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Music changes life in rural school
Print Edition
As the bell rang, students from Yantian Primary School ran out of the classroom with their melodicas, rushing into the music classroom next door.
Yang Hao, the only music teacher of the village school in east China鈥檚 Jiangxi Province, then guided the students to review the tunes from the previous class and helped them correct their fingering one by one.
Over the years, students from the school 鈥 many are left-behind children whose parents work outside the village 鈥 have set up their own melodica band and led a more colorful life thanks to Yang鈥檚 guidance.
A melodica is a cross between a pump organ and a harmonica.
Yang鈥檚 course has been the favorite of the students in the school in the remote mountainous Wanzai County.
Yang, 30, still remembers the first day when he came to the school: it was nearly a two-hour drive from the county town to the village, along a long and winding mountain highway.
In 2017, he chose to be a rural teacher after graduating with a degree in music. There, there were over 100 students and only nine teachers, with no one specifically assigned to teach music, PE or art classes.
To fill the need for music education, Yang started thinking about an appropriate way to teach his students.
After comparing several musical instruments, Yang, who majored in saxophone at college, chose the melodica as the instrument for his students to learn music.
鈥淭he melodica is easier for primary school students, and is affordable. An ordinary melodica costs just over 80 yuan (US$11.65),鈥 he said.
Yang鈥檚 idea was supported by the school鈥檚 headmaster Luo Xinping. When the autumn semester of 2018 started, a melodica band of 28 students was founded in Yantian Primary School.
It was not easy to start a new course in such a village school. These 28 students had barely received any formal music education before, so Yang had to begin with the very basics.
Sense of achievement
Moreover, some of the parents did not support the idea, thinking that learning the melodica would affect their children鈥檚 grades.
鈥淲hen we first started learning the melodica there were many things I didn鈥檛 understand, so I asked Mr Yang. He explained them for me one by one,鈥 recalled Li Jiating, a fifth-grader at the school.
With Yang鈥檚 endeavor and patience, the children gradually grasped the basics of music and began to enjoy playing the melodica.
鈥淏efore I learned to play the melodica, I always watched TV, helped with the housework and played with my friends outside after finishing my homework,鈥 Li said.
鈥淏ut now, I practice the melodica. Every time I finish a tune, I feel a sense of achievement.鈥
At the school, most of the students are left-behind children raised by their grandparents. Yang found that many of them had no special hobby, and some of them were even addicted to playing mobile games.
However, with the introduction of the melodica, many students saw their lives transformed.
鈥淭his is a good start for our school鈥檚 art education,鈥 Luo said.
鈥淲e want to recruit art teachers to enrich our art education so that the children in our village have more opportunities and platforms to realize their dreams.鈥
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