[Celebrating World Falun Dafa Day] How Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance Changed Me and My Students

(Minghui.org) I was a middle school teacher before I retired. I learned Falun Dafa in 1997 and strove to live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in my daily life and teaching.

Before I took up Falun Dafa, I suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning in my early life which caused muscle atrophy in the left side of my body. After the practice, the atrophied muscles revived, and the blood vessels that had been deflated bulged again. All my diseases were gone and I have been healthy since then.

Furthermore, my view on life changed dramatically after I read the book Zhuan Falun. I understood the purpose of life and the meaning of being a human being. I treated my students as my children and earned their trust and respect.

Here I would like to share several stories.

Student Refused to Transfer to a Better School

In September 1999, I was assigned to be a homeroom teacher. One day the mother of student Gao Feng came and told me that she would soon transfer her son to a better school with a higher academic ranking.

However, her son didn’t want to transfer at all. He said, “Mom, you have no idea how good my homeroom teacher is. I like my classmates too. I don’t want to transfer to another school.” A month later, he still refused to transfer. His mother was very curious about “the homeroom teacher” and came to the school to talk to me. After we had a chance to talk, she was convinced that I was a good teacher and Falun Dafa is good. She left with a smile of satisfaction.

Parents No Longer Angry at Me

A girl name Wang Xueting was smart but needed to do better academically. To help her improve, I offered some extra help, which, however, was not appreciated by her. One day her parents came to me, looking very angry. I knew that Wang Xueting must have complained to her parents about me.

I told her parents how I helped her improve her grade. I asked the top student in my class to tutor her; I also coordinated with other teachers so that she could improve in all classes faster. I told her parents, “Your daughter is very talented. She will have a better chance of getting accepted by colleges if she can go to a better high school after graduation. She will have a better future if teachers and parents work together.”

Her parents were moved and regretted the way they talked to me. As I expected, the girl made great progress. One day after her graduation, her mother happened to see me and expressed her gratitude to me again.

Developing Students’ Character

I not only focused on teaching but also placed great importance on the development of students' character. I often told them stories of ancient times and guided them to be sincere, kind, and forbearing.

One day, the school organized over a dozen teachers to audit my sixth-grade language arts class. Before the class began, I told my students to get some chairs for the teachers. The kids not only did that, but they also offered their own seat cushions to the teachers. The teachers were touched and one of them said, “Your students are just as kindhearted as you.”

In my school, there was a weekly evaluation of each classroom on discipline and hygiene. It was one of the performance metrics used to evaluate homeroom teachers. Whenever my classroom got points deducted, I always told my students, “Always look inward ourselves no matter what happened. Do not shift the responsibilities.” Even though my classroom’s discipline and hygiene evaluation was not the best, most faculty and staff still deemed my students well behaved.

I often encouraged better-performing students to help those who needed more help. This way the students learned to help and learn from each other. The better-performing students also got the chance to practice their verbal communication skills.

There were several boys in my class with very bad grades. They had single-digit scores on almost all subject tests. However, I never disliked them. Instead, I encouraged them to learn some skills. For example, I always let them repair the broken chairs, desks, doors, or lights and praised them in front of the class afterward. They were also happy to contribute to the class.

At the same time, I advised their parents not to put too much pressure on their studies. Growing up physically and mentally healthy would be more important than grades. When their parents saw that I cared for their children, they appreciated my efforts.

Because I guided my students with the principles of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” my students were always positive with no fighting or stealing. No matter big or small exams, almost no student in my class cheated. Other subject teachers were happy to teach my class, “Among the entire sixth grade, the fifth classroom (my classroom) is the best.”

No Out-of-School Tuition

Some of my fellow teachers offered after-school tutoring classes to earn extra money, and I did that too before I began practicing Falun Dafa. I stopped doing that after I became a practitioner. I told my students, “I will never run after-school tutoring class again. It is my responsibility to teach you with my best during working hours. I can’t earn extra money from you.”

I taught English, and I was awarded an excellent teacher. At the same time, I was the head of the English department in my school. I could easily earn a lot of money if I ran after-school tutoring classes again. A teacher said to me, “Do you know that you lost at least 10,000 yuan a month [without doing tutoring classes]?”

It was common for parents to give teachers gifts in hopes of getting their children preferential treatment. I treated every student equally and I didn’t accept gifts from parents. When some parents forced me to accept the gifts, I always sent back the money equal to the value of the gift. The parents exclaimed, “Such a teacher is rare nowadays.”

When my students won the first prize in the National English Translation Contest for Middle School Students in 2006, the principal openly praised me, “She taught her students so well without any parents giving her money or gifts.”

Students Beg Me to Be Their Homeroom Teacher

In 2009, I taught a class English but I was not their homeroom teacher. Once the homeroom teacher took 15 days of sick leave, a biology teacher was assigned to step in as the temporary homeroom teacher. The biology teacher’s daughter, Wang Xinxin, was also in the class.

One day I asked the students to write a short essay in class. When the class was about to end, some students still hadn’t finished their essays. I told them, “If you can not finish it in class time, please finish it after school and submit it to your temporary homeroom teacher.”

Wang Xinxin suddenly stood up, “Can you be our homeroom teacher?” All students got excited. They couldn’t agree more with Wang Xinxin.

A boy named Shan Huijia put his hands in the air and begged me, “Please, please be our homeroom teacher.” A boy near the door stood up and moved his desk to block the door. Others surrounded me, some knocking on their desks. and some patting their backpacks. They tried very hard to make me agree to be their homeroom teacher.

I was heartbroken. At the time, I was removed from my position as homeroom teacher because of my faith in Falun Dafa. I tried to persuade the kids, “Don’t be like this. I will be responsible for you even if I am not your homeroom teacher. Please let me go. The next class is about to start and some students need to go to the bathroom.” I finally managed to get out of the classroom.

My Graduates

The class for which I was the homeroom teacher in 1999 had long graduated high school. Some are now middle-level cadres in large state-owned enterprises after graduating college; several became teachers in elementary school or middle school; others are working in other areas.

One day a fellow practitioner told me that she met a young woman when she was encouraging people to quit the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and its associated organizations. The woman told her that her homeroom teacher in middle school was a Falun Dafa practitioner and she knew very well what Falun Dafa is and she readily agreed to quit the CCP.

Another day a young man came to my house. He was my student surnamed Yang. He told me, “Teacher, I have no job right now. The community wanted me to spy on Falun Dafa practitioners for good pay but I refused to. I can’t monitor good people like you. I’d rather not earn any money than do something so unethical.”

Epilogue

Because of the persecution of Falun Dafa, I was terminated as a teacher. When I was 50, I was sentenced to four years in prison for upholding my faith.

Many years later when I ran into my students’ parents, they were very sorry for my ordeal. Some said, “If you had continued to be the homeroom teacher until my daughter’s graduation, she would definitely have been accepted by a better high school.” Another said, “If you hadn’t been removed from the classroom, my son would have gone to a better high school and then a better college.” One told me, “After you were removed from the homeroom teacher position, my daughter no longer enjoyed studying.”

I ran into the mother of Gao Feng, the student who refused to transfer to a better school. She attended a teacher’s wedding and saw the new school principal. She told me that she talked to the principal about me, “Mr. Wang, why must your school take her [referring to me] down as a homeroom teacher? My son became depressed and unmotivated after that. This is my biggest regret.”

(Note: The persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party is still going on. So for the safety of the people involved, all names in this article are pseudonyms.)