Dressed in a purple gown, she moves her hands and fingers in a manner that almost mesmerizes. But all she is doing is using sign language to say — "I will study hard, work hard and live a full life."
The deputy who started her speech at the National People's Congress meeting in Beijing on March 6 with sign language is Shi Huifen, a special education teacher at a countylevel school in Wuchuan, in Guizhou. Speaking about her background, Shi, who can easily pass by as someone at least five years younger than her age, says: "I come from an unusual family that gave more priority to girls' education."
Shi Huifen is the youngest of three children in a rural family in Daozhen, Guizhou province. And her father was unusual in that he wanted good education for the two girls in the family, sending them to specialized normal schools. Shi's sister is a primary school math teacher.
With the special education skills Shi acquired in the normal school, Shi has been imparting knowledge to aurallychallenged children since she was 19.
Shi now teaches at the Wuchuan County Special Education School in China's southwestern Guizhou province.
The school has 32 teachers and 121 students in 10 classes, from the first grade to the ninth. At the school, there are five classes for mentally challenged children, one for autistic children, and Shi heads one of the four classes for the aurally challenged.
To her, the students exhibit the best humanity. "They have pure souls because they are free from worldly distractions," she says. Shi's main task at the school is to help the children acquire basic social skills. So, she often takes her nine students on trips to grocery stores where the sixgraders do their own shopping and haggling. Similar exercises are also carried out repeatedly in banks, libraries and hospitals.
"I want them to be exposed to different social settings, so that they can feel confident when interacting in society," says Shi.
Her work seems to be paying off, as according to Ran Runquan, the mother of one of Shi's nine students, Ran's son has been transformed from being a "lazy bones" into mom's little helper within two years of Shi Huifen's training.
Now, the boy volunteers to do things around the house, whether it is mopping the floor, cleaning the table or washing dishes, because "Miss will be very happy if I do so". "She is more than a teacher to the students, she is like their mother," says Ran.
The students reciprocate Shi's love with touching gestures. Hu Linyu, a student from Shi's 2015 class refers to her as "mother". Now a high school senior in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou, Hu visits Shi every time she is on break from her school.
Speaking about Shi's commitment, Hu's father says: "I trust her (Shi) completely, because I see the bond between Shi and my daughter." But despite the praise, Shi still feels inadequate. And she admits that she occasionally fails to understand her students' sign language, because they are constantly making up new signs and shaking up the "grammar" in ways normal kids devise texting slang.
"That's one of the reasons why I still have so much to learn," says Shi, whose idea of a perfect teacher is one who has command over every conceivable situation in the classroom. To fulfill that dream, Shi has stepped down from being vicepresident of the school to focus on honing her teaching skills.
Now, she spends long hours talking to her students. And, whenever she has the time, she devours books and periodicals on new teaching techniques.
Besides her bid to be a better teacher, one thing that weighs on her mind is employment opportunities for the children.
She feels that given adequate training, the children can be gainfully employed when they grow up.
"I hope we can find ways to allow them to make a living," she says.
Liu Yinglun contributed to this story.
