Right now, July 3, 2002, I want to come back to China to spend some more time with Chinese middle school teachers.
 

The Amity Foundation has a summer program that just began today with an orientation for 100 volunteers, mostly from the United States. Kim Strong was leading that orientation. Maybe I can be with them another year.Want to join me?
 

Native speakers of English go to the western countryside to spend four weeks giving Chinese middle school English teachers a chance to work on their oral English. These Chinese teachers are essential actors in China's development, particularly for rural families. Students in my university classes who came from rural areas are hoping to spend time again with their middle school English teachers during their summer vacations. These were their door to the university.
 

Don Snow working with middle school teachers from schools in the countryside around Nantong.Prospective Amity teachers were able during our orientation last August to observe experienced teachers like Amity’s Snow teach about and demonstrate new methods. With these Chinese teachers we  practiced leading lessons in English conversation, they becoming our teachers as they responded to us.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Chen Yaxu and Chen Zhaokuan, left and in the middle, both teach English at junior middle schools (junior high schools) in Rugao, about 2 hours north of Nantong City. Huang Yongwei, right, is a new English teacher, lives at home in Nantong City and communtes by motor bike to a junior middle school outside of the city.
 

Both Chens are married and live at their schools.Chen Yaxu's wife teaches math at the same school.Huang may have difficulty finding a suitable wife, as teachers’ salaries do not compare with what could be earned in business.Both Chens have been teaching for more than 15 years, live at their schools and earn 1100 RMB a month (less than $150).
 

Chen Yaxu has wanted to move up to teaching at a senior middle school.He has a sharp mind and finds the constant work with classes of 50 junior highers, who are often resistant to English, sometimes boring.He would treasure the challenge of dealing with better-prepared students who are heading for the university. But his headmaster won't let him go, saying that he is too valuable. Teachers with his competence are probably rare in a junior high.

Li Xuiangfeng,  on the right, does the housework and takes care of herdaughter and also of her father who lives just down the street, in addition to teaching English in a senior middle school outside of Nantong. Her husband is starting his own business and is often in Shanghai. Teachers are sought after as wives, because they have steady jobs, even if their pay is low, and because they can help with the education of their own children. This woman's cheerfulness is the face of life of such a weight of responsibilities was a witness I would remember.
 
 

Last fall when I was tempted to despair over facing another lesson to prepare when I was exhausted from the previous day, or when I reluctantly made another hasty breakfast in order to go out into rain and cold and make my hour’s commute to teach, what these teachers, and others like them that we met, were cheerfully doing for others at real cost to themselves, challenged me. These are indeed among God’s agents in China. To be among them, and if possible to support and encourage them, as Amity’s Teaching Program seeks to do, is the call I’ve been responding to this year.
 

ZaiJian – until we meet again,
 

Hugh Wire
 

You can learn more about Amity's summer program and China's middle schools at www.amityfoundation.org/frm/aaw_tr.html
 

You can get another glimpse of issues teachers face in my account of An Amity Visit to Meng Cheng County (An Hui Province) at www.oocities.org/hughwire/mengcheng2.html.