Crook celebrates her 100th birthday with her former students in Beijing. [Photo by Chen Gang/Asianewsphoto]

"The important thing is you learn from both successes and failures. That's what the Communists were doing. They were not afraid of mistakes," she says of the mass movements initiated by the Party.

Over the years, Isabel Crook has made speeches before and written letters to top Chinese leaders on such issues as rural education and development.

Some of her letters along with his replies were included in a book published by Wen Jiabao after his term as premier was over in 2013.

After her retirement, she revisited the villages where she did her research.

She is glad that many people still recognize her and that some have even visited her in Beijing.

She is impressed by the vast improvements in rural China, especially the enhanced standard of living and the improving literacy rate.

Very few rural residents were literate before the 1950s. Now it's compulsory students finish junior middle school, and there are very few illiterate people among the younger generation.

Though urbanization has been a good thing, enough attention must also be paid to how to develop China's countryside, she says.

"If you only concentrate on urbanization, you don't have balanced development."

Isabel Crook believes cities and the countryside are complementary.

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