Biography
Li Erna, founder of Scarab Brand Education and Turtle Bean Full-time Early Education, has 18 years of experience in early education and is a senior instructor of national infant training. She is a Bao Ma entrepreneur who founded scarab full-time early education in 2006, and then began to expand at a rate of one campus a year, and opened to join in 2018. In 2015, Scarab became one of the first nursery institutions in Nanjing to have the qualification of infant and child care institutions for 0-3 years old. As a leader in full-time early education, she observed the changes in family structure, created a curriculum project for co-parenting between the elderly and young, and is committed to helping the elderly to raise children scientifically.
Bao Ma started a business, Li Erna has a perseverance. Anyone who knows her will know that 2019 was a turning point in her life, before that, she had a strong aura, a serious expression and a strong attitude most of the time, and after that year, she softened.
This year was the darkest year in Li Erna's life, the controversial partner of the brand name parted ways with her; the sudden epidemic damaged her career; the daughter entered the rebellious period and had a dispute with her when she chose her hobbies. All this made her always strong have a gap, and the song of Jin Haixin's "So Proud" sounded in her ears: "The night is too long and the moonlight will definitely be cold, what to do." ”
As Bi Shumin wrote in "May You Embrace the Warmth of the World": Life must have cracks before the sun can shine in. The difficulty broke her hard shell, and the once perfect had cracks, allowing the light called love to shine in. She was relieved and had more courage to face herself.
18 years of front-line teaching experience has enabled her to complete the transformation from a teacher to a family education instructor, observe the changes in family structure, and create a curriculum project for co-parenting of the elderly and the young, which is committed to helping the elderly to raise children scientifically. She set herself a goal to help 10 million elderly people to raise children scientifically, how much time it will take she does not know, but it is a goal she has set.
Maybe her assets are not as good as before, and the scale of her business is not as large as before, but she has never been so determined, the future path, and the brightness in her heart.
Proud Entrepreneurship:
The first batch of institutions in Nanjing to be shortlisted for childcare qualifications
Being a kindergarten teacher is Li Erna's wish when she was a child, and after graduating from college, she quickly entered the early education industry and struggled in the front line of teaching. At that time, China's early education was in its infancy, and she did not fully realize the importance of education in the 0-3 age group of young children, and for her, it was also ignorant.
In 2006, Li Erna became pregnant, this is her first child, as a mother she hopes to have more time to spend with her. After thinking about it for a long time, after consulting with her husband, he took out all the family's savings and started a child care center. At the beginning of her business, she was grateful to her husband for his support of her career.
Mother, teacher, entrepreneur, under multiple identities, Li Erna's personality has changed greatly, from youth to strong maturity. To this day, she still remembers that at the beginning of the business, the rented house was almost impossible to handle because of the complaints of neighbors, and she could only cry silently.
But the mother was strong, thinking of the child, she cheered herself up, explained the situation to the neighbors of the whole building, and asked them to sign a consent form to run the trusteeship. And now in the face of great difficulties, she can calmly and self-sustainably cope.
From a certain point of view, Li Erna's career trajectory and the growth of her eldest daughter are all the way together. After the birth of her daughter, as a mother, she began to pay more attention to early education, no longer from the perspective of an educator, but also to look at early education as a mother.
With the word of mouth getting better and better, the original space can no longer meet the needs of students, in 2008, Li Erna founded a second campus in the community where she lives, and introduced a systematic early education course, and cooperated with a number of early education industry experts to create an independent system of curriculum teaching materials. After that, Scarab Beetle took root in Jiangning at a rate of 1 campus per year, and established an excellent reputation in the early education circle.
Unlike many early education institutions, Li Erna started from childcare, and in the subsequent campuses, childcare is a very important business, in 2015, Nanjing first put forward qualification requirements for childcare institutions, and Scarab became one of the first institutions to obtain childcare qualifications.
