By any standards, this is a classroom whereeducation is being carried out. First of all, it is a room and a lesson is being taught in class. There is a blackboard on the wall, with lines of words written on it and an instructor is explaining the meaning of the words and the lines of a poem. Obviously there is a group of schoolboys and schoolgirls. They have desks on which they can do their assignments. Every two students have to share a desk, and the bench. They do not have any comfortable chairs. Comfort is a luxury that simply does not fit this place. At least, the room has sufficient sunlight and the students are sitting in the front of the classroom so that they can recognize what is written on the blackboard fairly well. The instructor is fully dedicated to his teaching while the students are all ears, listening with absolute attentiveness. Though there is no projector, no state-of-art computer-aided multimedia technology, no heating or cooling systems, it is nevertheless a classroom, very legitimately.

But then we notice something unusual. Why all the students are all concentrated in the front of the classroom? They do not have to because the room is large enough. This is because the roof in the rear part of the classroom has been damaged and in the case of a rainy day (season) leaking becomes inevitable. It appears that this is indeed the case because a major stream has formed, winding all its way up to the front of the classroom. We also notice that there are some twigs soiled by mud. If those twigs are dry, they can be used to cook meals on the stove inside this classroom (which we cannot see). Those are the boarding students because their homes are 10 or 20 miles away in the big mountain. What about the bottle? It cannot be a beer bottle, that is for sure. None of them can afford to be alcoholic, not even the instructor. The bottle used to contain vegetable oil for cooking and they have used up the oil, so it is now empty.

The scene as presented in this picture is perhaps utterly beyond the imagination of even the most imaginative Americans, but it is real. In the impoverished rural areas of China, such a scene is not uncommon. When I was a high school student, I visited one of such schools in the remote rural area of Beijing. Before the trip, I launched a donation campaign on campus as chairman of the student union. We donated books, cash (with which we bought a computer) and stationery and, led by our schoolmaster, several student representatives and I first traveled by a vehicle and then when the road became inaccessible we walked on foot on the zigzag mountain trails. When we finally arrived at the school, we found that we could not teach the kids how to use the computer. There was no electricity! Nevertheless, I taught them the first English sentence that they have learned in their life—“We must study!”

My feeling for the instructors and the students in such schools is not sympathy, but respect. I respect them for their greatness because even in such woefully primitive physical conditions they still believe in the power of education to change their destiny. This piety for education, for learning and for knowledge is what makes them great.

While the government should be primarily responsible for improving the conditions of education in the country, we as individuals must ask ourselves a question: “what we can do for those school kids?” Generously donating whatever we have, of course. But for me, my experience constantly reminds me to cherish the education opportunities that I have and prepare myself for performing important responsibilities in the future. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “We must become the change we want to see in the world.”