January 23rd, another Tuesday. Professor Zhang Hongxue of the School of Physical Education of Zhengzhou University, with his team of graduate students, as well as 106 new basketballs and new school bags, set off from the Huiji Campus to Jizigou Primary School and sent New Year's gifts to the children.
"Professor Zhang is here!" As soon as Zhang Hongxue's Volkswagen car drove into the school gate, the cheers of the students came from the campus.
At 10 o'clock in the morning, after the donation ceremony, more than 100 students performed the "dynamic basketball, happy me show" basketball drill and rope skipping exercise with both hands to shoot the ball, and played the men's and women's team competitions.
Zhang Hongxue is a professor in the Basketball Teaching and Research Department of the School of Physical Education of Zhengzhou University, a master's tutor, and a member of the 3x3 Basketball Committee of the General Administration of Sports of China. In August 2020, through a sports public welfare activity, he met Wen Yaofeng, the principal of Qizigou Primary School, and learned that the school did not have a full-time physical education teacher, and the students did not have formal physical education classes.
"Our physical education class is taught by the Chinese teacher", which is not a joke in Jiezigou Primary School. Before Zhang Hongxue came to school, this mountainous primary school with more than 200 students had no professional physical education teachers due to its remote rural location and weak teachers, and some "sports activities" were organized by a Chinese teacher who loved sports.
Since November 2020, Zhang Hongxue has come to Jizigou Primary School every Tuesday morning to select 6 students from each class, a total of 36 students, to give them basketball lessons. In other physical education classes and recess time, 16 teachers, including the principal, asked 6 students selected by Zhang Hongxue's basketball class to demonstrate and take turns to lead the students in sports.
The elementary school in the mountains came to the "physical education professor". Although the professional physical education class is only once a week, it ignites the children's love for sports and brings vitality and vitality to the mountain village primary school. During recess and after-school time, children no longer just chase and play or run into Internet cafes, but will pick up basketballs and play for a while, or do basketball exercises together.
From September to December 2021, during the new crown epidemic, Wang Tiantian, a graduate student of Zhang Hongxue, came to Jiaozigou Primary School to teach, and ate and lived in the school. In addition to giving two physical education classes to each of the six classes every week, teaching them basketball drills, the "Dream Chasing" men's and women's basketball teams were also formed, and sports such as rope skipping were introduced. During her more than four months of teaching, she completed her graduate thesis on the topic of "The Impact of Basketball on the Physical Health of Left-behind Children in Rural Areas". After Wang Tiantian graduated in June 2023, Zhang Hongxue's graduate students Zhang Jiayao, Su Qi, Zhang Yibo, Liu Yangyang and other students relayed to form a "graduate student team" to teach at Jiaozigou Primary School.
It is 107 kilometers from Huiji Campus of the School of Physical Education of Zhengzhou University to Jiaozigou Primary School. Zhang Hongxue and his "team of graduate students" go to Jizigou Primary School every Tuesday. Over the past three years, they have made more than 100 round-trips, covering more than 20,000 kilometers, to teach physical education classes to children. In addition, they donated school uniforms, basketballs, basketball hoops, skipping ropes, schoolbags and other items, donated scholarships to poor students with excellent character and learning, with a total value of more than 40,000 yuan, and also drove caring people to donate more than 30,000 yuan of sports goods and grants.
Most of the students at Jiezigou Primary School come from poor families or left-behind children. According to Wen Yaofeng, the principal who has been teaching for more than 20 years, the former has low self-esteem and lack self-confidence, and dare not speak out loud when they see strangers, while the latter has not developed good living and study habits, or both.
Jiezigou Primary School is 3 kilometers away from Xucheng Town and 15 kilometers away from Dengfeng City. With the decline in the number of births in rural areas, and the transfer of some students from better families to schools in towns and cities, the number of students enrolled in school has been decreasing year by year. In 2020, when Zhang Hongxue came to teach at Jiaozigou Primary School, there were more than 200 students, but in 2022, it was reduced to 160 students, and there are still 106 students left. The number of students enrolled in school has been halved in 3 years.
There are two primary schools in Xucheng Town, where Jiezigou Primary School is located, with more than 1,000 students. In the two basketball games in May last year, the shouts of the basketball team members of the Gezigou Primary School suppressed the cheering of the cheerleaders at home. Their boys' and girls' basketball teams beat the town's two elementary schools by a big score, impressing the mountain elementary school with just over 100 students.
"That's the beauty of sports. The basketball exercise of two-handed racket ball stimulates the children's left and right brains, improves their learning concentration, and improves their grades; more importantly, it allows the children to regain their self-confidence, cultivate their fighting spirit, and learn to work as a team. "This is one of the reasons why some students are reluctant to transfer to the town or city." ”