In the same year, Li Erna founded the Scarab Cheerleading Sports Club and expanded the age of the education program to 12 years old. It has to do with her daughter's upbringing, which she taught cheerleading. After that, the quality education programs increased by scarab beetles were also mostly related to their daughter's interests.
Cheerleading has brought many honors to scarabs, looking from China to the world, the second year of the establishment of the cheerleading club, it won the championship honor at the Asian Junior Cheerleading Championships held in Busan, South Korea, and later won nearly 30 gold medals in successive competitions.
Proud Thinking:
More important than "teaching" is "education"
With the spirit of hard work, Li Erna has cut through thorns all the way and made a name for herself in the national early education peers, and when it comes to scarab early education, she is well known, and she is more and more confident in praise.
The gift of fate has long been marked with a price, and life has never been smooth. In 2019, Scarab Early Education was frustrated by the brand name problem, and Li Erna and her partners had different ideas. The bigger test is the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, which has changed the way people live. The education industry has been greatly impacted, many well-known education companies are turbulent, and many people in the industry have used "cold winter" to describe the situation of the education industry this year.
Scarab's business has also been impacted, coupled with the obsession with the scarab brand, Li Erna's state is not good, on the one hand, she is a strong mother, on the other hand, a radical entrepreneur, her way of facing the world is to create a thick protective shield for herself, and she is getting more and more estranged from others.
By chance, Li Erna participated in the lecture hall of "Love in My Home", which made her suddenly enlightened, no longer shirking her responsibility to the outside world, no longer looking at things from her own point of view, and the sunshine of life will be different. She highly admires Professor Chen Jinping, the founder of the Love at Home platform, especially his concept of "influencing 10 million families in China to live out love and harmony in 20 years".
What is the most important thing for a family? After taking the love in my home course, Li Erna reflected several times: where is the conflict between herself and her children.
She wants her daughter to continue to learn cheerleading, and her daughter prefers the photography club she likes, and there is a conflict between the two. But from another point of view, the daughter who has always been her pride just did not follow the direction she expected, but she was still excellent. Li Erna learned to accept and told her daughter that she was great.
In the communication with her daughter, she gradually realized her original intention when she started a business. Perhaps at first she simply wanted to accompany her children and embark on the road of education, she understood the importance of education to a family, more important than teaching, more important than education. At the same time, she also let go of her obsession with the scarab brand and restarted its sub-brand "Golden Turtle Bean", which is pronounced "Golden Seed", which means "baby egg", and also refers to younger children (0-3 years old).
Removing the original complicated curriculum of Scarab Beetle, Li Erna focused on full-time early education for children aged 0-3, and developed a co-parenting curriculum for the elderly and young.
Proud Exploration:
The blue ocean of scientific parenting for 10 million elderly people
According to the data, the proportion of intergenerational support before the age of 3 is as high as 70%. This phenomenon as the front line of education Li Erna feels particularly obvious, more and more parents who send their children to early education are grandparents, and often she will hear the complaints of the two generations due to the difference in educational concepts, how to guide the elders to scientific parenting is an urgent problem faced by many families.
Li Erna said: "Early education courses 0-3 years old and 3-6 years old are completely different, 0-3 years old pay more attention to professional knowledge, to understand the characteristics of children of each age, more important is not to teach children but to teach parents, how to raise children scientifically." ”
Studies have shown that the development of brain nerve cells after 3 months of birth, like a fishing net at 15 months, the number of synapses at the age of 2 reaches the adult level, while the number of synapses at the age of 3 can reach 10 trillion (2 times that of adults), the degree of activity is also higher than that of adults (2-3 times), and the 3-year-old period is the golden learning stage of life, and the acceptance of image memory is received.
There is a set of obvious comparative cases, the Indian "wolf child" Kamala and the Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi: the wolf child was found at the age of 7, returned to the people after up to 6 years of professional nursing, also only learned to walk, until the age of 17 to learn more than 10 words, IQ is only 4 years old child level; and Yokoi Shoichi lived like a wild man in the great forest of Southeast Asia for 28 years, as all the habits of human beings, including the mother tongue, were forgotten, only after 82 days of training, he gradually recovered the habit of many people and adapted to people's lives. They were married a year later.
