On the occasion of the 33rd Teacher’s Day, Xie Nan received a text message from one of her rural students: “I feel so lucky to have you as my teacher, you never look down upon us rural students. I’m not good with words but I want to say ‘Happy Teacher’s Day’ to you.”
Xie Nan is an ordinary teacher from Hunan Radio and Television University (Hunan RTVU). She is dedicated to the teaching cause and has been widely recognised by students from all walks of life, including farmers and students from higher vocational education colleges.
Xie Nan’s motto is “Treat the students with a faithful heart and never expect anything in return,” something that she has kept up for the past ten years.
Xie Nan pays special attention to the development of her students and she never stops exploring students’ strengths and thus guides them to create efficient career plans. Noticing that two of the students in her Finance Management 2007 class, Xie Weiping and Huang Xuemei, were very interested in the security industry, Xie Nan encouraged them to take the professional qualification examination and spent her spare time tutoring them for the exam. In the end, the students passed the professional qualification examination and found their ideal jobs.
Later, Xie Weiping started her own company and Xie Nan volunteered to be her guidance teacher, offering her counselling during her spare time when Xie Weiping ran into any difficulties.
In Xie Nan’s opinion, being a teacher means committing to the work and shouldering the mission of developing students into a useful talent. In order to fulfil this mission, a teacher must provide good teaching to their students. For this purpose, Xie Nan never stops discovering the latest pedagogical theories and learning how to be an excellent teacher. Meanwhile, she keeps improving her teaching methods. She has had two research topics on teaching reform approved at the provincial level and has published several papers on teaching reform.
Xie Nan not only keeps up her teaching duties and also continuously enhances her own educational level. After receiving her Master’s degree from Central South University, she studied for a doctorate at the same university and was granted a fund sponsored by the China Scholarship Council for a one-year study programme in the capacity of “joint education doctorate programme” in the U.S. In terms of scientific research, Xie Nan has successfully presided over three research topics at the provincial level and participated in three topics sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and several topics at the provincial levels. She has published more than ten papers.
By Hunan RTVU