Heart-warming Stories of Teachers

Editor's note: September 10 is celebrated across China as the Teachers' Day. Let's have a look at some heart-warming stories of teachers.

Teacher makes map for home visit in villages

Lan Songlin, a science teacher for 16 years in Tashi junior high school, solved the problem of finding homes of students in villages by drawing a handy map that works better than navigation apps in June 2017.

The families of the school's 583 students are mostly scattered in 130 villages in a mountainous town of Quzhou city, Zhejiang province. Some are remote and some lack transportation.

The village names are constantly changing due to merger of villages. Many names of roads have yet to be uploaded on the digital map. All these add difficulties to the teachers' home visit, especially for a dozen or so non-local teachers who do not work long there.

A new teacher was led to a cemetery by the navigation app during a home visit. While others took it as a joke, Lan decided to create a map after hearing the story.

Having been to each and every village where the students live in, Lan was able to dot the lines to show the villages' locations based on his memory formed through years of experience. Phone calls were also made to village committees to confirm the names.

At the teachers' meeting before last year's home visit, Lan showed the map and received praise from his colleagues and leaders. Since then, a copy of the hand-drawn map has become a must for teachers paying home visits.

A new teacher was led to a cemetery by the navigation app during a home visit. While others took it as a joke, Lan decided to create a map after hearing the story.

Having been to each and every village where the students live in, Lan was able to dot the lines to show the villages' locations based on his memory formed through years of experience. Phone calls were also made to village committees to confirm the names.

At the teachers' meeting before last year's home visit, Lan showed the map and received praise from his colleagues and leaders. Since then, a copy of the hand-drawn map has become a must for teachers paying home visits.

Teacher uses hand-drawn lesson plans

He Xinpu, geography teacher at Lushan International Experimental School, Changsha, Hunan province, has hand-written her lesson plans for 36 years. Photo taken on May 15, 2018. [Photo/Lushan International Experimental School]

He Xinpu, a geography teacher at Lushan International Experimental School, Changsha, Hunan province, has hand-written lesson plans for 36 years and every page embodies her hard work and dedication.

He not only writes words in her lesson plans but draws a large number of detailed illustrations, many of which are not simply copied from textbook but created with her ideas. All her lesson plans are presented on A4 paper instead of the notebook provided by the school as she thought the latter one was too small.

Neat and exquisite, He's lesson plan has left deep impression on everyone who has seen it. An expert from Changsha Institute of Educational Science praised her thick stack of lesson plans for preparing students for gaokao, or college entrance exams, as he flicked through the A4 papers during an inspection last year.

Besides looking good, the lesson plan has useful and concrete content. For example, she recorded the common mistakes the students made in studying geography and came up with ways to help student realize and correct them.

What's more surprising is that He was a political science teacher before. "Everything can be done well if you love it and put your heart into it," She said.

Though He is going to retire in few months after teaching 18 years at the school, she still teaches her class every day.

Neat and exquisite, He's lesson plan has left deep impression on everyone who has seen it. An expert from Changsha Institute of Educational Science praised her thick stack of lesson plans for preparing students for gaokao, or college entrance exams, as he flicked through the A4 papers during an inspection last year.

Besides looking good, the lesson plan has useful and concrete content. For example, she recorded the common mistakes the students made in studying geography and came up with ways to help student realize and correct them.

What's more surprising is that He was a political science teacher before. "Everything can be done well if you love it and put your heart into it," She said.

Though He is going to retire in few months after teaching 18 years at the school, she still teaches her class every day.

Teacher sacrifices own life to save students

A file photo of Li Fang visiting one of her student's family in Henan province.

Li Fang, a 49-year-old rural teacher working in a primary school in Dongjiahe town, Xinyang city, Central China's Henan province, sacrificed her life to save her students on June 11, 2018.

On the way home from school, a tricycle full of watermelon ran a red light as schoolchildren were lining up to cross the street. Li Fang screamed at the children to get out of the way and ran to save them. The four students she pushed away received only minor injuries, but she herself suffered serious injuries and died the next day.

"I told my child that no matter how high he ends up in the future, he should never forget Miss Li," said Yao Zhongling. Her son was one of the students who were saved by Li Fang. Yao said: "A teacher who protects students with her own life deserves utmost respect."

Rural teacher instructs generations of students

Shawan Primary School of Shawan village, Meishan city in Southwest China's Sichuan province is located in the mountains more than 2,000 meters above sea level and over 100 kilometers from the county.

The school has seven people in total: six students and 61-year-old Wu Wanyin, the only teacher. He has spent 42 years at this rural school and taught thousands of students, spanning generations — from grandparents down to grandchildren.

"I don't expect anything in return, let alone any honor. I just hope to do my small part to help rural children leave the poor area someday and become something in society," Wu said.