From the comparative cases, it can be found that although the Japanese soldier has lived as a wild man for 20 years longer than the wolf child, it is much easier to restore education and training him than the wolf child. The reason is that the wolf child missed the most important years of sensitive education in life, which also verifies the statement that the sensitive period will be irreparable once missed.
These are the examples that Li Erna often gives to parents in the curriculum, many parents can intuitively understand the importance of 0-3 years old for children after hearing this set of comparative cases, especially after many grandparents have heard it, they pay more attention to the education of their children at this stage, and when they hear the co-parenting class, they enthusiastically sign up.
After opening the pattern, there is a blue ocean, and the possibilities continue to emerge.
Since 2021, Li Erna has opened a public welfare experience class for popularizing grandparents in Scarab, hoping to contribute to the childcare industry and make a wish to help 10 million elderly people with scientific parenting.
10 million, this huge number of Li Erna alone is far from enough, she needs to have more peers to join, during the epidemic prevention and control period in early 2022, she and the team are not idle, the courseware of the co-education of the old and the young with the peers to empower the peers, and jointly promote the development of the childcare industry.
Proud Mission:
Love will make all obstacles unblocked
With the disappearance of the Chinese dividend and the change of the traditional family structure, Li Erna believes that the childcare industry will develop towards the family-style childcare model in the future, and the co-education project for the elderly and young has become the entry point for parents to understand the childcare institutions well. At the beginning, she felt that this course should be carried out more in the form of public welfare, before which Li Erna participated in nearly a thousand public welfare course activities, and she was very touched when she saw the thirst for knowledge in the eyes of parents.
Professor Chen Jinping of "Love in My Home" gave her some inspiration for the operation of the platform, to make a project better promoted, the basic funds are necessary, and the course fee is to make the follow-up content better implemented. In the follow-up old and child co-education projects, she will charge a certain basic fee, which is not high, but enough for the project to advance better, and there will be a free public welfare course once a week.
The operation of a project is inseparable from the concerted efforts of the team, 80% of the teachers in Kamuidou are bao moms, most of them are the same as Li Erna's situation at the beginning of the business, after giving birth to a child or a second child, no one at home can help with the child, and many mothers begin to lose their jobs. The childcare industry is generally divided into main class teachers and matching teachers, and the nursery staff who is a matching teacher is not high in the industry, and can accompany children, becoming the preferred occupation for many highly educated mothers.
Several of the partners in Scarab Beetle started as a nurseryman, and through continuous learning, they became the main class teacher and then became the partner of Scarab. Such a transformation made Li Erna both relieved and moved, and she was doing a very meaningful career to help Bao Ma start a business again. She also often encourages teachers in the school district to obtain a teacher's certificate and grow up with their children.
When there is love, all obstacles can be solved.
In the face of the continuous adjustment of the education market environment, Scarab beetle is also transforming, focusing on full-time early education for 0-3 years old, and maintaining the original campus, slowing down the pace of franchise expansion, and pouring more time and energy into research and development courses to serve the B-end.
Li Erna said bluntly that the course of love in my home has made a big difference for her. She became soft, no longer tough, no longer sharp. At first, her husband was surprised by her state change, and even said to see how long you can "pretend", as of the day of the exchange, she has been "pretending" for more than 900 days, her husband has become accustomed to it, and she has become a new Li Erna.
On March 8 this year, the youngest daughter wrote a letter to her, telling her that she was the best mother, would respect her and listen to her opinions. Li Erna felt the love in the family. When she was a child, she had 5 children in her family, she was the second oldest, named Erna, once she did not like this name, felt that it was not valued, but now many people remember her because of this special name.
Everything is the best arrangement, the love in the heart becomes soft, will find the difference in the world, let go of the embrace, Li Erna found that the greater happiness of life is not a person alone, but the family and friends around them are like sunshine like care and love.
