HE grew up during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and he did not receive his education in any regular school but spent his days reading "lots of books".

Wang Zezhao, now teaching Chinese in Shanghai's Beijiao Middle School, said he has derived much pleasure from literature.

"My reading was full of joy," Wang recalled. At that time, Wang couldn't afford books so he had to borrow books by doing housework for others. In spite of the hardship, Wang thought of himself as a lucky person. "I could read books to my liking, but look at today's students - they are suffering from conventional methods of teaching."

Wang's personal experience made him feel that reading should be a happy process for students. Driven by his belief that study should be combined with entertainment, Wang began to challenge the traditional way of teaching Chinese from his first day as a teacher. Although 18 years have passed, Wang can still remember how shocked his first students were at his "crazy" behaviour - ripping up the set Chinese textbooks issued by the Ministry of Education.

Challenging tradition

Referring to the teaching materials used in middle schools throughout China, Wang became quite excited. "During the 1980s and the early 1990s, revolutionary words could often be found in traditional Chinese textbooks and some articles mainly focused on the class struggle," Wang said. However, students have their own thoughts, feelings, pains and troubles and traditional Chinese textbooks went against nurturing their feelings about truth, kindness and beauty.

"We should return human interest to the teaching of Chinese", Wang said and he told a small story to describe his challenge to traditional Chinese teaching. On a dark night, a man was looking for a lost key under a street lamp. A policeman asked the man whether he was sure about where he had lost his key. "No, I lost my key on the opposite side of the road. But there was no street lamp there," the man answered. Before he finished the story, Wang began to laugh heartily.

According to Wang, many Chinese teachers share his feeling that traditional Chinese teaching methods consider teaching itself to be the only object. The struggle to improve students' test scores and marks in the annual entrance examination direct most teachers in their work. "Challenging tradition means I have to find the key in the dark place. However, no one wants to hit his head against a wall," Wang said.

Because Wang has never used the nationally approved teaching material in his Chinese classes, he spent a lot of time creating his own unique way of teaching Chinese. Unlike other Chinese teachers who confine themselves to the teaching outline laid down by the Ministry of Education, Wang's Chinese class is divided into different parts, including dialogue, debate, reading, performance and outdoor study.

In traditional Chinese classes, teachers usually explain texts to students and a whole text is split into words, sentences and paragraphs.

How students accepted and progressed under Wang's teaching was the real test of his methods. Within 18 years, his students not only achieved good results in their entrance examination, but learnt how to express their personalities. "It is a terrible thing when a nation fails to build its own personality," Wang said. In Wang's classes, he always tried to provide his students with a wealth of reading. The Chinese textbooks compiled by Wang himself especially emphasized the unity between beautiful language and literary value. Many articles concerning life and feeling were selected to inspire students' love for life.

Yet Wang's innovation was not welcomed by his colleagues. Some of them criticized Wang saying he had destroyed normal teaching practices. One parent even spent one year accusing Wang of "inappropriate behaviour" because Wang had sat on a desk when giving students lessons. Although Wang is popular among students he has had no alternative but to keep on transferring from one middle school to another. "I just hope that the next school will be more tolerant and give me more room to develop," he said.

Controversial methods

Looking back on his teaching career, Wang said students were his god. "A good teacher should play as a director and help students learn unconsciously instead of planning the teaching programme consciously," Wang said.

Once, on a snowy day, Wang and his students played together in an unconstrained atmosphere. When the students were immersed in their happiness, Wang observed them carefully. After they returned to their class, Wang guided them in writing about what they had seen and how they had felt.

Wang believes that people should live as poetically as possible. Therefore, he has always wanted to build a school which students would remember with fondness. "I have to rescue my students from the numerous tests and offer them a 'green' classroom," Wang said. In this classroom, no man-made pollution would be allowed and students can deal with tests in a happy way.

At present, the Chinese textbooks compiled by Wang are in great demand. However, his unique way of teaching has aroused widespread controversy.

"Before I often felt pain because my way of teaching encountered such obstruction from some teachers. "But now, after I have become 'famous', it has been easier for me to practise my own way of teaching," Wang said.

Wang has left Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province where he taught Chinese for 18 years. His pioneering work in education attracted the attention of Zhengjie, the headmaster of Beijiao Middle School, who invited Wang to come to Shanghai. "Here, I have found a new direction. Every teacher must have their own path and our educational system has a lack of creativity," Wang said.

Wang's believes teaching is a process open to innovation and he feels more courage is needed to break free from conventional methods of teaching.

"The best education should keep pace with the development of students and lift their lives out of the ordinary," Wang said.