Some kids in Atule’er village, in the Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture of the Sichuan province in China, have to climb 800 meters of ladders up a cliff to get home from their boarding school every few weeks to see their families.
The ladders are the only way in or out of the village, which was founded there by people who wanted peace from wars and bandits.
I suspect they will be sued by an American student with a fear of heights complaining of a lack of trigger warnings and accommodations. They will also complain of a lack of diversity and grade deflation.
China itself seems to have underinvested in higher education, due to the shortage of university seats. Only about 6% or so of China’s >25 population has a bachelor’s (or higher) degree because of this shortage. There are also plenty of problems in primary and secondary education there.
Chinese immigrants to the US are selected (by immigration) to be about 50% bachelor’s (or higher) degree holders, so they are not reflective of the overall population in China.
It’s not surprising that China has trouble funding education. Despite having the 2nd largest economy in the world, China is still a fairly poor country It has a per capita GDP lower than Brazil or Mexico. China’s per capita GDP ($7k) is only 1/7 of the US’s ($56k).
But it was Chinese families that I was thinking of, not the Chinese government. The Chinese peasants in the video “get it” that education is a ticket out of poverty-- something a lot trailor trash in America don’t get. I have trailor trash extended family that don’t push their kids to excel.
Kind of ironic that you spelled trailer trash incorrectly (twice) in a post about education. This story is awe-inspiring. I’m irritated that responses to it, here and elsewhere, are snarky comments complaining about America’s children, parents, and politics. Sometimes a story about China is actually about China.
Kind of ironic you trash me for my spelling and think this is an article just about China.
The story is about the extreme obstacles families are willing to overcome to get their kids an education. It’s also about the economic marginalization of racial minorities.
This is not a story about China, per se. If you substituted the name “China” with “Brazil”, the story would be the same.
It’s totally bout a specific situation in China. And an extreme situation at that. And about poverty in that particular country. If there’s a story about Brazil, I’ll read it and think about conditions in Brazil. I won’t say, “Boy, we Americans are a bunch of spoiled superficial people, because people in Brazil are suffering.” And I don’t think it’s just about how these wonderful Chinese parents are" willing to overcome obstacles to get their kids an education." I see it as a horrible situation that needs to be changed. The big fix is that the government is THINKING about putting in a STAIRCASE. This doesn’t make me disparage my fellow Americans. This makes me grateful to live here.
There are wonderful American families who have made sacrifices to give their kids an education. I know many of them. Some of them live in trailers. We have a trailer park nearby, and my daughter went to school with several of the kids who lived there.
Considering that war and bandits are not currently China’s problems, or at least not in a way that having an almost inaccessible village would protect you from, the eventual solution may have to be to abandon the village and a way of life that is not sustainable.
It will be a sad thing because surely that village has developed a unique culture, but as a government official, I would take a good and hard look at whether building and servicing a safe means of reaching that village that would enable the inhabitants to live a lifestyle at least at the level expected in a relatively poor emerging economy such as China (ie with access to at least basic provisions in the way of education, culture, shopping and health care - and that would have to be something like a cable car, running several times daily) makes more sense financially than relocating the inhabitants, for instance in the village where the school is located.
All this complicated by the fact that it is a marginalized minority in the first place we are talking about. I knoow little about that part of China - those of you that are more knowledgeable, would that be an ethnic or religious minority (Muslims?) or both, and would relocating into more accessible village mean having to live as a minority among Han Chinese?
Well, you can either have the school on top of the cliff or at the bottom of the cliff, but moving the school closer to the bottom won’t help with the danger of scaling that cliff. And IIRC, there are only 15 school age children in the whole of the village on top of that cliff, which is why the children go to school in another community, where they are offered boarding.
This is similar to the way it works in isolated communities in Europe where busing is not feasible: the children are offered a combination of a one schoolroom school with a government teacher through something like 8th or 9th grade, online options and boarding options. Similar combinations exist for children of nomad communities. I assume that it is no different for children in isolated communities or farms in North America.
But even if the authorities were willing to fund a one room village school for 15 children of top of that cliff (which is probably a lot fewer than usually are in a single classroom in rural schools) it wouldn’t solve the problem that they might not find a teacher willing to live there (I doubt even the Chinese administration would be able to force a teacher up there, unless it were a choice between that and jail or detention for a political prisoner). The problem is that living in such self imposed isolation is not sustainable because it can be assumed that the villagers are unable to satisfy other basic needs such as medical care, shopping for basic necessities, errands with authorities etc. without scaling that cliff. The only way to solve this in the long run would probably be, like I’ve mentioned earlier, an expensive cable car option.
Don’t forget that even if each of these 15 children were from a different family (and I understand that the one child policy does not apply for minority communities in China), it means that the whole population of the village cannot be composed y many more than 15 (extended) families altogether. Reason enough for the administration of a fairly poor country to wonder whether just ensuring basic physical safety by installing a staircase with railings isn’t enough for as long as the community still exists. It also makes me wonder whether this community is so poor that no one has the means or skills to install a few more steel cables to ensure that the children don’t fall to their deaths at least.
My parents live in a rich country at the end of a dirt road on a hill, because they like the comparative isolation. If the corporation were ever to install a proper road, with Tarmac and street lamps and whatnot, they and their neighbours would have to pay for that. That’s why they band together regularly to improve the dirt road and install their own floodlights with movement sensors. I am in no way saying that this poor minority cliff top community in China has the same choices as these first world families have, but only that this community should also bear a part of the responsibility for maintaining their isolation in the face of their children’s need for education and basic safety.
I expect that most of these children, once they have survived their education, will look for work in the lowlands, and make their parents relocate as well so that they can care for them.