Jennifer Liu, D11, RDF International School The pace of development in China is moving faster and faster. One fundamental factor that contributes to this pace is education. In big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, every kid has the chance of receiving high-quality education. However, what about the kids who live in rural areas? As a student at RDF, I want to do something to help those poor kids. One of my classmates, Christina, came up with the idea about founding a helping club. We founded the DLR club, which stands for discipline, love and responsibility. We found 15 fifth-grade students in Guangxi and 15 students in our school who volunteered to be their teachers. Our major goal was to teach the Guangxi kids English every week for one hour. My student is Yuan and she is in grade five. My first teaching date was September 6. At the beginning, we were shy with each other. Then I introduced myself. I told her about my hobbies, such as playing games and watching TV. As it turned out, it worked, and Yuan gradually let go. She then told me about her family and some of her favorite subjects. By a special coincidence, we both love math. After that I gave her a vocabulary test. To tell the truth, Yuan’s test results were about the same as a 6-year-old student in Shenzhen, which is at the first-grade level. I sighed. To encourage her, I told her that “confidence in yourself is the first step on the road to success.” All the fun activities that followed ended well. The first remote volunteer teaching ended in excitement and tension. After the first class, I was deeply touched. First of all, this class has eliminated my fear of being a teacher. This has also improved my expression and communication skills to another level. When assigning homework, I need to be very clear about the assignment requirements to students, so it trained my ability of delivery. Most importantly, what we are doing is very meaningful. Even though our club can only help a dozen children now, when we expand the size of our club in the future, more children will get our help. | 