The Rice Harvest

Besides Math, Language, Science, English, Art, P.E. classes, Pingmin also wants to instill and teach work ethic into these kids. Laziness is taken very seriously here and Principal Zhang wants to make sure that all the students learn the value of manual work, self dependency, and how to maintain our living environment. This is seen the moment you step onto the campus. No litter, sidewalks are swept and clean. The dormitories that all the students live in (since it’s a boarding school) are neat and tidy as well. Every bed quilt is folded neatly, towels are all hanging properly, washing cups and toothbrushes are all placed in exact positions. I find it amazing that even the 1^st graders are living so independent and far away from their families. There are 4-5 life-skills teachers (nannies) that facilitate and teach the students how to wash their clothes, fold their bed, wash up, hang their clothes, and wash their plates. It’s clear, nothing is taken for granted here and all the kids are taught discipline and hard work at an early age.

Every day at 4:00pm until 5:00pm, every student does manual work, a curriculum called 劳动课 that is unique to what Pingmin School tries to teach to their students. During this time, the first and second graders tidy around campus with a task that the teacher would assign them (cleaning the classroom, sweeping the steps, picking up litter around the buildings, etc.). The third to sixth graders do more manual type labor, usually in the fields or gardens. Since the land is big, students always have something to do in the fields (pulling weeds, sowing the field, picking out bugs, harvesting vegetables, cleaning vegetables, raking and plowing, and watering). These kids are really hard-working and already know so much about farming and agriculture, since they all come from poor, rural, agricultural areas.

Just the other day we harvested rice. I thought I would only see this in old Chinese movies, but there I was, right in the middle of the rice field with a sickle in my right hand and a handful of rice stalks in my left. It was very hot and humid, and after 30 minutes of cutting all the rice stalks, I was dripping with sweat. Next, we gathered the rice stalks bunched them in the same orientation and put them through a shucker which separated the rice grains from the stalks. Bags of rice grains would fill up a 100lb bag and needed 4 students to lift it. The bags were then wheel barrowed to the store room at the school. The next day, we spread the rice on any smooth flat ground there was and let them sun dry for half a day to prevent any germination. After all the rice had been dried in the sun properly (the kernels have to become hard and slightly more white, less yellow), they can finally begin to remove the rice bran, a fairly simple, but also time consuming step, in which a special rice bran removal machine is used. I asked one of the teachers and he said of all the rice we harvested (maybe 50 or more full bags?), it would only last our school for about 3 months!