Zhou Xiufang and her students

Zhou Xiufang is a retired teacher from Ningbo, a city in East China's Zhejiang Province. She began teaching children in remote, mountainous regions of Southwest China's Guizhou Province and Central China's Hunan Province when she was in her late sixties. Many people call Zhou the "Grandma support teacher." Zhou has encouraged her big family, including her sons and in-laws, to support her while she teaches children in remote, mountainous areas. Zhou and her family are regarded as "love carriers," because they have helped build 29 Hope primary schools, and because they have helped more than 400 impoverished children receive an education.

Teaching, As a Senior

Zhou realized the importance of an education when she was a primary school student. "My family was poor when I was young. The head teacher paid my education fees, so I did not drop out of school. I was a lucky child, who was able to continue my studies," Zhou recalled. As a result of her own experience, she hopes to help children from impoverished families receive an education.

In 2014, Zhou, who was then 66, and who had retired from her job as a teacher, heard on the news that a school in Huishui County, in Guizhou Province, was recruiting teachers. Zhou jumped at the opportunity; she applied to teach at the school, and she packed a small bag and headed for Guizhou.

Zhou returned to Ningbo, to gather with her family, during Spring Festival of 2015. A friend told her that Tonglin Primary School, in Jiuxijiang Town, in western Hunan's Xupu County, was in dire need of teachers. Zhou traveled to Jiuxijiang to visit the school. She was shocked when she saw a teacher, who was also more than 60 years old, teaching 16 students in a wooden classroom. That person was the only teacher at Tonglin Primary School. Zhou decided to relocate to Xupu County so she could teach at Tonglin Primary School.

Zhou took more-advanced education concepts and more inspirational teaching methods to the school. She encouraged students to expand their horizons. She visited the homes of students from poverty-stricken families. She bought school uniforms for her students, so the students could wear thicker clothes. She helped the school purchase and install computers, so the students could use the computers to make video calls to their parents, who worked outside of their hometown.

Zhou Xiufang

Zhou has earned more than 7,000 yuan (US $1,000) a month since her retirement. She has spent more than 100,000 yuan (US $14,286) to support students in remote, mountainous regions in Guizhou and Hunan since 2014. She once had just 3.6 yuan (51 US cents) left on her salary card. "But, as I saw happy smiles on my students' faces when they were in school, I felt I was such a 'rich' person!" Zhou said.

During the years Zhou has worked in the mountains, she has endured pain, due to inflammation of her joints, especially while she has lived in cold, humid places. She has often had to climb — up and down — the mountains to visit her students. Once, Zhou was exhausted after she walked along the mountain roads for more than eight hours. She fainted and fell to the ground. Her family worried about her. However, Zhou said, "Even if one day I die on my way to teach my students, I hope I will be buried in the place, where I have been with my lovely students."

Zhou Xiufang dispatches the books to the students.

Building 29 Schools

"I can teach my students, and I can help them obtain knowledge. But what can I do to change the poor conditions of their school?" Zhou asked herself, shortly after she began teaching at Tonglin Primary School. To solve this problem, she posted what she saw and heard at the school on WeChat, so the information could be shared with a group of students she had taught before she retired. One of her students, Zhang Gang, who owns a company in Shanghai, noticed Zhou's message and went to Hunan to visit her.

"Mrs. Zhou taught me when I was studying at a primary school in Ningbo. Many of my former classmates have heard that our teacher has been teaching in impoverished, mountainous regions. We all respect her very much," Zhang said. He was greatly moved by his teacher's kind deeds, so he donated more than 300,000 yuan (US $42,857) to refurnish Tonglin Primary School, and to improve the school's facilities.

Following Zhang's lead, more and more of Zhou's former students have helped build a combined 29 Hope primary schools in Xupu County. Zhou has also helped Xupu County form a one-on-one education partnership with Ningbo's Yinzhou District. An education base was established in Xupu County in November 2018. Teachers from Yinzhou District have since been encouraged to teach in Xupu County. Principals and young teachers from Xupu County have also been invited to Yinzhou District, to learn the good education practices of urban schools.

Zhou Xiufang and her students

Influence on Her Family

As Zhou continues to age, she has to endure more pain — caused by inflammation in her joints and ears — as she lives in mountainous regions to teach children. "As long as my knees are still OK for me to continue walking, I will keep moving on my way to teach and support my students in the mountains," Zhou says.

During the past several years, Zhou's sons and daughters-in-law have been influenced by her warmhearted deeds. They have been helping 16 of Zhou's students, who are from poverty-stricken families. They have bought a lot of clothes for those students. In 2014, after they heard that Zhou was teaching 11 orphans, all from the Bouyei ethnic group, in a primary school in Guizhou, they bought clothes and quilts for those orphans.

Every summer vacation, Zhou Xiufang's youngest son, Zhou Xin, travels with his wife and daughter to Xupu County, in Hunan, to visit his mother. Zhou Xin's family lives at the school, so they spend time with the students. Zhou Xiufang's granddaughter, Gao Qianyi, studies in Hangzhou (capital of Zhejiang Province). Her class has formed a partnership with a Grade-5 class in Jiuxijiang, in Xupu. Students from the urban school write letters to students in the small town. They also exchange gifts. Gao's school has organized its students to visit primary schools in rural areas of Hunan Province. "We experienced a different life, and we felt the happiness of lending a helping hand. When we saw the students in the mountains looked excited as they received books and toys they had never seen before, we were very happy too," Gao said.

Zhou Xiufang was extremely busy in 2019, because she was helping build 10 Hope primary schools in Hunan. Liu Yizhen, wife of Zhou Xiufang's eldest son, Su Yi, moved to Hunan to look after Zhou Xiufang. At that time, Zhou Xiufang had difficulty walking, because the inflammation in her joints was getting worse. Su sometimes went to Hunan to visit his mother; he took medicine to his mother, and he helped her arrange the schools' affairs. After Zhou Xiufang told her son the students were preparing to give a dance performance, Su immediately purchased costumes the students would need to wear.

In addition to Zhou Xiufang's sons, her in-laws' families have also offered help. When Zhou Xiufang's students, who were from impoverished families, fell ill, her in-laws contacted hospitals, and they collected donations to pay the students' treatment fees.

"Without the great support I have received from my big family, I could not have achieved my goal of helping so many children," Zhou Xiufang says. Her sons and daughters-in-law are content as well, because they have joined their mother's effort to do kind deeds.

A family's photo of Zhou Xiufang

Photos Supplied by Zhou Xiufang and Zhang Jiamin

(Source: Women of China English Monthly June 2020 issue)