Frozen for special kids

Original title: Frozen for special children

Above: Children at Luanchuan County Special Education School train on December 5. Below: Children from Luanchuan County Special Education School pose for a group photo between training sessions. Henan Daily reporter Wang Zheng photographed

□ Henan Daily reporter Liu Haitao and Wang Luyang

If the dream has color, for the 107 children of Luanchuan County Special Education School, it must be the purest white.

They were running and soaring in the depths of the Eight Hundred Mile Funiu Mountain...

The purest piece of snow is like their hearts; the free sky is the world that belongs to them completely. Snowboarding and snow poles as paddles, children skated out of the mountains through ice and snow sports, stood on the podium, and flew to a different world.

Behind these children, there is a "dream-builder", who is the principal of this school, 49-year-old Wu Yongjun.

107 children

Luanchuan has always been famous for its landscape and water scenery. With the rise of snow sports, tourists flock to ski.

In front of the Luanchuan County Special Education School in the south of the county, the Nangou River flows quietly. This humble school often attracts locals to look inwards curiously.

Wu Yongjun taught at the Luanchuan County No. 2 Experimental Primary School on the other side of the river for 13 years, but he knew very little about the children of this special education school. In March 2016, Wu Yongjun, then the deputy principal of Luanchuan County No. 1 Experimental Primary School, received a notice from the county education bureau to appoint him as the principal of the county special education school. It was then that he walked through the doors of the school for the first time and met this different group of students.

These are 107 special children – deaf and mute, cerebral palsy, autism, autism, Down syndrome, physical disabilities, some of them are abandoned babies, some are left-behind children, some parents are disabled, many of them have not enjoyed the full father's and mother's love of a normal family...

"Pathetic, heartbroken." After listening to the teacher's story about the children's lives, Wu Yongjun burst into tears, "At that time, the idea in my heart was very simple, that is, to make the children's life better in school." ”

Change starts with infrastructure. In March, the temperature was still very low, and the children could only rely on coal stoves to heat the classrooms, the dormitories were all bunk beds, and there was only one boiling water stove in the whole school. "Many children's self-care ability and balance ability are not good, and they are accidentally burned in the classroom. What if I fell off the top bunk? What if the hot water is scalding? "Wu Yongjun saw it in his eyes and was anxious in his heart." There is air conditioning and hot water in my office, but I tell all teachers and students that the problem of heating equipment and hot water is not solved for a day, and my air conditioner and hot water bottle are not used for a day. ”

With the support of all sectors of society, in just a few months, classrooms and dormitories have been installed with high-power hanging air conditioners, dormitories have been replaced by single-layer beds, and direct drinking water heaters have been installed on each floor, so that children can drink warm water at any time.

"Principal Wu is so worried, his heart is as delicate as a strand of hair." Teacher Sun Yanxia told reporters about a small matter of installing an elevator. There are several functional classrooms on the 5th floor of the teaching building, and because there is no elevator, many children cannot go up and have been idle. "Principal Wu decided to install an elevator, most of the children here will not use the elevator, he repeatedly communicated with the manufacturer, tailored an elevator system for the children, to ensure that the children will not encounter elevator accidents." Sun Yanxia said, "He especially loves these children, and the children also listen to him." ”

"Which teacher do you like the most?" "Principal Wu." "Why do you like him?" "He treats us well." Zhang Qifeng, who suffers from intellectual disabilities, is not very fluent in speech, and when he talks about his favorite Principal Wu, he is full of smiles.

61 medals

Unlike ordinary schools, special education schools help students with rehabilitation training in addition to teaching.

A training trip out let Wu Yongjun learn that some special education schools are experimenting with music rehabilitation, which made him, who loves music, move his mind. From drum kits to African drums, under the careful instruction of him and his teachers, many children can play neatly to the rhythm.

After the band was formed, in 2017, this group of children in the mountains walked out of Luanchuan for the first time and went to Zhengzhou to participate in the performance. "The children were very excited during the performance, and after coming back for several days, as soon as another child saw me, he said, 'Principal Wu, Zhengzhou braised noodles are really delicious,' which touched me very much." Wu Yongjun said that it was this casual remark that made him firm in his determination to take the children to see the outside world.

To help children get out, music alone is not enough. Wu Yongjun set his sights on sports, athletics, football, what sports the children liked, he tried to provide them with training conditions. At the 2018 Luoyang Paralympic Games, a student from the school won the gold medal in the men's 100m sprint. This year, Wu Yongjun also took his children to Fuzhou to participate in football matches. "Football only happens once every four years, and I have to give my kids more opportunities to get out." He was still not satisfied.

