On the eve of the May Fourth Youth Day, Zhang Lijuan, principal of the No. 2 Middle School of Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, was invited by the Lijiang Municipal Committee of the Youth League to write a "Youth Declaration": "Youth is to meet a better self in the most beautiful years. In the post of teachers, we must educate people for the party and the country. ”
These are her heartfelt words.
20 years ago, as one of the first batch of volunteers of the Western Plan in China, Zhang Lijuan, who graduated from East China Normal University, came to Yongning Middle School in Ninglang Yi Autonomous County, Lijiang City to teach. After that, she stayed in Lijiang. Over the past 20 years, her youthful oath of "going to the grassroots, to the west, and to the places where the motherland needs it" has always inspired her to silently dedicate herself to the grassroots education cause in the poverty-stricken mountainous areas of the nation.
Not a single student was missing
One day in August 2003, when the car passed by Lugu Lake, Zhang Lijuan, who had been trekking for more than five hours, was shocked by the beautiful scenery in front of her, "I thought I could see Lugu Lake every day."
However, the car continued to move forward, climbed one mountain beam after another, walked through village after village, and only arrived at Yongning Township Middle School where Zhang Lijuan wanted to teach after an hour.
The school's new building has just been completed and is a small two-story building with more than 10 classrooms. Several teachers live in mud houses. Three volunteers from the Western China Project, including Zhang Lijuan, were arranged by the principal to live in a brick house with better conditions, with two people in one room, a cloth in the middle, cooking outside, and sleeping inside.
"When my college classmates heard that I came to Lijiang, they were all envious. But here it gets, all the joy is gone. Zhang Lijuan said.
Ninglang County, located in the northwestern plateau of Yunnan, commonly known as "Xiaoliang Mountain", is a "direct passing area" for ethnic minorities who have entered the socialist society from the primitive co-cultivation system, slavery system, and feudal lordship system "one step across the millennium".
It is located in the alpine mountainous area, with remote location, inconvenient transportation and information blockage. Zhang Lijuan saw that Ninglang's poverty also lies in the poverty of education: more than 50 students are crammed into small classrooms; To copy the examination papers, the wax paper should be fixed on the steel plate and engraved on it with a ballpoint pen that does not produce water; There is a serious shortage of teachers, and each teacher has to take two or three classes, and Zhang Lijuan is a language and politics teacher, with more than 20 classes a week.
What surprised her even more was that there were often students who suddenly stopped going to school. Before one student left, he slipped a note into the crack of her dormitory door: "Teacher Zhang, I am going to the mountains to herd sheep and make money for my family, thank you for teaching me to read and write." Zhang Lijuan's heart hurts, she called three or four classmates who can speak Yi and Mosuo to ride the bicycles they have just learned to visit the students' homes, "their real situation will touch you."
She remembers that when she first visited Mudingqing Village, she first took a bus for more than an hour, walked for more than two hours on the mountain road, and arrived in the village when it was dark, and the whole village lit a bonfire to welcome her. This solemn and rustic ceremony made her understand that poverty makes students drop out of school, but teachers carry a lot of weight in their hearts.
When the story of Zhang Lijuan and other volunteers of the Western Project was reported by the media, a retired elderly man from Heilongjiang took the initiative to contact Zhang Lijuan and remit 500 yuan to sponsor two students. Since then, some well-wishers have also sent money, saying that they will not write thank you letters or report their achievements. Zhang Lijuan has set up a love file for these donations, "They have never known me in their lives, but they trust me so much, I want to be worthy of this trust."
Zhang Lijuan used the money to subsidize the school's poor students, so that those who only ate tofu and rice noodles at each meal could improve their food. She also persuaded classmates and friends in Shanghai and Chongqing to donate clothes and stationery to the students. Thanks to her efforts, the class she taught had no students left behind by the end of the semester.
Her Chinese classes teach students to be warm people
Although the huge gap made Zhang Lijuan think about "boiling" and "mixing" when she first came to teach, at the end of the year-long volunteer teaching, Zhang Lijuan, who had established a relationship with her colleagues and classmates, hoped that "time would slow down".
When she was hesitant to return to her hometown of Chongqing, she accepted the suggestion of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League at that time and went to the county education bureau to extend the volunteer program for one year. This year, she went to many township schools in Ninglang. After the expiration of the term, she decided to stay in Ninglang, "where there is a feeling of being needed." She said.
Ms. Cao, who now works at a bank in Lijiang, said Ms. Zhang was the teacher who had the most profound influence on her. She has followed Zhang Lijuan to visit her home many times, and Zhang Lijuan's eager and enthusiastic words deeply infected her. At that time, Cao Yan said, they had little idea of Shanghai, thinking that Lijiang and Kunming were big cities. Under the enlightenment of Zhang Lijuan's "going out", she studied hard, was admitted to the university, and found that the gap between Ninglang and Shanghai was so big after going to Shanghai and many other cities, which made her admire Teacher Zhang even more, "She is very great from Shanghai to poor areas to teach and take root here."
Li Lianshu, a junior high school Chinese teacher at Lijiang No. 2 Middle School, was also a student taught by Zhang Lijuan at Ninglang County No. 1 Middle School. Li Lianshu remembers that after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, Zhang Lijuan printed out the earthquake rescue report and read it to students in class. "At that time, we didn't have mobile phones, and there were no TVs or whiteboards in the classroom, so it was Teacher Zhang who passed this information on to us." Li Lianshu said that Chinese is a warm education, and it is necessary to teach students to become warm people.
