The keys to combating poverty in any country include good infrastructure (“We were ‘frogs in a well’ until we got roads,” said farmers in Ningxia and Yunnan) and good healthcare because the body is the capital not just of the revolution but of the fight against poverty. But the key to making the fight against poverty sustainable is education. Yet as we saw in Tibet’s Shuanghu, recruiting good teachers in poor regions is a challenge when good schools snatch the best teachers right out of college and poor schools are often left with teachers who could not get a better job elsewhere.

In China, fortunately, ever since the 1950s, passionate teachers from good schools across the country, including my own Xiamen University, have volunteered to live and serve in impoverished regions. And happily for Ningxia, Tibet and other remote regions, these teachers are the cream of the crop—including award-winning teachers like Mr. Yang Yuanjian, a Han Chinese who not only helped improve education for Tibetans but also worked to help them better understand and respect their own Tibetan culture!

One might wonder why such a multi-talented man as Mr. Yang would even choose to be a teacher, given the pay was very low until the 1990s. But teaching in China is not just a profession but a well respected privilege. What other country sells “Dear Teacher” greeting cards not just on Teacher’s Day but 365 days a year? And once you’re someone’s teacher, you’re their teacher for life. In the mid-1990s, at a 1,000-year-old Taoist temple on Fujian’s Taimu Mountain, I met 30 people celebrating a reunion with their teacher. I assumed she’d been their high school or university teacher, but not so. She was their kindergarten teacher whom they’d not seen in 30 years!

Teaching in the Blood

After three decades in China, I understand why Teacher Yang is passionate about teaching, though I discovered he has another reason: teaching is in his blood.

“I was born in the countryside,” Teacher Yang said. “My father was a rural teacher, and my mother a farmer. Their greatest gift to me was to teach me to live simply and work hard.”

That lesson was put to the test in 1988 when he was sent to a rural elementary school for his first teaching post. “The school was half an hour from the bus station and conditions were hard. My first class had students from grades one to six and, back then, China’s education was very test-oriented. Some had just started talking about ‘quality education’ but no one knew what it meant – only that it was supposedly better than exam-oriented education. Teachers suffered as much as students from the fixation with exams. We believed education should be more holistic, covering morality, physical education, aesthetics and labor, so we started exploring new pedagogies.”

Unexpected Football Coach

Teacher Yang had never been very sports-minded but after becoming head teacher he formed a class soccer team—never dreaming his ragtag bunch of barefoot country kids would become champions. “They played barefoot in bad conditions,” Mr. Yang said, “but I hoped it would give them an outlet from study and help improve their health. But the principal complained it would hinder their studies and when I refused to back down, he took my ball. I just bought another ball with my own money, but people were angry. When word got out the principal had confiscated my ball. All he cares about is exams and scores!”

It is easy, of course, to fault the principal, but he himself was under great pressure. At that time, Chinese students for 12 years prepped for one goal only—pass the college entrance exam. Not only were schools evaluated by success in exams but parents also criticized teachers whose students didn’t excel. There had been talk of reform but that was easier said than done. So I admired Teacher Yang’s tenacity but I also sympathized with the principal, who would soon become one of Teacher Yang’s ardent supporters.

For two years, Teacher Yang’s students played under the radar, even getting training in his hometown of Zigong, Sichuan. “Each child spent two dimes – one for the 200 km bus trip and one for lunch, which was one bowl of tofu for two people. I helped cover costs for those lacking the 20 cents, though my salary was only a few dozen Yuan a month.”

After a leader heard about Teacher Yang’s secret soccer team, he gave them several balls, and the principal reversed his stance and began following their progress—especially when they became city champions.

“Our team’s style was like Barcelona’s – lots of ball-passing,” Teacher Yang said. “The team had played together since first grade, so they passed so well that the other teams could not even touch the ball. We defeated the city’s best teams, and then shocked everyone by winning our first district game 8 to 0. No one could believe it. In the 2nd district game, we beat the city’s best team 3 to 2. Sadly, we lost the third game 1 to 3, but that was because even though our country kids had stamina, they were slow because they were smaller than the city kids, 1.2 meters versus 1.4 or 1.5 meters. But we were thrilled even with 4th place – especially after they gave out prizes. The top awards were 150, 100 and 50 Yuan, and nothing for 4th place, but the Education Bureau leaders were so impressed they gave us a special prize of 200 Yuan – 50 more than 1st!”

“Was the number one team upset that you received more than they did?” I asked.

“Not at all!” Teacher Yang said. “And later, our team placed second in the city. People thought I was a physical education teacher but in fact I had never studied or taught physical education. I was just a language teacher, but I felt education needed changes so I just explored some options and chose soccer.”

Passionate Teacher, Passionate Students

After postgraduate work at Sichuan Normal University, Teacher Yang was sent to teach Chinese at Longquan, Sichuan, where leaders said, “You finished graduate school, so you get the worst classes. If you can improve them, you are really great.”

