When I first visited the New School, it had just snowed heavily in Beijing, and there was a sharp coolness drilling into the body between the breaths, but the sky and sunlight were clear and refreshing for a long time.
At that time, the school had not yet started, and the campus was surprisingly quiet. Later, when it bumped into the team that was preparing to leave for the Chinese Academy of Sciences to participate in research activities, the campus that had been silent for a winter had some signs of awakening.
For three days and two nights, parents carrying suitcases to send them off gathered near the bus to chat, and the children were busy running around the snow and picking out those who had no footprints. After a while, the shoes and socks were covered with a solid layer of snow, and they felt cold from a distance.
"Look at him, rolling around, it's so happy." Someone behind him suddenly sighed.
Turning his head again, a little boy was already lying in the snowdrift, his hands and feet drawn in semicircles, and a circle of rough snow particles fluttered. Later, there were children around together, and the laughter spread far and wide.
The teachers and parents followed the sound, the eyes above the mask bent, and then turned back to continue their business.
A similar scene was encountered on my second visit to Ri-Ri-Shin.
On a Friday afternoon without class, two children squatted by the sand pit to play with mud, afraid of not having fun, and specially brought a kettle.
The sleeves were already soaked with water, a large piece of yellow soil was also stained on the knees, and the gray shoes could not even tell whether they had just been soiled... The child's mother stood at the stone table a little farther away, and other teachers and parents passed by, and they were all surprised.
No one asked them to leave the dirty mud pit, just as no one had asked the children to wait quietly for departure last time.
If this is the epitome of freedom, what else will we see in the new school every day?
When trust becomes the background of education
Almost all the people who come to visit the new school will be called to the library by name, and one of the founders, Holly Teacher, joked that this is a "net red punch card".
The 80-square-meter "Asuka Library" contains more than 28,000 books, which can be updated at any time according to the needs of teachers and students.
There is no need to swipe a card to register, no need to ask for instructions to report, and even no need to knock on the door. Teacher Li Xueyong, who is in charge of the library, said, "There is no threshold and it is open at any time, just like entering your own study." ”
Parents who came to visit whispered, "Aren't you afraid that your child will secretly take away the book?" ”
Teacher Li is very calm, "take it away because I like it, go home and read it repeatedly" - he feels that the book is new and good, and if it is not read, it will not be of great use.
Occasionally, a child borrows a book for an overdue period and does not repay it, and Teacher Li does not chase after it: "The child said that if he returned it, he would pay it back." Most of these books will also return to the library "by themselves" after a period of time.
On the wall of the corridor outside the library are the reading tabloids that children have spontaneously made and shared. Because there were no requirements, the bibliographies and layouts shared were all different, some tabloids were rich in graphics and text, excellent in drawing, and some were in pencil with horizontal lines.
Like a free, thoughtful forest.
This is the seventh year that Mr. Li has been in charge of the Asuka Library, adhering to the concept of "building a school in the library, not a library in the school", and he has made this place a place where children are really willing to come and stay.
Kids do love it more and more because they are trusted and seen.
Every time I go to class recess or lunch break, the blanket floor mat is quietly "full" with children reading, and the warm and warm sunlight passes through the curtains and falls on the body and the ground.
The word "trust" doesn't just flow in the Asuka Library—
A third-grade boy in the elementary school said in his epistolary homework that he liked another female classmate in the class, and after a while, The Chinese teacher Sun Yating found that girls seemed to like boys too.
She, who happened to be the main teacher of the two children, offered: "Or should I transfer you both to the same table?" ”
Teacher Holly smiled and said, "This is the new teacher every day." ”
Unlike ordinary schools, which regard "early love" as a flood beast, the new teachers trust those hazy and innocent parts of children's nature, do not have to be judged by adult worldly values, and only look at the good in terms of beauty.
After a few days, the girl's mother came to her: "My child is happy during this time." ”
After knowing the reason, my mother would smile and did not intervene - this is probably a transmission of "trust".
Like the ripples that ripple in a circle when the spring breeze blows across the lake, there is no huge momentum, and there is no need to make any tough means, but there is a gentle force that inadvertently vividly brings the entire lake surface to life.
Peace and Inclusion:
Defeat the magic of "school weariness"
This kind of silent education has also cured many children in the long years.
When Xiang Jie (pseudonym) was preparing to transfer to Ri Ri Xin, he was still a first-grade little bean ding, but he had been judged by the "famous school" teachers outside as "hyperactive" and "tired of learning".
Parents from Qingbei originally had extremely high expectations for their children, but they did not expect to be completely shattered by reality in just one semester. To put it more offensively, when they found Teacher Holly, they had a bit of a "dead horse as a live horse doctor": "Anyway, I don't study at home." ”
Just a few minutes after his parents said this, Xiao Jie had already made new friends on the playground in the distance, and Teacher Holly observed for a moment and said two words to the parents:
"The child is very smart, you don't have to worry about his future; don't talk to him about studying now."
