"In this rare teaching innovation across the country and even globally, advanced knowledge, resources, and educational research capabilities have been delivered to tens of thousands of students and teachers in national poverty-stricken counties."
 

—— 01 ——

In March 2019, Mei Xueyan, an 8th-grade English teacher at the Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan, entered her office. She logged into the teacher's background of the "smart classroom" on the computer to check the classroom data of the students. A student's "classroom social relationship graph" on the screen caught her attention.

The graph resembled the route network of an airline company at first glance. However, each connected point was not a city, but each student in Mei Xueyan's English class.

Just as cities interconnected by airlines, the students in Mei Xueyan's class interacted and evaluated each other. Their interaction data in the smart classroom was generated into a social relationship graph by algorithms. The data was updated daily and could also be combined over a period of time. What Mei Xueyan saw was based on the student interaction data from the previous semester. The hub and influencer of the network was Zhang Yutian, the monitor of the class, who excelled in both grades and popularity. Arrows from all directions converged towards her.

 "Classroom Social Relationship Diagram"

Being a homeroom teacher, Mei Xueyan noticed much beyond the outstanding students. The network diagram contained nearly seven or eight isolated small dots. They had no connections with other students. Mei, a responsible and meticulous homeroom teacher, could not believe that she had ignored these students.

"I couldn't imagine that after a semester of English classes, some students had not looked at others, and no one has looked at them."

Focusing further on the screen, Mei Xueyan saw the names marked next to each isolated dot.

One of the isolated dots was Chen Feiyun. Mei Xueyan's class had 47 students, with 70% of them coming from poor households. Chen Feiyun belonged to the category of "precision poverty-stricken households," worse off than the rest of her classmates. In the villages of Xincai, a national poverty-stricken county, only those who meet the criteria can apply for this category. All of her tuition fees were covered by the government, and she also received subsidies.

Mei Xueyan and school leaders had even visited Chen's home to have a conversation. Chen Feiyun had lost her father, and her mother and sister were working outside. During holidays, she was often alone at home. With average grades and an introverted personality, she was quite self-deprecating. She often described herself as "ugly" and liked to cover her face with her hair. "I told her that she's actually quite good-looking." Mei Xueyan said.

In the smart classroom's background, Mei Xueyan also saw another isolated dot: Xie Dongqiu. Xie Dongqiu was a typical "left-behind child." His parents worked outside, and he had been living with his grandmother for years. The big data platform of the smart classroom would profile students' learning characteristics and divide them into four types. Xie Dongqiu was the "study-hard-with-good-results" type. Seeing such a student with relatively good grades not interacting with other students was quite unexpected to Mei Xueyan.

If it wasn't for seeing this social relationship diagram, perhaps the three years of junior high school would have passed in the same way. "But now that I've seen it, as a teacher who has requirements for herself, I will still do something." she said.
 

—— 02 ——

Mei Xueyan, who is 30 years old, is from Sanmenxia, Henan. After graduating from Xinyang Normal University, she applied to the Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, where she's currently a leading teacher, serving as the head of the 8th grade and the homeroom teacher for classes 8-10. She also teaches English to two classes. With seven years of teaching experience, she believes that the greatest achievement of being a teacher is the ability to "truly change the destiny of children."

Mei in the classroom

After seeing the student social relationship graph, Mei Xueyan sprang into action, taking the initiative to talk to those few isolated students. When teaching knowledge points in class, she would subtly incorporate stories to encourage them.

There was a female student in the class who didn't get along with her stepmother and often quarreled with her father. Mei told the student that her parents loved her but lacked proper education, and didn't know how to handle situations. Some students' parents didn't even graduate from junior high-school. The student's parents were only a year or two older than Mei's students. "If the children's hearts are filled with hurt and resentment, they will definitely not be happy in the future. I hope they will be full of laughter," she said during my visit to Xincai, Henan in April 2019.

Who says that children in the countryside can't have sunshine in their hearts? Zhao Siyu, sweet and active, had good grades and was affectionately known at the school as the "orphan". When her father died and her mother left home, she lived with her aunt. One day, a woman came to the school office proclaiming to be Zhao Siyu's mother.

The dean was afraid that the child might have been kidnapped, and called Mei Xueyan, asking if Siyu had a mother. "It turns out that her mother is back," Mei remembered her surprise at the moment.

