Editor's note: Sept 10 is celebrated across China as Teachers' Day. To commemorate the occasion, we're sharing the stories of some teachers who have inspired students and moved the nation.

Teacher devotes her youth to island

Six years ago, college graduate Lin Xiaolian went to Beili island in Xuwen county, South China's Guangdong province as a volunteer teacher.

As an impoverished island village, there were no restaurants, hotels or cars. The poor living conditions have driven many teachers away.

As the only English teacher here, she taught more than 20 classes a week. Her teaching and interactions with students have inspired many. Almost all the villagers know her, and children like her a lot.

When her tenure of six years was over, a key middle school in the county invited her to work there, but she turned it down.

"I hope I can help the children here," Lin said. "Only knowledge can empower them to go out and see the world, so they can come back to build their hometown better."

Man quits well-paid job to teach in village

Yang Ming came to Wachang elementary school in Qianxi county, Southwest China's Guizhou province in 2009 as a 25-year-old volunteer teacher and never left.

He said his dream was to teach in impoverished regions when he was young, so he quit his well-paid job in exports and joined a volunteer teaching team.

Although he had prepared himself for poor conditions, he was still shocked by the school — a two-story cement building. Teachers rang a bell to start classes, while students had few things to play with.

During the first year, there was no broadband. Yang spent his days preparing for class, reading, visiting students and playing with them. He showed them cellphones, notebooks, books and introduced the outside world to them.

When his volunteer time was over, he was moved by his students' tears and chose to stay.

In his 11 years of teaching in Guizhou, he has spent 80,000 yuan of his salary supporting more than 100 impoverished students. He also contacted public interest organizations and companies and received donations worth one million yuan.

Yang said he felt fulfilled and satisfied.

Teacher stays loyal to school for 30 years

Jiao Shengding, 52, is the only teacher at Zhangji village, which is located on the border between China and Vietnam.

After graduating from the county's secondary vocational school in 1990, Jiao chose to be a teacher in his hometown of Zhangli and has been teaching there for 30 years.

During the past three decades, he taught more than 400 pupils, most of whom came from the three adjacent Yao ethnic group villages.

Over the years, although Jiao received offers from better schools in the county, he turned them down. "Who's going to teach my students if I leave?" asked Jiao, aware few young people would settle down in the village because it is far from prosperous cities.

To Jiao's great pride, many of his students have moved out of the mountains to start their own businesses, and some entered universities.

"Education can change the fate of these students. The better foundation I lay for them, the brighter future they may have by further study," Jiao said.

A life devoted to girls' education

63-year-old Zhang Guimei has been fighting inequality and prejudice faced by girls in education for a long time.

In 2001, Zhang, then a teacher at a local middle school, was appointed part-time president of a center for homeless children in Huaping county in Lijiang, Southwest China's Yunnan province.

She noticed many girls in the region, especially from poor families, had little chance of getting an education.

Zhang wanted to establish a school for girls living in the mountainous areas. She was determined to make sure the school did not charge tuition fees.

After years of hard work, the governments of Lijiang city and Huaping county allocated one million yuan each to construct a school, and the Huaping High School for Girls was officially opened in September 2008.

In the 12 years since the school was founded, over 1,600 students have graduated and received higher education at universities, including prestigious institutions like Wuhan University and Xiamen University.

"Education for women can influence three generations of individuals," she said.

Teacher spreads knowledge through internet

Li Yongle is the kind of teacher most pupils and students wish they had.

The 37-year-old, who has been teaching physics for 11 years in the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China in Beijing, is funny, smart and most importantly, believes math and physics are tools not just to explain our existence, but also deal with our everyday concerns.

In 2015, he launched a public WeChat account called Toilet Classroom, through which he hoped that students would be able to fill their fragmented time by studying. He posted short video clips, lasting five to 10 minutes, on physics and math. Most clips were recorded in Li's classroom after school.

