Last summer, I joined a program and taught art in a rural Chinese province, Yunnan, as a volunteer. Most of my students were fourteen years old, whereas I was seventeen. There were not a lot of age differences among us, but I was labeled as a “teacher” while they were “students.” I did not like the title of a “teacher” since I thought I was only there to share my perspectives, and I didn’t want to set myself as a know-it-all authority figure, so I instead strived to create a community of mutual respect where everyone learned as both students and teachers.
So I wanted to break the teacher-student boundary. I encouraged them to create collages and rubbings with leaves and pinecones and reshape dumplings into cuboids or discs, I was proud of their enthusiasm in nontraditional ways. I also established a round-table seminar with the “sun” as our theme. Students from the Nakhi ethnic group shared sun mythologies about the Drought Devil. I encouraged students to appreciate western folk stories about sun gods and investigate how the sun’s meaning has evolved from religious symbols to a fashionable icon on Converse’s shoes. Seeing the students’ growing confidence as artists, researchers, and speakers, I knew we created a community built on learning from others and sharing parts of who we are.
This highly interactive teaching style contradicted traditional local education, characterized by rigid definitions of professional achievement. From conversations with students, I learned that they had goals to move to “prestigious” metropolises but couldn’t explain why they wanted to do this. I discovered that many students believed staying in Yunnan would mean that they were “unsuccessful,” but leaving also meant that the region would lose people who can support local communities.
To encourage multiple definitions of success, I organized one-on-one mentoring and group discussions. Students began to articulate new visions: Jingran would perform archaeological excavations in Yunnan, and Xiaoran planned to be a psychotherapist helping other left-behind children. After this experience, I began to train volunteers for this volunteering program and devoted myself to emphasizing the equal importance of exploring new communities and contributing to original communities to the students I work with.
I want to continue creating similar constructive communities and promoting this egalitarian student-teacher identity as well as open-mindedness about individual success. At the beginning of this year, I received a message from Ziyan, a Yunnan student: “Rovi, I’ve established an art club, the first student-run club at school!”
