The Long-term Influence in Education

The Chinese education system is different from the western education system that is more open-minded and students have the choice to choose what subjects they want to study in high school. The standardized test such as the SAT or ACT is also not the only consideration for the students being accepted into the college. However, in the Chinese education system, the National College Entrance Examination “Gaokao” is the only standard to determine whether the students can get into the College or not. Other than “Gaokao” there is also the “ZhongKao” which is the National Highs School Entrance Examination to determine whether the students can go into the high school. The statistics for these tests are very cruel. Students who can pass “Zhongkao” is only 30 percent, which means there are only 30 percent of the Chinese students can have the chance to go to high school to study. Therefore, since starting from the primary school, the school’s education would focus on setting the foundation for passing this exam and successfully go to high school, especially for the poor families and they put all of their efforts on letting their kids to pass the exam, which means successful for them. Many people think teaching the children who are in the Chinese migrant primary school is just a way of volunteer service, but the influence outside the teaching to the children is more significant because it opens the door for the students to understand the word outside their understanding and my volunteer service is not only about teaching students knowledge but also opens a door for them to understand the word outside their book or family.

From many people’s perspectives, teaching children who cannot afford the education and in the Chinese migrant school is just one type of the volunteer service and after the volunteer service is down, there is no difference for the students. People would viewed the volunteer service for the students in the Chinese migrant school is just a charity that would not exist for a long time and bring a bigger influence to the students comparing with the social change. In article “The Irony of Services: Charity, Projects and Social Change in Service-Learning”, the author Keith Morton talks about the drawbacks of the charity “it is described in the Guidelines for development of the Christian Conferences Asia (1980) as temporary, confined to particular, affected people and auxiliary to the ongoing life of the people. Planning and delivery of service are limited and fragmentary, the decision-making process is closed, and little, if any, attempt is made to understand or effect the structural causes of the problem” (Deans et al).The volunteer service in the Chinese migrant school is similar to the charity because the time for this volunteer service is not long and it is also fragmentary and limited as in the reading, because I just have one hour to teach the students through the zoom each week. And my one hour teaching is just teaching the English skills to the students, which would make affect or change the root or the “structural cause” of the problem that students’ view in the Chinese migrant school is limited and pass the standardized test demonstrates their success. In addition, my teaching in the school would be also limited in one school, and it would not change other students in different schools as Keith Morton talked in the book about the limitation influence of the charity. It is true that my teaching in the school would have these drawbacks, but I always try my best to change this volunteer service from charity to the social change to create the life-long influence to students.

The volunteer service that has the limited time and influence is just the charity that has many drawbacks, but I tried to maximize the influence of my volunteer service and make it become a social change. Comparing with the charity, social change focus more of the process and in article “The Irony of Services: Charity, Projects and Social Change in Service-Learning”, the author Keith Morton says that “social change or “transformation” models typically focus on process: building relationships among or within stakeholder groups and creating a learning environment that continually peels away the lawyer of the onion called “root causes” (Deans et al). In order to make the long-term change for the volunteer service and avoid the drawbacks of the charity, I not only teach students the English skills in the textbook, but also tried to open a door for students to understand and see the world, because these students in the Chinese Migrant School are usual the kids who have the poor family background and cannot afford the education. During the teaching, I would introduce the background information related to the text in the book. For example, the chapter three of the textbook talks about the famous landscapes and lconic buildings for different cities worldwide. When I was talking about the White House in Washington D.C. in the class, I also introduced the American history to students such as the founding fathers of United States and the Bill of Rights or the American constitution. I also talked about the different political ideology to students.

However, I found out that sometimes the students could not understand what I was talking about in the class, because the information they can received is too limited and restricted. Different from the environment that I grew up, most students in the school do not have the access to the internet even the TV. The lack of the resources to get information creates the difficulties for students to understand the background information that I taught in the class and most knowledge to them are too abstract. In order to better teach the students and open the eyes for them, I tried put myself into their shoes and from their perspectives to practice my teaching. For example, in the class I would combine more videos and photos to demonstrates these landscapes more vividly to the students and paves the way for them to immerse to the context that I was talking about. For example, when I was teaching them the Eiffel tower in Paris to students, I showed them a documentary about the history of Eiffel tower and I also brought a model of Eiffel tower to the class. With this teaching method, the volunteer in the Chinese Migrant School started to change from the charity to the social change. More and more students become curious about the knowledge about the outside of the textbook. The pictures in the English textbook about famous landscapes around the world were not pictures anymore and they become the trigger to attract students to understand the world. Some students even told me that after they growing up, they want to go abroad to study and studying for them is not only a way to get rid of the poverty but also the method for them to see the word that is not limited to this small town.

Comparing with the regular English class in the school, my class is more vivid and attractive for students because it involves the knowledge that other teacher would not teach them, but after I finishing the project, the students would need to go back to their normal classes that are boring and only focused on the knowledge in the book to pass the standardized exam. It would make students to feel depressed and the light in their heart that I burned up would be destroyed again. This is one of the most obvious drawbacks of the charity, but in order to fix this drawback and creates the long-term influence as the social change, I organized all the teachers in the school together to train them how to introduce the knowledge outside the textbook. I wrote the teaching syllabus for the teacher to use, which was different from the teaching method that teacher utilized before. I included all the background information related to the context and talked with the principle of the school in order to let the teacher to change their teaching style. It is true that there are still many drawbacks of the volunteer service that I did not have the chance to fix, but introducing and changing the teaching method of the students pave the new way for students to understand the world.

People would think teaching the Children who are in the Chinese migrant primary school is just the volunteer service that would not have the significant and long-term influence, but the influence under the effort is not omitted, because through changing and introducing the new teaching method help the students to understand the world that they are not familiar. It is possible in the future; students may choose a path that is totally different from the Chinese education designed path under my influence of the volunteer service.