"Cotton spits out a bumper harvest." Three years ago, Li Bailin, a Chinese teacher, read a sentence on a student's exam answer sheet and began a poetic journey.
Born in 1996, she teaches at Suyu Hope Primary School in Huitong County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province. It is a rural school in a remote mountainous area, and about half of its students are left-behind children. Li Bailin took the children to write poems here.
Leo Tolstoy said that poetry is a fire that burns in the human soul.
This fire illuminates childhood in the mountains.
Plant the seeds of poetry
Huitong County is located in the Wuling Mountains and is a major labor export county. Suyu Hope Primary School is about 6 kilometers away from the county seat, and the school is small and somewhat old. Li Bailin, who smiled and bent his eyebrows, has been working here for five years.
Once, an 8-year-old child wrote in an essay: "When I grow up, I will definitely accompany my children to study, otherwise the children will not learn well." ”
After reading it, she could not calm down for a long time. Behind the silent rebellion of some children is the neglected emotional need and desire to express.
Looking at these children, Li Bailin seemed to see the introverted and inferior self in his childhood due to family embarrassment. "I didn't talk to the teachers, but they took the initiative to understand me, accompany me, and give me strength." This kind of strength prompted Li Bailin to also take the stage - after 6 years of teacher education, she returned to her hometown and became a Chinese teacher in the township primary school.
"What kind of language education can give children a richer and better spiritual world?" This was the first thing Li Bailin thought about.
Soon, eyes fell on the poem. Poetry may become the outlet of children's emotions and the sustenance of emotions.
At first, many people did not understand. "What's the use of teaching Shanliwa to write poetry?" "If you learn to write poetry, can you learn to be a poet?" ......
It was the children's flexible words that gave her the confidence to persevere.
"Probably, winter is the sweetheart of plum blossoms." When he first read this sentence, Li Bailin was vaguely shocked in his heart. The child who wrote the poem told her: "Winter is so cold, and the plum blossoms insist on blooming, it must be because the plum blossoms want to see winter, and they love each other." If only Mom and Dad were like plum blossoms and winter. ”
Poetry, can not solve all problems.
But poetry, perhaps, is a key.
Wait for the flowers of language
What is poetry?
"Roses are not poetry, the fragrance of roses is poetry." This is Li Bailin's favorite answer.
She firmly believes that in order for children to see the poetry of life, they must first see, hear, smell, and touch the world. So, in the Chinese class, she encouraged the children to play with grasshoppers, talk to the grass, share secrets with breeze... Poetry is free, and so is the classroom for writing poetry.
At first, the children had fun, but they were reluctant to record their mood. Li Bailin is not in a hurry, "When you think of what to write and what you don't want to write, it is also good to write down the mood that you don't want to write." ”
Therefore, a child wrote a poem "Can't Write Poetry", and Li Bailin also collected it well.
"Childlike expressions are precious." Her understanding of children's poetry has nothing to do with peace, rhetoric, or confrontation. Most of the time, children's poems are not formed at once. Li Bailin did not urge or modify, but only patiently asked questions -
A child wrote "blue sky" and crossed it out again.
"What does the blue sky remind you of?" "The sea."
"What's in the sea?" "There are fish."
"What is in heaven?" "There are clouds moving."
"What can fish do? What can the cloud do? "Fish can sing, they can dance, they can spit bubbles."
The child paused: "Hey, why doesn't the cloud spit bubbles?" ”
In this way, in the question and answer, the expression gradually became clear.
Slowly, children use vocabulary more boldly and imagine more and more imaginatively. Children's poems are becoming more and more beautiful, blossoming into flowers of language.
Out of his own pocket, he made two poetry books for the children
Knock on the door of your child's heart
The meaning of poetry is different for every child.
Some children are introverted, and poetry becomes an outlet for expression. "My sister was beaten because I broke the vase. But my sister was very nice and didn't give it to me. Reading these few sentences, Li Bailin was quite pleased: the children opened their hearts little by little and wrote out the "not very honorable" little secret.
Some children have families in distress, and poetry becomes a channel for talking. "The little tadpole wanted to find her mother, asked a lot of people, and finally found her mother on the lotus leaf. But I tried to find my mother, but no one told me. Reading this, she found the child who wrote poetry to bask in the sun and listen to her loneliness.
Once, a naughty boy who often did not turn in his homework took the initiative to hand in a poem, which was vivid and interesting, and Li Bailin copied it on the blackboard and asked the whole class to read it together, and the boy's face immediately turned red. The next day, the boy turned in his neat homework on time. Inspired, Li Bailin held a poetry reading in the class and invited the children to read their own works. Since then, more and more children will give Li Bailin the poems they wrote after class.
Some parents who work outside the home are also touched by their children's poems. "Turns out my child is so gifted with language?" "I didn't know these emotions of the child before" "I want to go back and spend more time with the child"... Surprise, pride, apologies, thinking, parents feedback more and more.
Li Bailin said that poetry is like a door to the heart for children in the mountains. "Knock on this door, and you will see how much they love the world, and you will understand how to love them better."
Source: Xinhua News Agency