Press: The public account of "Middle School Teachers and Students" has won the attention and support of teachers and students in the world, and is committed to creating a spiritual home for a generation of middle school teachers and students. Today, we share Wang Shenhao's article "Me and Those Disappearing Rural Primary Schools"
Original title: Me and the disappeared rural elementary schools
Author: Wang Shenhao
When the school started in the fall of 2014, my alma mater, a rural elementary school called Anling Elementary School, was empty. This is the third disappeared rural elementary school I have experienced, and at that time my heart was full of mixed feelings.
In July 1982, I graduated from normal school, and I was a bookish person, and in September of that year, I entered the then-called Shaxi Township Central Primary School. It is a famous rural school, which has been running schools since liberation, and is the only rural primary school south of Lujiang County. It sits on a hill called Anling and is surrounded by tree-lined villages. At that time, it was a five-year eight-class system with nearly 400 students. After class, students make noise on the hill bag, like a hundred birds returning to the forest, and they can hear it for miles.
In the fall of 1983, because a teacher was transferred by the county to conduct census statistics, I taught the fifth grade in two classes combined, 82 students, a large classroom in three rooms, full of students. In the summer, as soon as I entered the classroom, the hot air rushed in, and there was a smell of anything. The small heads were covered with sweat, and the big eyes were clear and bright. As soon as the students read the book, the dust on the roof fell. I clearly remember once, when the students were reading aloud, a pile of tiles really suddenly fell on the roof, and with a bang, they landed right on the desk called Xu Guangjin and Zhu Guangsheng, and the luck of all the luck, the two of them were unscathed, just full of black ash, four eyes and bones sneaking to look at me, terrified. The 82 students in the whole classroom were terrified, only to see that there was a hole in the roof, the rafters were broken, and a pile of small tiles fell quickly. This scene is still vividly remembered, and now I can't help but be afraid when I think about it. In winter, the school is full of cold winds, but when you enter the classroom, you are warm and hot. The back window of the classroom is sealed with snakeskin bags, the classroom is dimly lit, there is no electricity, and the students' eyes are bright as electricity.
At that time, there were eight such primary schools in Shaxi Township, the smallest Yumin Primary School also had more than 100 students, and the older ones had more than 300 students, such as Quanxi Primary School, Quandong Primary School, Yong'an Primary School, and Fudian Primary School, all of which were rural primary schools of considerable size.
That is to say, when the new century has just entered, the number of rural primary school students has begun to decrease significantly, and one year is less than one year, and a wave of rural primary schools has been withdrawn and merged in various places, first the teaching points have been withdrawn, and then the primary schools with the number of students in the 20s have been withdrawn.
In the fall of 2002, there were 35 students at Yong'an Primary School where I worked, and in the fall of 2004, 6 students were withdrawn. Yong'an Primary School is my alma mater of primary school! I also worked here for ten years, from the fall of 1992 to the fall of 2002. Sometimes, at home, I look at the Yong'an Primary School in the distance surrounded by green trees, still quietly like an old man crouching on a hill in the countryside, unable to hear the sound of students reading, unable to see the students' active and beating figures, and my heart is not a taste.
In the fall of 2008, the Fudian Elementary School where I worked was dismantled and merged into a teaching point that was only reserved for the first grade. Last school year, I taught third grade Chinese at this school, math was taught by another teacher, and there were only 3 students. When a person in charge of town education saw this scene, he said with emotion: "You are higher than the professor's treatment!" "After teaching this year, Fudian Primary School was withdrawn and merged into a teaching point. A female teacher lived near the school, nearly retired, afraid to run far to work, and taught there until natural retirement. She withdrew, and the teaching point of Fudian Primary School was withdrawn. This was in the autumn of 2012, and now, the huge Fudian Primary School rents sheep to merchants.
