Books to open up the world
A headmaster built libraries for rural children in China, convinced that reading nourishes young minds.
“THE children couldn’t read,” that was the first thing Leung Wai-ming, a former headmaster from Hong Kong, noticed when he visited a rural school in Shaoshan, a city in Hunan province, China, in 2007. What possible future could they expect in this modern technological era?, he wondered.
When Leung asked to visit the school library, he was taken to a small room – practically a closet – where books sat on a narrow shelf, covered in dust. He was shocked by the apparent indifference to reading.
Talking to the children, Leung realised they were shy and lacked confidence. He also saw that their future was not promising, given a learning environment so different from their peers in Hong Kong.
“Can I help the school to make a change? What can I do?” he asked himself. Then he had an idea. He would help build libraries for the rural students.
“I remember when I was in Primary Six,” one grateful former student wrote to Leung. “We had our own library and it was the first time I read Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I took to it immediately. That was the happiest time of my childhood ... Now I work. I hope someday to travel the globe, like the hero of Around the World in 80 Days!”
Letters like that are deeply gratifying to Leung because they represent the perfect outcome of a decade spent promoting reading and building libraries in rural Chinese schools. Ten years ago, he started the Reading Dream Programme to provide hope of a better future for more than 200,000 impoverished children.
So far, the programme has built more than 300 school libraries and supplied books for students for whom reading would otherwise had been an unattainable luxury.
Now, in schools where libraries have been established, reading is the norm.
“Children living in poverty are prone to low self-esteem. They consider themselves inferior to others,” said Leung, adding that reading means gaining knowledge and growing intelligence, and intelligence gives children self-confidence and equips them for future challenges, whether in their studies or in life.
“I want to see them walking tall, with confidence and dignity,” he said.
Many students from these rural schools used to perform badly in regional or local academic rankings. Now, some have risen in scholastic achievement and have been admitted to top regional secondary schools. Leung’s contribution has not been lost on parents, either. They take pride in the children’s achievements, and some even donate money to the programme to help it expand.
Leung, now 58 and approaching retirement, has always wanted the programme to move faster, and can barely contain his impatience. “The school year is quite short for a child. I’m pressed for time to make them aware of the benefits of reading,” he said.
A dream blossoms
Leung was headmaster at San Wui Commercial Society School, Hong Kong, from 1997 until 2007. Then, after 10 years in the job, he resigned and set off for Hunan to visit an acquaintance, a headmaster from Changsha, the capital of Hunan. They visited a school in Shaoshan, which had about 100 students. The classrooms were crudely equipped; the chairs were unstable and the desks were pockmarked with holes.
“It was a mess,” Leung recalled.
Even worse, lessons seemed to consist of teachers standing at the front of the class and speaking, while students took notes when instructed or gazed out of the window, daydreaming. “There was no vigour or fun in the classroom,” Leung said.
During recess, he noticed that some children were barefoot. When he asked why, the headmaster told him, “Because they are rural children.”
The children shied away from Leung, but three girls stared at him with what struck him as vacant grins. “Their stares were empty, even though they looked as happy as children in big cities. I couldn’t see hope for the future in their eyes,” he recalled.
Many other rural schools were very much the same.
They had no libraries. Some claimed they had, but when Leung checked, he found the doors locked and the scant book collections covered with dust as though they hadn’t been touched for years. Moreover, the books were an eclectic mix that appeared to have been collected at random, with the majority unsuitable for elementary students.
He felt obliged to act. “For children, the first 10 years is the golden time for learning and development. A span of 10 years defines a generation. We can’t afford to let a generation fail because of poor education,” he said.
Before leaving the school in Shaoshan, Leung promised the headmaster, “I will