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Survivors from quake-leveled high school still dazed six months after (2) |
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19:51, November 11, 2008 |
Yue and his colleagues tried their best to help the youngsters to "learn to laugh again".
Many teachers have been working hard on making their teaching funny and interesting to attract the students. Private conversations have often been conducted.
"Some teachers told me that they hoped they could be psychologists," said Yue.
Fortunately, volunteer psychologists have came to the school, now one of the most well known in China after the quake.
Chen Ting is one of the volunteers who has offered interventions since the quake and is determined to continue for a further two years.
"We saw some students sitting silently during the 10 minutes breaks between classes and they were afraid to talk to us," Chen said. She is a psychologist from the Huaxi Hospital affiliated to Sichuan University.
Questionnaires organized by Chen's team showed that more than 200 students had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder brought about by exposure to terrifying events. Then Chen started to trace them.
"Luckily, it was easy to intervene with the youngsters. They are much better now," said the 37-year-old psychologist.
"We can see more smiles on their faces and they talk much more than before," Chen said. She had also trained two teachers in the daily mental care of the students.
The junior middle school held mid-term test for its 1,500-odd-student on Friday afternoon.
"I hope they will have higher scores. They did a bad job in the first quiz of this semester," the deputy headmaster Yue said.
The school is regarded as one of the best junior middle schools in the city and many students who live far away came here for a better education.
However, the students have to get through the winter in the temporary shelters which are neither soundproof nor warm.
A new schoolyard covering 80 mu (about five hectares) is being built with the assistance of the Shanghai municipal government.
Yue said he would post a big blueprint of the 67 million yuan (about 9.8 million U.S. dollars) schoolyard at the school gate soon. He hoped it would cheer up his students.
"I can't imagine the moment when we have classes in the new buildings," sighed the exhausted headmaster.
Yu Miao has dreams. She is one the top students in her grade, who will graduate from the junior middle school and enter senior middle school next September.
Yu is good at English and she dreams of becoming a diplomat.
"I feel now I am studying hard not only for myself but also for my classmates. I hope I will realize our dreams," she said.
Local reporter Liu Hai in Sichuan Province also contributed to the story.
Source: Xinhua
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