SPRINGVILLE -- Stepping into rural China last summer as a volunteer teacher was a step back in time for Joan Wayment.

Normally Wayment teaches transitional kindergarten at Art City Elementary in Springville.

But because her husband is an engineer for a Chinese coal mine, she spent the summer with him and dozens of inquisitive children in the tiny village of Daning in the Shanxi Province in northeast China. She was the only female Westerner teaching English "for free" in the village, so curiosity about her ran high.

One of the chief goals of educators in China is that their students learn English, and to learn it from a native English- speaker is uncommon.

"It's just so rare (in China) to have volunteers," she said.

So she's going back next year.

So unusual was her service that she was interviewed on Chinese television and featured in many Chinese newspaper articles.

"It was a life-changing experience," she said. "I didn't realize how important it was for them to learn English."

Not only did she teach English to her pint-size subjects, she also tutored the regular teacher on her English. Since English isn't a native language for the Chinese, they often mispronounce the words, Wayment said.

Most of the villagers are poor farmers or mineworkers. They live in homes with a single light bulb or no electricity at all. Because they lack refrigerators, many purchase their food fresh daily from traveling vendors.

The Chinese government built the school four years ago but didn't furnish it as schools are furnished in America. Floors are of concrete and children sit at aging wooden desks. The school has no rest rooms.

Outhouses are the norm. One day Wayment followed another teacher out of the school, wondering where she was going. Her destination, Wayment learned, was one of numerous outhouses in the village -- and bring your own toilet paper.

Indoor plumbing in rural China is uncommon, she found.

"I learned just how fortunate we are here," Wayment said.

Students must bring their own school supplies. Wayment knew that so she brought school supplies along with picture books she could share.

She soon learned that the picture books were useless beyond the second or third row of students. Many had vision problems and couldn't see the books she held up.

On July 1 school was dismissed for the summer, so Wayment volunteered to teach fourth grade at a villager's home where dozens of children crammed into a 12-foot-by-12-foot room.

It wasn't unusual for curious villagers to line the back of the room or peer into the windows. Most Chinese don't get past the ninth grade. The government won't pay to educate their citizens into high school, which is tuition-based. By the fourth grade the system has already focused on the students who will go on to higher education.

"Two hundred dollars per child pays for three years of high school," she said.

Those who want to go on to college must first pass a tough test in which English is a big part, Wayment said. She found it odd that the Chinese had no reference for the letters "I" and "P." For "I" she used a picture of an igloo. Neither her students nor the native educators knew what that was, she said.

As for the letter "P" she used an illustration of pizza, which they also didn't recognize.

Wayment found little creative thinking in the village but lots of memorization.

When she left, many of the children gave her handmade gifts. Many were envelopes they had made to include well-recycled musical greeting cards, all playing the same tune, Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fur Elise."

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com

Copyright C 2006 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.