Fudian Primary School is a well-known rural primary school in the countryside. It is located in the northwest of the small township, which has the meaning of being far away from the emperor, and the village branch secretary is also a village cadre who is very favored by the township leaders, and people send Ya to call it "Little Taiwan". In the meantime, there were two attached middle schools, I was the first attached middle school student, it was the spring of 1976, for some reason, when I was in the third year of junior high school, the attached middle school was withdrawn, and I went to the headquarters to read the third grade, that was in the autumn of 1978, during which the attached middle school was suspended for three years.
In the autumn of 1986, I was transferred to Fudian Affiliated Middle School to teach the second grade Language. At that time, Fudian Elementary School Attached Middle School was equipped with a canteen, a cook, and the teachers ate and lived in the school, and the conditions were still quite superior in the township. In the autumn of 1987, Fudian High School was withdrawn again, and I was transferred to Quanxi Elementary School to teach. Fudian Affiliated High School has successively admitted 5 secondary school students, many high school students, and countless junior high school students, making great contributions to rural education.
In the autumn of 2012, the Anling Primary School where I worked was too small to complete the primary school, and became a teaching point with only one or two grades, with 18 students. A year later, the teaching point of Anling Primary School was also withdrawn and became a vacant old school. I transferred to my current Quanxi Elementary School.
In the fall of 1987 and the spring of 1993, I worked at Quanxi Elementary School. At that time, it was a five-year five-class system, and the school also had nearly 300 students. I remember that at that time, nearly 10% of the students could not go to junior high school, and the annual unified examination was no less than the college entrance examination. One year, all 48 students in the fifth grade I brought with me were admitted to junior high school, setting a record for township education and making a splash. In the years since, no one has broken the record, until the cancellation of the primary examination for the small ascension, 100% natural further education, has become eternal history.
When the school started in the fall of 2016, quanxi elementary school where I worked had 32 students in four grades and four classes. There are a few students in the huge school, from the previous one to the end of the class, there are students jumping around everywhere, and the campus is full of vibrant shouts. Nowadays, even the birds on campus rarely patronize, because there are few fragments of students eating snacks on campus, and there have been many days of mynahs fighting for snacks. Schools are sometimes suffocatingly quiet.
In the spring of 2015, the government also built a canteen for my school, rebuilt toilets, added more than 200 meters of wall, and invested more than 500,000 yuan. In the spring of 2016, the government invested more than 50,000 yuan to lay a lawn for the playground of our school. Looking at these vibrant lawns, it is difficult to see the energetic students, and the heart cannot help but feel sour.
In the fall of 2016, there was only one preschool student in the first grade of our school, that is to say, there were three students in the first grade this year and one in the first grade next year. In such a situation, can the teaching point of Quanxi Primary School continue to operate? It's hard to say.
Looking back at the original Shaxi Township, a small township with a population of less than 20,000, there are nine complete primary schools and one teaching point, and now there is only one complete primary school and one teaching point, with less than 500 students in school. The Anling Elementary School, Yong'an Elementary School, and Fudian Elementary School where I worked have all disappeared. There are also Quandong Primary School, Yumin Primary School, Henan Primary School, Guanshan Primary School and Shaxi Central Primary School teaching points have long disappeared.
When the spring of 2019 was in full bloom, the teaching point of Quanxi Elementary School where I worked was also withdrawn. There are 6 students and 7 teachers in the huge teaching point, and the students have successively gone to school in the county. The county government has allocated a school bus to send all students to the headquarters of Shaxi Primary School, and the teachers have also been diverted in the town.
I watched so many rural primary schools naturally disappear, people went to the empty building, drowned in the countryside covered with green trees, could not hear the sound of students reading, perennial wind and rain, the heart is not a taste, but think about it, this is also social progress, the country is rich and strong, the people are rich and inevitable, should be ecstatic!
About author:Wang Shenhao, graduated from Lujiang Normal School in Anhui Province in July 1982, has been engaged in education work in rural primary schools ever since. Senior title. He usually likes to write, and many essays are found in newspapers and periodicals.