The Diplomat, a magazine from the United States, referred to Li's vision for the Toilet Classroom as creating the Chinese version of the Khan Academy, the online learning platform famous for its free, high-quality lessons.

In 2017, a video recorded and published by his students of him explaining the term "leap year" took the internet by storm with tens of millions of views in one day, propelling him to online stardom.

Li has more than 11 million followers on the Xigua video app.

To further promote equality in education and science education among the public, Li signed an exclusive cooperation contract with the video app in late July.

Within the framework of the agreement, he plans to record basic classes taken in high school with other science video creators active on the app and post the videos on the platform for free.

Retiree coaches left-behind children for free

92-year-old Ye Lianping is a retired teacher from Buchen village in East China's Anhui province who has devoted his life to the cause of education.

Since 2000, Ye has been teaching left-behind children in the village Chinese and English free of charge during summer vacations.

To date, he estimates more than 1,000 children have attended his lessons.

In 2012, he set up the Ye Lianping Scholarship Fund using his own money, as well as donations from the local government and social groups.

So far, it has subsidized 132 outstanding students living with financial difficulties.

Retired professor donates $11.82m to university

Wang Zelin, a 78-year-old retired professor from Henan Agricultural University, has donated all the royalties from his scientific achievements - 82.08 million yuan ($11.82 million) – to the university.

He hoped the money would be used to build a biosafety level 3 laboratory, or P3 laboratory, enabling the university to research and produce vaccines independently.

"I'm 78 and my wife is 71. We can't take the money with us when we leave the world, right?" said Wang. "It should be spent on what scientific research needs most. Our income is enough for us to live comfortably. But scientific research is badly in need of money for advancement."

Wang came to work at the university's department of animal science and veterinary medicine in 1984, and later became head of the poultry disease research institute.

Among his many scientific achievements, Wang gained three patents and 12 new drug certifications, established a research and development platform for concentrated inactivated combination vaccines and overcame problems in anti-epidemic work against a number of major poultry diseases, including infectious bursal disease and Newcastle disease.

Man goes extra mile to help students

After graduation in 2001, Zhang Yugun sacrificed an opportunity to enjoy a better life in the city and chose to work in the poor countryside.

Over a 17-year period, Zhang has seen many teachers come and go in Heihumiao village in a remote part of Central China's Henan province because of poor conditions, but he has stayed on and made every effort to educate students and help them out of difficulties.

Zhang ferries textbooks and exercise books from the city to the school on his motorcycle via rugged mountain roads. To help those students whose parents have left the village to find work in the city, his wife quit her job to cook and clean for the students.

Teacher makes map for home visit in villages

Lan Songlin, a science teacher for 16 years at Tashi Junior High School, solved the problem of finding the homes of students in villages by drawing a handy map that works better than navigation apps in June 2017.

The families of the school's 583 students are mostly scattered in 130 villages in a mountainous town of Quzhou city, Zhejiang province. Some are remote and lack transportation.

The village names are constantly changing due to mergers, and many roads have yet to be uploaded on the digital map. All these add difficulties to teachers' home visits, especially for the dozen or so non-local teachers who have not been there long.

Having been to each and every village where the students live, Lan was able to dot the lines to show the villages' locations based on his memory.

Lan finished the map, receiving praise from his colleagues and leaders. Since then, a copy of the hand-drawn map has become a must for teachers paying home visits.

Rural teacher instructs generations

Shawan Primary School of Shawan village, Meishan city in Southwest China's Sichuan province is located in the mountains, more than 2,000 meters above sea level and over 100 kilometers from the county seat.

The school has seven people in total: six students and 61-year-old Wu Wanyin, the only teacher. He has spent 42 years at this rural school and taught thousands of students, spanning generations — from grandparents down to grandchildren.

"I don't expect anything in return, let alone any honor. I just hope to do my small part to help rural children leave the poor area someday and become something in society," Wu said.