Teaching and Learning a Lesson

Li Dawei’s Story

Faculty of Law

LLB

David Li Dawei, is the core team member of Beyond The Pivot (BTP)’s pioneer service project, called Mianhuasha Project. This project was initiated in July 2021 with the aim to promote the joy of reading to left-behind children in rural areas of Hunan. “Supporting teaching was something far away from me since I am not majoring in education, but at that time I thought I should be brave to try something new”, recalled David, an LLB student.

 

To facilitate the teaching activities to the children, there were training sessions provided to the team members. Other than teaching how to organise the class, a group of BTP members who have relative education knowledge also taught them the skills of interacting with children, giving them feedback, the characteristics of primary school children and so on.

 

The courses that David had taught were more humanistic, such as the basic knowledge of the legal system, knowledge related to Chinese geography, and career planning. Despite the effort David put on the preparation work, things had gone differently when teaching in reality since students were neither engaged in the class nor interested in the topic. “One child even talked to me after the class, saying the class was as boring as his original class”, said David with frustration.

David’s career planning workshop for the children

Fortunately, David was able to adjust his mindset soon and started to re-organise his course structure for the remaining classes. “Under the help of my team, I added more interaction sections, and shared my personal life to make the students and I become closer.” By adding more interactive elements, children were more able to focus and began having fun in David’s lessons.

Drawing children’s attention in the lessons

A class of making yogurt ice-cream with the children

The Mianhuasha Project not only enabled David to gain practical skills in teaching, but also made David reflect on the type of person he wanted to be. “The Programme reminded me as a law student that law is not a business. I should use my knowledge to serve the society as a whole, and to help someone who is not as lucky as me”, David said humbly.

 
As a person who is able to enjoy the sufficient resources in society, David expressed his hope to try his best to engage in more legal and social services to help the others. Indeed, why don’t we make use of our own power to make the world better?

Memories of the Mianhuasha Project

Written by:
Leung Lok Yan
Year 3, Faculty of Arts
November 2022