Teacher Yang’s students were indeed undisciplined but he put his heart into the task. “In the end, they made great progress,” he said. “The biggest reason students listened to me was they believed I really cared for them and devoted my attention to them. It was a struggle to win their hearts and kindle their passion for education, but I did that with one class after another.”

Volunteering for Ganzi

In 2005, Teacher Yang obtained his master’s degree and wanted to pursue postgraduate work at Southwest University, but though his exam scores were very good, the teacher did not accept him. It was a bitter experience but he pressed on, and the school rewarded his perseverance by making him office director, which was essentially an assistant to the principal.

“As office director, I learned that each year we need teachers to teach Tibetans in Ganzi, but it was a very difficult place to live. So in 2012, I asked the school to let me teach in Ganzi and they agreed.”

Teacher Yang taught at the Ganzi County #2 Comprehensive Primary school, where half of the teachers were Tibetan and half were Han Chinese, and the school’s 10+ classes had 600 or 700 students—mostly Tibetan. Teacher Yang was assigned to teach science—and he tackled science with as much passion as he had soccer and Chinese.

Hands-on Education

“To my surprise,” Teacher Yang said, “they had no full-time and only a few part-time science teachers. Students did not do any science experiments at all. They did have equipment but no one used it – probably because they did not know how.”

Teacher Yang immediately captivated his budding young scientists by leading them in daily experiments with jars, beakers, alcohol lamps, etc. While other teachers had stressed traditional rote memory to prepare for exams, Teacher Yang avoided memorization altogether, stressing “learning by doing”. His results spoke for themselves. All of his classes ranked either first or second in the county exams.

Teacher Yang also endeared himself to local teachers by helping them with virtually any problem they had, from writing a transfer request letter to fixing a machine. “If a teacher’s computer crashed, I fixed it. If they needed computer training, I gave it. If printers or photocopiers broke, I fixed them or unstuck paper jams. I myself had no idea how to resolve many problems but I studied and taught myself and then taught them. The teachers appreciated my help and we formed a very close relationship.”

“Teachers also asked for help with multimedia equipment, but in fact, I’d never used it myself,” Teacher Yang said, “so I studied and then taught others. Ganzi had better equipment than schools in the rest of China because the central government invested more on education there. I had never seen such advanced equipment anywhere else.

“They had a 100,000 Yuan Sony video camera with a several-hundred-page manual that was better than cameras at the Ganzi TV Station! They were so worried about damaging it that they bought a safe to hide it. ‘I’m not afraid of taking it out,’ the secretary said. ‘But I’m afraid of breaking it!’ So I studied the manual and then showed them how to shoot videos. But then we didn’t have anyone who could edit them, so I studied a book I bought on video editing and taught them everything I’d just learned. Later, someone joked, ‘You are our one-stop for writing, videography, photography, scripting, editing, etc. – for everything!’

“The more I learned and taught, the closer our relationship grew. That year in Ganzi went so quickly, and teacher’s usually only stay there one year because of the health problems.”

Another Year?

On Teacher Yang’s last day, the Party secretary said, “If you stay another year, the school will rent you a house. If the school won’t, I’ll cover it from my own pocket. Will you stay?”

Teacher Yang was deeply moved. “I liked the people here,” he said, “and my work was very meaningful. I’d helped students and also changed teachers by showing them how to use technology. They were no strangers to technology, after all. They used iPhones. So I’d started with technology, won their trust, and then they listened to me.”

Teaching Tibetans About Tibetan Dance

Teacher Yang was also proud that he’d helped Tibetans better appreciate their own culture! “Tibetans have a saying,” he said. “They can dance as soon as they can walk; they can sing as soon as they can talk.” Ganzi schools capitalize upon this love for music by teaching children the Tibetan tap dance, duixie, which in 2008 was added to China’s list of protected oral and intangible cultural heritage. Though the dance had won many national medals, the Tibetans knew little about the dance’s background.

“Duixie is over 700 years old but has no written records,” Mr. Yang said. “Where did it come from? What was its purpose? But no one had any answers. So I wrote a 20,000 word research report on the secrets to Ganzi children’s duixie dancing.”

Teacher Yang wrote about duixie’s origin and history, how it came to Ganzi, how locals had adapted and evolved the dance, and why it continued to be popular. He also recounted the Ganzi duixie dancer’s achievements and experiences and how he expected it to develop in the future. “I gave my paper to the Provincial Department of Education. As soon as they’d read it, they FAXed a hearty thanks to the Ganzi County Education Bureau. The Ganzi County Education Bureau then told me, ‘You did a good deed for this school and for the county’s cultural bureau and publicity department. You did something they never did!’”

Hazards of High Altitude Life

Teacher Yang is enthusiastic about how duixie dance reflects the Ganzi people’s positive outlook in the face of adversity. “Life in Ganzi is really difficult,” he said. “Everyone has altitude sickness; mine was so bad that I could not sleep for half a month.”

“Isn’t Ganzi about the same altitude as Lhasa?” I asked.