There is also a lyric in the song "So Proud": "You owe me a hug, and I smile at you again and again." This may be Li Erna's current "Na" pride.
【Dialogue with Li Erna】
Standing in someone else's shoes will eventually open up
Chengpin Character: What was your original dream, and is it what you are doing now?
Li Erna: When I was in school, I especially wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, and I realized this dream by working, and then I didn't think a lot about starting a business, nor did I think about how big I wanted to be, but I felt that I had a job to take care of my children at the same time.
Chengpin Characters: How to understand the current work and what kind of happiness does it bring you?
Li Erna: I am particularly happy when it comes to work, which reflects the value of my life. From the original timid little girl, who may cry when complained by neighbors, she has grown up to be able to face everything independently, with a strong heart and a firm determination, which is my biggest gain in my work.
Chengpin People: How do you understand persistence in the industry?
Li Erna: I have been in the children's education industry for 20 years, it is not a kind of persistence, in other words, it may be a habit, when I get used to it, I will naturally stick to it. I especially know what I want in my heart, and I enjoy the joy and sense of accomplishment that my work brings me, so I don't feel that it is a very tiring thing to have been in the industry for so many years.
Up to now, I feel more and more that I have to look at long-termism. I want to make scarab beetles for 100 years, and when I have this goal, no matter what difficulties I encounter, I will not be hindered. Even if you encounter difficulties, you can quickly return to your original intention.
Chengpin People: What knowledge and skills do you think you should have to do a good job in the education industry?
Li Erna: We are currently targeting the education of 0-3 year old children, and love is the most important. Then you have to like kids, and if you don't, it's really tiring to do this industry. The rest is to look at the individual to learn, I think any industry, as long as you want, you can learn. One of the core of my choice of teachers is to look at this. Many of our teachers are moms who need time to take care of their children and can quickly provide them with skills training here, so they are happy to stay in Scarab.
Chengpin People: What is the one thing that has spent the most energy so far?
Li Erna: Learning, I spend a lot of time every year to learn, when I find that ambition can not support dreams, lack of ability, learning is the only way. Many of my friends around me will ask me, Teacher Li, how did you go out to study again.
Chengpin Character: What do you think has influenced you the most? How did that change?
Li Erna: It should be separated from my partner, which I really couldn't accept at the time. But when I start looking inward, there's a result because of what I've done myself. I find every experience a valuable asset. Everyone's starting point and idea are different, and many things can be solved from the perspective of others.
Chengpin Characters: Describe a moment in your life that you feel moved.
Li Erna: It should be my husband going to attend the class of his parents, I went to pick him up, saw the change in his state after the course, felt the moment his life bloomed, I shed tears, tears of joy. He began to carry the family, to learn how to be a good husband and father, I felt very moved.
Before I felt that I was very strong and took up the family, in fact, my husband was particularly excellent, but he was suppressed by me. When I went to pick him up, he told me that a family, the relationship between husband and wife is mutual. I really understood the position of the relationship between husband and wife in that moment.
Chengpin Character: If you could say a word to yourself 10 years ago, what would you say?
Li Erna: 10 years ago, I was 30 years old, which was the most beautiful and proud stage of life, but I would tell her to be kind to myself, let go of myself, don't have so many edges and corners on my body, it may be different, it will be happier and warmer.
Chengpin Characters: Describe a highlight moment in your heart.
Li Erna: In the past, I felt that the highlight moment was to stand on the podium by myself, and there were many admiring and admiring eyes below. Now I think it is the small partners in the team who have grown through this platform, won honors, made money, and the smiles on their faces are my highlights.
Chengpin People: What is the state of success you understand now?
Li Erna: No longer paying so much attention to materials, how much can it contribute to the family, friends and society around you, and affect more families to live out love and harmony.
Wen 丨 Tang Shuo
Image courtesy of Li Erna
Intern 丨 Zhang Aidi