In the office, the teachers said to Zhao Siyu's mother, "It wasn't easy for Siyu in the past few years". Her mother sat there, choked with emotion.

Parents in the countryside are not as concerned about their children as those in the city. Mei Xueyan had served as a homeroom teacher for a year and a half and had not met the parents of some students, nor had she spoken with them over the phone. "They probably didn't even know that I was their children's homeroom teacher," she said.

Every time Mei Xueyan would notify the parents a month in advance to open the parent-teacher meeting, but if the parents could not come, she would ask the grandparents to come.

On one occasion, there was a classmate whose parents didn't attend the parent-teacher meeting. Later, Mei Xueyan encouraged the students to adapt the story into a skit about left-behind children, which was performed during the school's art festival. Mei Xueyan believed that these were the real stories of the students, and she hoped that the children would have the courage to discuss these matters, rather than just glossing over or avoiding them.

In the play, Zhao Siyu played the role of a student who had no parents attending the meeting. On stage, she finally welcomed her mother. Her mother also promised not to go away for work again. Many teachers and students in the audience cried.

In real life, Zhao Siyu's mother soon went back to work away from home, and occasionally came back to visit her daughter.

"There was no choice. If you don't go out to work in rural areas nowadays, there's no source of income," Mei Xueyan told me.

—— 03 ——

Like Mei Xueyan, most of the teachers at the Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan come from local normal schools. Many of them live on campus, sharing meals and accommodation with the students. Some teachers have to take care of their children and live on campus with them. As a result, these little "accompanying" people have spent their childhood in school. Some teachers need to take care of their children and live on campus with their children. "These accompanying" people have spent their childhood in school. Some teachers have to take care of their children and live on campus with them. In the morning, they only have time to return to the dormitory after completing the early morning self-study to wake up and arrange their children for school.

Xincai County is about an hour and a half's drive from Zhoukou City, Henan. It was a former national poverty-stricken county that "lifted the hat of poverty" last year. (According to the standards announced by the State Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development in 2012, a national poverty-stricken county is one where the per capita annual income is less than 2300 yuan).

Whenever I thought of "poverty", I used to think of people who couldn't make ends meet. After chatting with local people in Xincai County, Henan, I gradually realized that my previous preconceptions were incorrect. Except for a few extremely poor mountainous areas, most of the families in the poverty-stricken counties in our country have already solved their food problem. In Xincai County, almost every household has a motorcycle or a tricycle. There is a decent and lively dining street in the center of the county, with coffee shops, hot pot restaurants, modern leisure and entertainment venues, and newly developed commercial buildings on both sides of the street.

The birth of the Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan is a story of love.
 

Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan

In 2014, a Hong Kong charity, Love Speech Limited (hereinafter referred to as "Love Speech"), was incorporated and donated seed money to establish the Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan. As of 2019, Love Speech has donated and established 217 "Sanyuan" schools in poverty-striken counties across the country. Xincai Sanyuan belongs to the fourth batch of schools donated by Love Speech nationwide.

According to Love Speech's philosophy, all Sanyuan schools only enroll students from difficult families and adopt a unified boarding system. The campus and dormitory areas are designed according to the concepts of Hong Kong designers.

Student dormitory of Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan

At the Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan, students can walk from the classroom to the dormitory under the cover of eaves in the event of harsh weather. For example, each cubicle in the restroom has a door, giving students sufficient privacy. The person in charge at Love Speech told me that they hope that children in the mountains can grow up to be able to live in big cities successfully. Hence, it is important to instill a sense of privacy in them.

These details may seem insignificant to city dwellers, but they hold deep significance for children in rural areas. In a remote rural school, I saw the new teaching building that had been newly built, but the restroom was in a separate building. For the children to go to the bathroom, they had to run from one building to another. In this situation, "privacy" was an elusive concept.

Currently, Sanyuan Experimental School has more than 1,740 students. However, obtaining good grades is not the primary concern for the students. "It is only about being able to go to school. Whether they can gain knowledge is not that important," the leaders at the school say.

Sanyuan's average salary for teachers is over 2000 yuan. Right next to the school, the "school district housing" has already been sold for over 5000 yuan per square meter.
 

This is the "school district housing" built next to Sanyuan Experimental School in Xincai, Henan

This means that teachers are