By chance, Wu Yongjun saw that the China Disabled Persons' Federation planned to hold a winter sports competition related to the Special Olympics movement in Heilongjiang in 2019, and he immediately signed up for 22 students.

What are the sports in ice and snow, what are the rules of the competition, and what sports can the children practice in a short period of time? No one in the school knew about it. By studying the competition videos and rules, he selected two relatively "easy" projects of cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, and appointed Vice Principal Wan Qingya as a temporary coach.

"We're a small place where we can do ice and snow sports?" "The kids can't even do the radio exercises well, can they go skiing?" Wan Qingya and many teachers felt that Wu Yongjun was "whimsical." With a skeptical attitude, Wan Qingya led the students to start training with a video tutorial. Soon, Wu Yongjun looked for "foreign aid" - ski instructor Wu Fei, arrived, the children finally had professional ski instructors and physical trainers, put on special equipment, and walked into the real ski resort.

It's hard at first. Some children suffer from autism, autism, disobedience, ignoring people is a common thing; some children have poor comprehension ability, can't understand professional terms, wear equipment to teach for a week, which makes Wu Fei very headache, several times want to retreat, and finally was persuaded by Wu Yongjun again and again, persevered.

"The children love ice and snow sports. They do not learn as fast as ordinary children, but the imitation ability is very strong, a movement can be repeated hundreds of times, even if they fall, they will stand up again and again, sometimes their hands are bleeding, and they do not give up easily. Wu Yongjun said.

Wu Yongjun, who has never asked children to win gold medals in competitions, firmly believes that children can surpass themselves and gain self-confidence in sports. The children did not disappoint him either, and gave him a surprise -

In December 2019, 22 children took the high-speed train to Qiqihar, Heilongjiang for the first time to participate in the national Special Olympics winter sports competition, winning 46 medals in one fell swoop, achieving a breakthrough of zero medals in the winter events of the Special Olympics in Henan Province;

In January 2020, at the main venue of the 4th China Disabled Ice and Snow Sports Season, the Main Venue of the China Intellectual Association and the Special Olympics Ice and Snow Carnival in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, 8 children lived up to expectations and won 14 medals;

At the just-concluded Eighth National Special Olympics, another child won a silver medal in the cross-country skiing event in the listening group;

This year, 5 children of the school have registered for the primary election and will represent China to participate in the 12th World Winter Special Olympics games held in Kazan, Russia, and stand on the world stage...

In the school's honor room, the 61 medals, dozens of award certificates and children's entry cards are carefully preserved. In the medal cabinet, Wu Yongjun deliberately left some vacant seats, which is the confidence in the children and the expectation for the future.

N possibilities

"Vocational education", this is a word that Wu Yongjun often mentions. For him, the original dream of "taking students out" has become a reality through ice and snow sports. Now, he wants to go further.

"The ski team's children's self-care ability is not bad, and the school's goal for them is to let them play to their advantages and master a skill through vocational education." Wu Yongjun said.

Although the children have achieved impressive results in ice and snow sports, however, there are still shortcomings in language expression, life ability, etc., how to integrate into society in the next step? Wu Yongjun fell into a new round of thinking. After investigation, he selected car washing and handicraft as the two characteristic courses of vocational education in the school.

In the northwest corner of the school playground, there is a dedicated car wash. On the morning of December 4, Ms. Liu Yumei was teaching car washes for several students. "When wiping the body, wipe it from the top down..." She taught attentively, and the children listened carefully.

"When the car wash class was opened in 2017, even the teachers didn't understand it, so Principal Wu took us to the car wash to learn, and the teachers learned it and then came back to teach the students." Liu Yumei said, "There is a child named Li Shuangjie, who was also a member of the snowshoe team before, and just graduated this year and was employed in the car wash shop, which made the school and parents see hope." ”

After learning, the children's folk cultural and creative handicraft works won awards in the entrepreneurship competition; for deaf and dumb children, Wu Yongjun hoped that they would learn to program, learn to control drones, and move to a broader world in the future.

"With the light, fly with me, one dream after another flies out of the skylight, one after another I want to travel through the old times, plug in the bamboo dragonfly and open its wings, and fly to wherever you want to go..." This song "Big Dreamer" is one of the children's favorite songs. As sung in the lyrics, Wu Yongjun and the teachers led 107 teenagers to still struggle for their dreams, with dreams in their hearts and light in their eyes.

Great River Network