During my volunteer days in December of 2019 at Yang Lin Primary School in JiangXi, ShangRao in rural China, the vast majority of students participated in class with wild enthusiasm. However, a little girl sat at a desk isolated from the other rows. From a distance, she looked like the other girls in her green school jumper, her hair pulled back into a short ponytail. While the other students wrote diligently and answered questions eagerly, she sat silently and vacantly at her desk. I wanted to help her in some way and approached her many times, but I did not know how or where to start. I tried my best in my short week of teaching to help her and to encourage her to participate, but I was never successful. I learned later that she had Down Syndrome.
Because of the limited resources a rural school like Yang Lin Primary School has, not all students are served well. A student in grade four turned out to be partially deaf and used a hearing aid; however, he often struggled to hear in class when other students got too loud. If students like this boy and the girl with Down Syndrome, as well as many other students with special needs, went to school in the city, they would go to a special education school where professionals would be able to help them in ways that people like me with no formal training cannot. However, because they live in a rural village, they must attend a regular school – a school with very limited resources and experience in educating children with special needs.
Similarly, when I arrived at a nearby school, Tian Li Primary School, I saw a little boy in kindergarten playing. In his purple puffer coat, he was significantly smaller than the other children – he did not look old enough to be in school. While other children surrounding him were jumping and running energetically, he walked and looked around slowly with a mature expression on his face. The principal explained that that little boy suffered from dwarfism. She said the boy’s parents left him when he was very young, and that it was his grandmother who had cared for him since they left. On registration day for kindergarten, his grandmother cried as she explained her grandson’s situation. Other schools would not take him. He wanted to learn. Tian Li Primary School was his last option. The grandmother pleaded with the principal to let her grandson attend school. She only hopes children like her grandson can be treated the same as other children. However, in this small village, they often do not get the opportunity.
This first-hand experience opened my eyes to the equity issues between rural and urban areas. It seems to me that solely based on geographical location, people are automatically denied or handed certain opportunities. Having lived in the city my whole life, I was ignorant to the struggles other children my age living in rural areas were facing as well as to the inherent privilege that I hold. Especially in Canada where the disparity between rural and urban schooling is relatively small, I never knew the issues in other communities in the world. By sharing my experiences, I hope to encourage everyone not to wait until they see first-hand this inequity to become informed about various issues in society and to take action to help improve those issues around them.
by：Meiyi Song
Meiyi Song is the founder of Glimpse Media and the first student council president of LEGAC, a non-profit organization that enriches the global and cultural education of young people through real-world experiences. She immigrated to Canada at the age of four and is currently studying at a top IB high school in Toronto. In her spare time, she is always ready for an adventure and loves to travel and explore the different cultures and foods of the world. Growing up in different cultural and linguistical environments, she speaks four languages and has a unique multifaceted perspective. She is passionate about using different mediums including photography, film, and writing to document the real and touching stories of women around her.