Many of us look back on our time in school with a lot of fond memories. In most cases, those memories are easily identified with the better times that we had in life and we tend to block out the negative. Of course, many of us also like to tell stories about walking to school and how difficult it was for “our generation” in comparison to the way that young people have it today. As you are about to see, however, things haven’t changed as much as you think.
If you grew up in a cold-weather environment, you likely have a memory or two about walking to school when it was cold outside. In fact, many of us walked to school rain or shine if we lived too close to take the bus. That is obviously the case with this young eight-year-old lad who lives in China. His name is Wang Fuman and he lives with his grandmother now that his mother and father had to move to a large city to find work.
Wang lives 3 miles away from school and there isn’t a bus to take him there on a daily basis. In other words, he has to walk the whole way to school through 3 miles of whatever weather happens to be outside. Winter just happens to be a problem in his province of China and the temperatures have plummeted in recent days. It has been difficult for him to get to school but with temperatures that often plunge well into the subzero range, he is more determined than ever to make it to school.
Recently, Wang showed up at school after walking through freezing temperatures and the school principal decided he would take a picture and share it on social media. He wanted some other people from other areas in China and around the world to see what his students are willing to go through in order to make it to school. As soon as the picture hit the Internet, it went viral and it is still being passed around as if it were on fire.
The picture that was uploaded by the principal shows young Wang with a head that is completely frozen. If you look closely, you can see that his hair has ice all over it and his eyebrows are even frozen. Even his cheeks are burning and red from the cold weather. It isn’t so much that he decided to walk to school that day but it is why he walked to school that has really touched many people. As it turns out, he braved the extreme weather because he had a test on that particular day and he didn’t want to miss it.
Try to think back to the time when you were in school and had a test. Most of us probably worried about the possibility of doing poorly on the test and we may have lost some sleep as we were preparing for it. We really need to ask ourselves, were we willing to walk through freezing cold temperatures so that we could be certain to be there for the test that day? It really is something worth considering.
This young boy was determined to make it to school without delay and despite the cold, he was going to be there so he could take the test with the rest of his class. The picture of his frozen head only tells part of the tale, however, because the rest of his body was also frozen as well. His little hands, seen in the picture below, were also quite cold and he had a difficulty taking the test because of the discomfort.
When it comes to discipline, we sometimes need to look long and hard in order to find someone who is willing to go the extra mile to do something that they may not necessarily want to do. As it turns out, Wang Fuman is a disciplined young child and he truly cares about his education.
These pictures have been shown around the world and it is our sincere hope that they will help him to get a little bit of help so he can get to and from school without this type of extreme discomfort. Many of us live in a part of the world where our children are well cared for so it is truly touching when we see a young child that is able to endure such challenging circumstances to better his life.
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