Telling the Stories of Left-behind Children in China

The issue of “left-behind children” in China has been widely recognized as a significant social problem, as more than 61 million children are living in villages away from their parents, who have migrated to large cities to seek employment opportunities. There is a very limited number of media products depicting left-behind children in rural China as central characters with individual personalities. As Stuart Hall states, representation is the process or channel or medium through which meanings are both created and reified. This paper analyzes how stories and voices of this underprivileged group are presented in recent years to the public in different non-fictional media forms, particularly documentary films. Through content analysis of selected samples, the paper examines how narratives are weaved about the lives and emotions of these children, and how the stories make sense of their family experiences. The paper discusses the power of digital narratives and visual-based expressions. It also examines how the products of representation are mediated by different types of storytellers, who are often motivated by a sense of social engagement to raise awareness about the plight of these children to appeal for support but addresses the issue from their specific perspectives. Image Credit: Still of Children at a Village School by Nengjie Jiang

Catatonia

Karl Login, Latvian, peasant-farmer, 22 years old; the closest relatives of the patient are healthy; nothing is known about distant relatives. K.L. in childhood he endured scarlet fever, but generally enjoyed good health, studied well in the village school, lingering actively helped his father in village work; character was good-natured, apathetic, played the violin well and was considered a good musician. He led a correct lifestyle, did not drink and, as far as is known, did not have sexual intercourse. I got sick in December 1895; according to the opinion of the patient's brother, the disease developed as a result of two reasons; K.L. was a witness of how the worker got into the car and was taken out dead; this circumstance seemed to have made a heavy impression on K. L; the second reason: he wanted to get married, but the father did not allow this the son must learn some trade, get a job and then get married. Around Christmas 1895 K.L. I was extremely apathetic, "quiet", slept a lot; sometimes complained about the feeling of pressure in the head and chest. At the end of January, he stopped talking, working and playing the violin, and slept almost all day long. The patient was used by a local doctor, but without any success; all manifestations of the disease progressively intensified. Before admission to the clinic, he almost continuously merged for two or three weeks, occasionally smiling: except for yes and no, he did not say a word. He himself went up to the table and ate, was clean; if he is taken somewhere, he resists. There was no deception of feelings, no inclination to destruction.

Ritual speech and education in Kutete

Spending time in the highland village of Kutete I got to know the teachers at the primary school, Eskola Lalehan. Towards the end of the year, worried many of the children would fail their exams, the principal organised the purchase of a pig, and for a ritual speaker to beseech the ancestors to allow the children safe passage to the exam centre and success once there. This chapter juxtaposes the reluctance of Kutete’s farmers to adopt new agricultural methods with their embrace of the village school. Through an exegesis of the ritual speech they use for this I explore how, for the people of Oecussi, kase education can draw on and validate meto notions of interventionist, geographically embedded spirits.

Anna Botsford Comstock—Childhood and Girlhood

This chapter discusses the childhood and girlhood of Anna Botsford Comstock, recounting the story of her family and heritage. Her parents' earlier marriages complicated Anna's relationships and greatly enriched her life. Anna was taught to work early, and she learned to sew before she was four years old and to knit when she was six. In Sunday school, she asked puzzling questions, which were answered by some quotation from the Bible, instead of reasonably. Thus, Anna came to regard the Bible as a refuge for ignorance and a stifler of reason, a prejudice that remained a secret in her mind until after she too reached the age of reason and came to realize its majesty and beauty. The chapter then looks at Anna's experience studying English Grammar, which she hated until she came to appreciate it after she studied Latin. She also attended a “select school” in Otto wherein she took a few drawing lessons. When Anna was fourteen, the teacher in the primary room of their village school took ill and had to leave six weeks before the term ended; she was asked to take her place. She then attended “Chamberlain Institute and Female College” at Randolph and started for Cornell University in November of 1874 wherein she studied both botany and zoology.

THE EXCURSION OF VILLAGE SCHOOL CHILDREN FROM BORISOGLEBSKIE SLOBODY TO YAROSLAVL IN 1911

The article is devoted to the review of the excursion to Yaroslavl of rural school children in 1911. It was the teacher of the primary school of the village Borisoglebskie slobody S. Maksheev who described this excursion. The report of the teacher is very detailed. This rare document depicts the inclusiveness of the rural school into pedagogical innovations of the beginning of the 20th century. Russian teachers of that period tried to avoid bureaucratic formalities in the process of education. They seeked new forms of teaching to approach school to the real life, to make a learning process more vivid and visual and to expand horizons of their pupils. Such new forms of teaching they found in school trips. The teachers of the Yaroslavl region were very active in the process of organization of the excursions. Teachers of the Rostov district were the most active. The excursion of the Borisoglebian school children was one of the first. It was well prepared and well spent. It also reflected rules of the excursions that later would be common for educational tours. S. Maksheev showed advantage of the excursion for his pupils convincingly. His conclusion about cognitive and educational value of excursion corresponded with the opinion of many other teachers about great potential opportunities to improve school education. The excursion of the Borisoglebian school children in 1911 reflected that fact that village teachers of the Yaroslavl region took an active part in the all-Russia process of realization of new forms of teaching. It was specific compensation of the lack of systematic reform of the school education

Chapter VI

I continued the labours of the village school as actively and faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid,...