April 30, 2024
Source: Xinhua News Agency
Pancakes, dumplings, steamed wotou...... Recently, the labor education activities of Xuhai Road Kindergarten in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province have become popular on the Internet. The children are engrossed in cooking and have a good approach, which has been praised and sought after by many netizens, and even parents from other provinces have brought their children to consult the kindergarten.
In 2022, the labor class officially became an independent course for primary and secondary schools in mainland China. In the two years since the implementation of the new curriculum standards, how have the labor classes been conducted? How can the children truly learn to work and fall in love with labor? Xinhua Viewpoint reporters have conducted interviews in many places.
On April 11, children from Xuhai Road Kindergarten in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province were making delicious food. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wu Yingjing
Basically, it is fully opened, and some labor classes have become popular and "out of the circle"
"In fact, in addition to making food, our kindergarten children learn a lot of labor skills, such as raising poultry, weaving, sewing, tea art, ink rubbing, etc. Zhang Qian, director of Xuhai Road Kindergarten, said that the children's labor is mainly self-service, as well as handicrafts and life experience.
During the visit to many places, this reporter saw that the labor classes in schools in various localities have basically been fully opened, and labor education is gradually moving towards curriculum and standardization. In addition to developing school-based labor education curricula and ensuring that labor classes are not less than one class hour per week, more than 500 primary and secondary schools have opened up special areas to carry out labor practices such as planting and breeding.
Traditional handicraft production, campus happy farm, culinary style display...... Various forms of labor education are being integrated into the campus life of primary and secondary school students.
In the No. 40 Middle School of Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, there is a labor practice base on the campus, called "Half Mu Flower Field". Vice Principal Long Bei told reporters that the flower field was originally barren yellow soil, and the teacher and the students worked together to collect the kitchen waste in the canteen to burn ash and fertilize the soil, and transform the flower field into cultivated cooked soil, and now several seasons of melons, fruits and vegetables have been planted.
Xiamen Double Ten Middle School in Fujian Province has developed 43 labor education courses such as pottery, embroidery, paper-cutting, and rattan weaving, and compiled 4 school-based textbooks. "These courses are very popular with students, which are based on their interests and questionnaires. Principal Ouyang Ling said that taking the rattan weaving course as an example, children can freely design shapes, choose colors, and slowly master skills under the guidance of teachers, which not only exercises manual ability but also tests patience, and can also feel the charm of intangible cultural heritage.
In the rattan weaving class offered by Xiamen Double Ten Middle School, students used their creativity to make baskets. Courtesy of the school
Some schools also try to organically integrate labor classes with other subjects, so that students can reap multiple learning effects. Lixing Primary School in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, reclaimed the eight acres of practice base near the school into a medicine plantation, and the teachers and students planted Codonopsis, Polygonum multiflori, honeysuckle, cassia seed, red wolfberry, etc. Students learned the Three Character Sutra of Chinese Herbal Medicine in Chinese class, measured the area of the plot in different methods in mathematics class, and sang Chinese herbal songs in music class...... From the planting, collection, and drying of Chinese herbal medicines to the production of sachets, the knowledge of various disciplines is integrated and intersected.
On April 16, the students of Nanjing Lixing Primary School weeded in the medicine plantation. Courtesy of the school
"It's easy to take a labor class, but it's hard to take a good labor class"
This reporter found that there are still some difficulties and problems in carrying out labor education in some schools. "It is easy to take labor classes, but it is difficult to take good labor classes" is the common feeling of many front-line labor teachers.
In some places, insufficient attention is paid to labor classes, and some schools lack relevant software and hardware. "At present, the labor class is not the main subject of the entrance examination, but only as an indicator of comprehensive quality evaluation. Under the influence of utilitarian educational concepts, some schools and parents do not pay enough attention to labor education. Chen Mingxia, a professor at the School of Education of Fujian Normal University, said.
The reporter interviewed and found that labor education in some places is faced with problems such as insufficient labor practice venues, incomplete professional facilities and equipment, and lack of professional teachers. "Our school has a labor education class, but the space is really limited, so there are no outdoor activities, and almost all of them are taught indoors. A labor teacher in a primary school in an urban area of Guiyang City said.
In some localities, the emphasis is on form over process, and labor education has become a show. An urban primary school in southwest China led students to catch loaches in labor class, allowing children to experience the joy of harvest. But the loaches are not fed by the students, but are bought directly from the market by the school and put into the mud pit.
In Fujian, a local primary school has set up a shelf on the rooftop for "three-dimensional planting". A head teacher at the school told reporters that the planting process was basically done by the teacher, and almost no students participated. After the planting is over, the students have to submit a few hundred words of experience, and the teacher needs to make pictures and texts to show the results of labor education in each class, which adds an extra burden.
In some places, it is "hot" inside the school and "cold" outside the school, and the labor work is done by the parents. Some schools assign practical homework to students after labor classes, such as stir-frying, mopping the floor, and raising silkworms at home. Mr. Pi in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province complained that some homework forced parents to be "directors" and "screenwriters", not only to buy raw materials and process them themselves, but also to record evaluations, take photos and upload them.
Let the children harvest and grow in labor
Labor classes are popular with students and society. A number of interviewed front-line teachers suggested that the software, hardware and safety guarantees of labor education should be further strengthened, and the evaluation system should be continuously improved, so as to take good labor classes.
On the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen the software and hardware guarantee for labor education. The reporter combed and found that since 2022, the implementation opinions on labor education issued by various localities have included the principle of "arranging certain public funds to carry out labor education", but most of them lack specific requirements, and the funds, teachers and venue guarantees in the actual implementation process are uneven. Experts called on all localities to clarify the guarantee standards as soon as possible, and support schools to do a good job in the construction of labor education courses, the construction of teaching facilities and venues, and the introduction and training of teachers.
In this regard, some places have already taken steps to explore. Guangdong and Shenzhen have made overall arrangements for public funds, after-school extended service funds and other funds, and adopted methods such as government procurement of services to attract social forces to provide labor education resources and services. The Regulations on the Promotion of Labor Education in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, issued in 2023, stipulate that primary and secondary schools shall arrange labor education funds at a rate of not less than 3% of the total annual per capita public funds for students, and schools shall set up labor weeks every school year to organize students to participate in collective labor practice.
On the other hand, it is also necessary to strengthen the safety and security of labor education and strive for more parental support. Zhang Qian told reporters that at the beginning of the labor education in the Xuhai Road Kindergarten, it also faced the doubts of some parents: "The children are still young, can they learn these skills? Is there any danger?" However, after trying to explore and achieve results, the parents' concerns were slowly dispelled.
A number of front-line teachers suggested that according to the characteristics of students' age, gender differences, physical conditions and other characteristics, the appropriate labor items and content should be selected, and the labor time and intensity should also be moderate. Before organizing and carrying out labor practice, schools should carefully investigate and eliminate all kinds of potential safety hazards, guide children to standardize the use of labor tools, strengthen the cultivation of students' safety skills and emergency response capabilities, and prevent problems before they occur.
In addition, the evaluation system of labor education needs to be further improved. "The real purpose of labor education is to enable students to acquire labor skills. Wu Shuwei, vice principal of the Second Experimental Primary School in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, said frankly that the current evaluation of labor education still has problems such as emphasizing form over experience, and emphasizing results over process. He suggested that the combination of teacher evaluation, student mutual evaluation, student self-evaluation, and parent participation should be combined to help children correctly understand the value of labor and harvest growth in labor. (Reporter Ke Gaoyang, Deng Qianqian, Zheng Minghong)
Editor in charge: Wang Yanan
Forward: Yang Hua
Review: Hao Lin