Zhang Lijuan's classroom is warm, and she is even more warm to her students. Li Lianshu was once transferred out of the top class due to the decline in her grades, and Zhang Lijuan wrote a sentence to her who was frustrated: "Child, don't be presumptuous, you are already very good." "Instantly, I felt the sun shining, and the teacher trusted me so much, I would definitely be able to do it." Li Lianshu adjusted her mentality, and finally returned to the top class through hard work. Since then, she has fallen in love with Chinese and has become a Chinese teacher when she grows up.
Now, Li Lianshu has become Zhang Lijuan's colleague, and every time she walks past Zhang Lijuan's classroom, she still stops to listen to Zhang Lijuan's lectures, "her classes can always move people."
Finding the shining point in the student gives them confidence
In the fall of 2023, after the opening of Lijiang No. 2 Middle School, Li Mingxu, a first-year junior high school student, met Zhang Lijuan and excitedly called her "Grandma Zhang". It turned out that Li Mingxu's father Mao Tingquan was Zhang Lijuan's student in Jinmian Township Middle School. On the day his daughter started school, Mao Tingquan saw a photo of Zhang Lijuan on the school's billboard. He said: "I met this teacher, and now my daughter has met her again, and I feel very relieved to hand over such a teacher." ”
At this time, Zhang Lijuan was already the principal of Lijiang No. 2 Middle School, and in her opinion, the great efforts made by the successive Ninglang County Party Committee and the county government to change the poverty of education have given her room to grow.
In 1988, the Ninglang County Party Committee and the county government made a decision: Ninglang provided timber for Hai'an City, Jiangsu Province at a preferential price, and Hai'an sent key teachers to Ninglang to teach. This decision of "wood for talents" not only changed the fate of a large number of children in Ninglang, but also opened the east-west education cooperation model. After 1990, Ninglang banned deforestation in order to maintain soil and water, and the agreement of "wood for talents" became history, but the educational cooperation between Ninglang and Hai'an has continued to this day. Over the past 30 years, Ninglang County has insisted on "smashing pots and selling iron to run education" under very difficult financial circumstances, and has finally changed from a weak county in education to a strong county in education.
Ninglang's emphasis on education has provided Zhang Lijuan with a broad stage. After passing the public examination, she has grown from a Chinese teacher in Jinmian Township Middle School in Ninglang County to the vice principal of Ninglang County National Middle School and the principal of Ninglang County No. 1 Middle School with excellent results.
Over the past 20 years, Zhang Lijuan has seen many changes in rural parents: they are paying more and more attention to education, and after moving to the city to work, they all bring their children to the county seat to go to school, hoping that their children will receive the same high-quality education as their urban children.
In 2021, in order to expand the supply of educational resources in the urban area, the Lijiang Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government built a new boarding middle school, Lijiang No. 2 Middle School, and Zhang Lijuan was selected as the secretary of the party branch and the principal.
In Zhang Lijuan's view, every year during the enrollment season, schools are competing for high-quality students, and those students who are "leftover" should also be concerned. To this end, Lijiang No. 2 Middle School has made clear its positioning: to provide opportunities and high-quality teaching resources for junior high school students who go to the city to study and for them to stay in the city after graduation. "We don't want to cultivate how many students from prestigious schools and how many high scores, but these students will be the backbone of local construction in the future, and we must find their shining points and give them confidence." She said.
Like Mao Tingquan, after sending their children to Lijiang No. 2 Middle School, many parents felt grounded and relieved.
There are many ethnic minority students in Lijiang No. 2 Middle School, who are good at singing and dancing, have literary and sports expertise, and have won many awards in relevant provincial and municipal competitions. As a full-time residential school, the school has opened 35 interest classes such as martial arts, boxing, football, painting, etc., to enrich students' after-school life; In view of the large number of students in remote areas, unable to go back on weekends, and the problem of "no one to take care of", the school implements a weekend retention system, with about 400 students applying to stay in school every week, and teachers manage them all day.
Good teachers are good education
Zhang Lijuan, who has come all the way from a township middle school, knows that only with good teachers can there be good education. In order to cultivate "Haian teachers who will never leave" for the school, Zhang Lijuan promoted the "Blue Project" in the whole school, provided a platform for the growth of young teachers, and rapidly improved the professional level of young teachers through the "passing on and helping" of Haian teachers.
Today, Lijiang No. 2 Middle School is a young school, and the teachers are also young, with an average age of 28 years old. In order to make up for the lack of teaching experience, Zhang Lijuan uses all resources to strive for training opportunities for teachers. She introduced the high-quality educational resources of Chongqing Bashu Middle School to the first grade of junior high school, set up a Bashu dual-teacher class, and personally managed the team. The Bashu dual-teacher class follows the live broadcast of Bashu Middle School every day, and attends classes and exams together. In order to keep students up to speed, teachers should also listen carefully and help students fill in the gaps. Teachers from other classes also joined in, and the big screen in the classroom benefited the teachers and students at the same time.
20 years ago, in order to stay in Ninglang, Zhang Lijuan's parents fell out with her and did not contact her for a long time. Later, her parents understood her and came to Lijiang to help her take care of the children and live with her. After becoming a mother, Zhang Lijuan experienced the helplessness and anxiety of her parents. She was apologetic to her parents, but she never regretted her choice to volunteer in the Western Project.
Over the years, Zhang Lijuan has won the honorary titles of "National Outstanding Individual in Employment and Entrepreneurship", "National Outstanding Educational Gardener" and the Silver Medal of China Youth Volunteer Service. "I only did what I was supposed to do, and I got so many honors." Zhang Lijuan said, "From university to society, young people have a blind period, and the volunteers of the Western Plan have given me the transition and made me." No matter when and where, I will always be a volunteer of the Western Plan. ”
Source: Central Committee of the Communist Youth League
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