greetings from students there, especially around Teachers’ Day, which falls today.
Xu now spends most of his time teaching rural children at a charity school in Huangniling Village in east China’s Zhejiang Province where he has also been recuperating from poor health.
Xu said the children from the mountainous areas lagged behind city students. For example, a 12-year-old child in the mountains cannot recite the multiplication table as fluently as a 7-year-old in Shanghai.
“I enjoy teaching and I will teach as long as I can,” Xu said.
“Once a teacher, always a teacher.”
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