“Yes,” Teacher Yang said, “but conditions are worse. Fierce winds shriek like a banshee and howl like a wolf. In winter, liquids in the home freeze solid and vegetables freeze as if in a freezer. We don’t have refrigerators because we don’t need any!

“We dared not get sick because recovery was hard, and sickness easily led to death. In three years, I lost two colleagues. One, a female in her 40 s, felt dizzy, returned home, lay down and never got up again. And an overweight teacher, who played Mahjong every weekend because he had nothing else to do, walked out of his door, dropped to the ground, and died on the spot. I almost died myself once! It was just a cold but I felt like my life was over.”

“Yet in spite of this, you stayed on?” I asked, impressed by his courage and commitment.

“In 2012, every time I returned home for a visit, the Party secretary drove me to the station. You rarely see this in other places today. I was so touched. So I agreed to teach just one more year, but this time I brought my wife, who stayed with me for two years in Ganzi, and the Tibetans really respected her.”

Embracing Other Cultures

Teacher Yang felt his years in Ganzi were the most meaningful three years of his life. Though he was the teacher, he also learned much from the Tibetans. “When I was young, I’d do reckless things like rebel against exam-oriented education. But in Ganzi, I learned that social change must be carried out step by step. People won’t stand for rapid reform. My attempts at rapid change gave me a headache and had no effect.”

“Did you experience any culture shock?” I asked.

“Everyone does,” Teacher Yang said. “Tibetans’ thoughts, emotions and concepts are so different from ours.” But Teacher Yang had read the works of noted Chinese anthropologist and sociologist Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005), a professor of sociology at Peking University who had studied China’s ethnic groups and introduced Chinese culture to the world. “Prof. Fei advocated multiculturalism and relativism and said that no culture is better or worse than another one. It is wrong to say some people are ‘barbarous’. At first we felt Tibetans looked scary, dark and strong, but we learned that they are very kind people.”

“I remembered my own first impression of Tibetans that I met in Amdo in 1994. I almost cringed when I was surrounded by three tall, sun-darkened Tibetans in colorful costumes, long daggers dangling from broad belts. I was about to hand over my money when they grinned and, using hand motions, asked if they could have a photo with me!”

“My three years in Ganzi,” Teacher Yang said, “gave me a deep respect for Tibetans. First, they are so optimistic even in such a harsh environment. Second, they have strong beliefs and do not kill. A female teacher planting a tree accidentally dug up an earthworm and cried as she wrapped it in toilet paper. And third, Tibetans have deep, pure emotions. I once heard loud crying and thought someone was being bullied, but it turned out to be a teacher who did not want to bid his students goodbye.”

Farewell, Ganzi

When Teacher Yang bid his own students goodbye on his last day of class, “Two children cried as if someone at home had died. I wrote an article, ‘Farewell Ganzi, My Second Hometown’, about the Party secretary’s visit to my house the night before I left Ganzi. At 5 AM the next morning, he drove me to the station, and even that early, all of the students’ parents had gathered to see me off. Such pure, simple feelings are not so common today in some cities.”

“So have you returned to Ganzi since you quit teaching there?” I asked.

“No,” Teacher Yang said, “though we’ll visit our sister school the last half of this year. But the students often visit us and we keep in close contact. The Han and Tibetan peoples are closer now, and help each other. This kind of brotherhood is good for the long-term stability of our country.”

“I’ve seen that life has improved throughout Tibet. What about Ganzi?”

“Much better now!” Mr. Yang said. “In 2012, the 90 km road to Ganzi took us four hours; now just over one hour. The people have built good houses. And social order is better. If there are issues, they’re usually between Tibetans, not Tibetans and Han Chinese, so we’re not nervous about going out at night – but I have to tell you a story!”

Falling for Tibetan Humor

“I took a taxi home late one evening after work and the Tibetan driver had another Tibetan in the front seat. I told him my address and he took off in the opposite direction, farther and farther down narrow roads. When he took the road out of town, I pulled out my phone to call the school if they tried to hurt me. ‘Where are you taking me?’ I asked the driver.

‘Arabia’, he said, and kept driving. He finally dropped the other Tibetan off and then drove me home. He had only been joking. Tibetans love to joke! I’ve come to learn that Tibetans are very warm and kind.”

I too can vouch for Tibetan’s warmth and kindness—but I’m sure they saw a kindred spirit in Teacher Yang and his wife. This self-taught soccer coach, science teacher, multimedia master, Tibetan dance researcher and general jack-of-all-trades is one of the most gifted teachers I’ve met. He could have easily chosen a career at a leading school but he chose to help Tibetans.

And this is why the world’s most populous nation is winning the war on poverty: top-down visionary leadership and bottom-up grassroots passion by people like Teacher Yang.

And of course there is the grassroots passion of people like Feng Yougen, the son of a Hunan flower farmer who learned to “smell profitable flowers” and has now spent almost 2.5 billion Yuan in fighting poverty and transforming a barren village into a world-class garden and national tourist attraction.