To appease the parents, Teacher Holly reminds the classroom teachers not to take the initiative to chat with XiaoJie, this step is to give the child a relaxed and healthy teacher-student relationship, and gradually repair his sense of security.
So in the next two months or so, Xiao Jiezhen never entered the classroom and soaked in the bunker of the old campus all day. But in another month, Xiao Jie became the "good boy" in the classroom who was active in thinking and actively speaking.
The change happened slowly, at first Xiao Jie's eyes flashed with bright hostility and defensiveness, and within a few days, he found that no one had tempted him to enter the classroom to study and study, "the teachers here seem to be different."
Curiosity prevailed, and he began to take the initiative to chat with the teacher, and later leaned on the classroom glass to watch the students attend class. I can't tell which class it was on, but Xiao Jie seemed to suddenly appear in his seat, and the teachers went to class as usual, as if he had never been absent.
In the middle, a child ran to ask the teacher, and the teacher's answer was very natural: "He hasn't played enough." ”
This is also the judgment given by Teacher Holly, in her eyes there is no child who does not love to learn, "tired of learning" and "hyperactivity" is just the evil consequences of adult sabotage. It is not so much "correction" as it is about helping the child to "release".
In Xiao Jie's story, the tolerance given by the classroom teachers is also very moving-
It is not necessary to sit in the classroom in a disciplined manner to study, nor does it have to be serious about writing homework and getting high scores on exams to be praised, and the identity of "children" always precedes "students" - the so-called "teaching according to talents", and so on.
Teacher Lu Zhengjia of the Chinese Group of the Secondary School also mentioned the peace and tolerance that is new every day. He lamented that this kind of difference is really rare in the current environment, "children are not labeled, parents and teachers are very peaceful", he believes that this peaceful attitude is closer to the essence of education.
"What it looks like, the child has the final say"
In the Daily New Academy, teachers also have their own KPIs (performance appraisal indicators) to face, but it is not the usual class rankings and average scores of the test papers, or rather, compared to these cold data, The Teacher cares more about whether the classroom teacher understands the development of each child in the class:
What are your study habits?
What has been your psychological state lately?
To what extent has cognitive abilities developed?
Why is it that learning here is good and learning is not good?
Another founder of Dayday, Dache Teacher, is even more straightforward:
"Any child in the class can clearly explain what the situation is, that is a good teacher!"
The picture shows the founder and principal of Dayday, Holly and Teacher Dache
With such a "KPI" as a guide, hundreds of children like Xiao Jie have taken off the hat of "problem teenager" every day, and even gradually got the "excellent" in the universal evaluation.
In The view of Holly Teacher, the school is only the environment in which children grow, in addition to the spatial sense, the teacher-student relationship and campus culture are all environments. Schools have a responsibility to provide a nutritious environment, but it is up to the children themselves to decide what they will look like.
Obviously, when the environment is full of trust, peace and tolerance, children feel safe and secure, so that they can use 100% energy to develop themselves, rather than spending time with parents and teachers.
What about children who are transferring from the new school to the traditional education system?
"It's much simpler than new every day", this is the answer given by the children. The same is true in grades and grades, and even children who were not originally top-notch can maintain the upper middle and upper levels in the new school through a month or two of catching up.
What is even more valuable is that in this process, children always show a strong "I want to learn" instead of "I want to learn". Grade changes are always a steep upward line, and occasional fluctuations do not negate themselves, look up to adjust the method, bow their heads and speed up their pace.
What kind of magic is this?
From kindergarten to middle school, Daily New always encourages free thinking, insists on "knowing what it is" and more importantly, "knowing why it is so", and the teacher is asked to find the answer with the children.
Unharmed enthusiasm for learning, the spirit of seeking truth by taking the initiative to ask questions and thinking, and the core qualities such as autonomy and sociality that focus on cultivation... This is the precious wealth that the children are really left with every day.
Whether it is before or after the double reduction, some people always say that the new school is "innovative education", and Teacher Holly will shake her head gently every time: "Our 'innovation' is to return to normal." ”
Allowing children to "come naturally" actually puts forward higher requirements for teachers and parents. However, just like the name "daily new", education itself is a matter that requires timely reflection and continuous innovation.
The existence of the new school may be more like a lamp, giving a new possibility outside the traditional education system.
More importantly, it inspires us to think more:
It's about what kind of young generation we want to raise, about who we allow our children to be, about who we are.
*In 2022, Yin Jianli Parents Academy launched a new "Boundary Breaking Dialogue" column, which aims to bring together famous artists, big coffee and confidants in the same field and across fields, collide views, broaden horizons, increase voice volume, and jointly understand life, experience growth, and rewrite the common sense of education. This article is one of the series of articles in the "Boundary Breaking Dialogue" column, more good articles, stay tuned.
Author's introduction: Shi Bangjia, Yin Jianli Parents Academy original content editor, learners and explorers on the road to parenting, hope that we will live well and meet slowly. This article was first published on the WeChat public account: "Yin Jianli Parents School ID: yinjianlifumuxuetang", reprint this article please send "reprint" on the public account.