Monica, our guest blogger from NYC spent 5 months in China studying and teaching.  Here in her latest guest post she talks briefly about her experience of teaching the children of migrant families.

“Once a week for five months 10 of us, sometimes 12, were herded into a dark van that only seated six. The smallest of us contorted our bodies into the most uncomfortable positions. We were driven to the outskirts of Shanghai. The driver always dropped us off on the side of a dusty highway. And like clockwork, someone would be waiting there to lead us through a dark alley.

We passed by a middle aged couple who’s brown leather skin was the result of years of toiling in the sun. They baked bread on the side of the highway – salty ones and unsalted ones. Behind them was a dirt road carved between two dug out vegetables fields, which were being tended to by residents in straw hats and bent backs.

We passed by tattered wood houses battered by the heavy rain and the harsh sun. The women chatted on small wooden stools and gawked as we passed by. Some of them were nursing. They always looked tired and lifeless. Dirty toddlers with cracked red cheeks laughed innocently around them, as if they harbored all their mother’s life and energy. The men were no were to be found, perhaps because night hadn’t fallen yet.

We entered a white two-story building. The children present looked eager, curious and afraid – all at the same time. I was assigned a room on the ground floor. It was a tiny room big enough for only 15 people but it was overcrowded with 40. I squeezed through to the front of the room. My hands were tugged along the way. I introduced myself,

“小朋友，你好。我是黄老师。你的英语老师。”(How are you kids? My name is Ms. Wong. I’m your English teacher.)

“黄老师好！”(Good morning Ms. Wong!) They shouted in unison.

This was the QiDi Migrant School. These were migrant children. Their families live like nomads, moving from place to place in search of work. Men leave before the sun rises and return long after the sun sets. The children here know nothing of consistency. People they know always come and go. It’s as fleeting as their education. But their desire to learn is stronger than all the children I’ve ever taught back home.

These children are not only hungry for food but they are hungry to learn. They shout answers with bright eyes. They fight to come to the board. For them, enough is never enough. They always wanted more. At the end of each class they would tug at my hand and ask,

“黄老师，你会回来吗？”(Ms. Wong, will you be back?)

I always said yes. But I knew that the more I said yes, the closer it was to saying no. Eventually I had leave them. Just like everyone else they’ve met in their lives.

Families who live in poverty know that education is the key to economic mobility. But their children’s educational progress is hindered when they are yanked from school because their parents can’t find work. My kids don’t know it but what they taught me was much more valuable than the English I taught them. Kids in the States say, “I hate school. School sucks. It’s boring.” We take for granted the education we have here while children around the world walk barefoot for miles to go to school. We get driven.

This opportunity to teach and travel abroad was all due to the Fudan Foreign Students Volunteering Association. It was hands down the most rewarding experience at Fudan University. The principal of QiDi Migrant School was the one who drove us from Fudan to the outskirts of Shanghai. He himself was a former migrant student who saw that education was his way out. He built the school at QiDi for the children, and for the future, of the migrant community. He’s proof that education is the way out of poverty.”

If you are considering a Gap Year in China, then there are many opportunities for you.  Travellers Worldwide offer various volunteer teaching opportunities in China.

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Monica Wong is the author of A Pair of Panties & Boxers. She’s a social media account coordinator passionated about traveling, writing and global issues. She used to want the corner office. Now she wants the world. Follow her as she shares her travels around the world & her travels through life. Either way she travels, it’s food for her soul.