The Campus Safety Watcher

“So far no student accident has happened at our school, and the parents and caregivers are quite satisfied with our work in safety education.” The fifty-one-year-old Teacher Wei said.

Teacher Wei has been teaching at the Xinyang Primary school at Mashan County of Guangxi Province for 30 years. He is the Vice Principal of the school who also teaches Mathematics and Physical Education. Besides, he takes charge of the campus safety education.

“We conduct disaster drills twice a year. In addition, our teachers teach the students safety knowledge at safety-themed sessions. At the beginning of each semester, I’ll conduct safety education for all the teachers and students. And before the school vacation, such as the annual Labor Day Holiday, National Day and New Year’s Day, I’ll stress the importance of safety again. Now is the peak time of the year with high risk of drowning, so we educate the students to protect themselves from drowning.” Teacher Wei shared.

Teacher Wei explained the tips to the students before the games start.

“Landslides are coming!” Teacher Wei shouted to the students. Immediately students rushed away from the vertical direction of the landslides. This was one scene where Teacher Wei used the DRR Teacher Toolkit to teach his students the escape skills. Afterwards, Teacher Wei organized the students to learn escape skills of earthquakes and floods through games.

At the beginning of this semester, Teacher Wei received the DRR Teacher Toolkit produced by World Vision China. He then studied it thoroughly by himself and mastered the key points. Afterwards, he trained all 17 school teachers to use the toolkit. Finally, the trained head teachers were responsible to teach the students using the toolkit.

Teacher Wei is leading the students to play the games.

“The toolkit includes picture cards of disasters, and cards printed with safe locations for evacuation, which helps us teach in a more direct and vivid way.” Teacher Wei said, “Before we had the toolkit, we used to copy some DRR materials from the internet, wrote them on the blackboard and talked to the students in class. No pictures, no games, we only read and taught the students the points of DRR knowledge.”

“Now, the students learn through games. Furthermore, there are cards, so students see the cards and know at once where they should escape to. I believe students can master DRR knowledge better as they experience it while playing the games. In the future, it is assured that they can make the correct judgement and go to the right places to escape for if a disaster comes, just like their performance in the games today.” Teacher Wei said.

There are four grades in the school, one class in each grade. There is also a kindergarten in the school. Teacher Wei has got five sets of DRR Teacher Toolkits. He keeps one set by his own, and each head teacher from Grade One to Grade Four keeps one as well. Teacher Wei encourages the head teachers to use the toolkit in their weekly safety-themed class session, and constantly reflect until all teachers and students master the self-help knowledge and skills in case of disasters.

There are three classes in the school kindergarten, but the kindergarten teachers haven’t got the toolkits due to the limited quantity of the toolkits. But that’s not a problem for Teacher Wei; he plans to copy the toolkit page by page and bind them together for the teachers. He will encourage them to use the toolkit to lead their kids to learn through playing.

   Teacher Wei takes in charge of the campus safety education. It is in the peak with high risk of drowning.

Teacher Wei is educating the students to protect them from drowning.

Eleven-year-old Meng Na participated in the toolkit games led by Teacher Wei. She said, “I’ve learnt a lot today. I’ve learnt the escape skills when there are disasters of earthquakes, floods and landslides. I’d like to share the DRR knowledge and skills I’ve learned to my parents, relatives and friends.”

“I think we are the first school in Mashan County that gets the DRR Teacher Toolkit. I hope more and more schools and communities can use the toolkit so that more students and people can learn the DRR knowledge and escape skills in such a vivid and effective way.” (Written by LIAO Haizhen, World Vision China)