He Yong, Principal of Guangzhou Zhixin Middle School, Senior Teacher of Mathematics in Middle School, Special Teacher of Guangdong Province, Expert Enjoying Special Government Allowance of the State Council, Moderator of Guangdong Famous Principal Studio, Moderator of Guangzhou Education Expert Studio, External Tutor of Doctor of Education Degree of South China Normal University. He has twice won the second prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award, won the title of Outstanding Principal of National Education Reform and Innovation, Outstanding Educator of Southern Guangdong, Outstanding 100 Moral Education Teachers of Guangdong Province, and served as an inspector of the People's Government of Guangdong Province, a deputy to the Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress, and a member of the Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He is currently the vice chairman of the Guangdong Mathematical Society and the executive director of the High School Professional Committee of the China Education Association.
In his 50s, with gray hair, he laughed with a shallow dimple, talked about education quickly, and his thinking and exploration of education never stopped. In the past 31 years, He Yong has gradually grown from an ordinary teacher in Guangzhou Zhixin Middle School to a class teacher, deputy director of the Teaching Office, assistant principal, vice principal, and principal, and his educational ideals have gradually sprouted - grown - bloomed in Zhixin Middle School.
He Yong pays attention to the inheritance and innovation of school culture, puts forward the concept of educational life that allows teachers and students to return to their authenticity, and strives to build a variety of platforms for the development of teachers and students. In the past five years, the school has made fruitful achievements in cultural construction, curriculum construction, teacher professional development, international exchanges and cooperation in education, and the cultivation and exploration of innovative talents, the quality of education and teaching has maintained the leading level of Guangzhou, art education, physical education, science and technology education, education and scientific research have developed comprehensively, remarkable achievements, and the comprehensive quality and personality of students have achieved remarkable results, and every year a group of students enter the world-famous institutions, and the social prestige continues to increase.
As the head of a century-old famous school, what cultural essences has He Yong drawn from the history of the school? What kind of educational feelings do you have? What are your thoughts on education today? In response to related issues, the reporter interviewed He Yong.
"Democratic inclusion" is one of the school's thick undertones
Culture is the core of the school's spiritual temperament, and the school's spiritual temperament is the characteristics and soul of the school that overflows from its bones. After a hundred years, the profound history and cultural accumulation have given Zhixin Middle School a thick atmosphere, democratic and inclusive temperament that is different from other schools.
Speaking of the "temperament" of Zhixin Middle School, He Yong soon experienced the "inclusive" temperament contained in the harshness of his predecessors.
In 1990, He Yong was transferred from Hainan Middle School to Guangzhou Zhixin Middle School as a mathematics teacher. At that time, this was a rare opportunity for an ordinary teacher with only four years of teaching experience.
On September 1, the day before the start of the school year, a meeting of all teachers was held at Zhixin Middle School, but He Yong, as a new teacher, was absent. He had originally bought a ticket for the ferry from Hainan on August 29 and arrived in Guangzhou the next day, but who expected that the typhoon would ravage that day, resulting in a delay in the sailing schedule. In desperation, He Yong had to call the school's personnel office to ask for leave.
When He Yong rushed to the school to report, Chen Chixin, the principal of Zhixin Middle School at the time, criticized him fiercely, and He Yongyi retorted sternly: "The typhoon is a force majeure factor, and I also reported to the school at the first time and asked for leave..." Chen Chixin asked: "If you attach great importance to this matter, how can you arrange to come to school the day before the start of school?" No time left at all? ”
Chen Chixin asked He Yong to reflect for a week. Recalling this incident, He Yong couldn't help but sigh: "This 'head-on confrontation' with the old principal has not been 'wearing small shoes' in the future. On the contrary, it prompted me to be more strict with myself, dedicate myself to my work, continue to achieve excellent education and teaching results, grow into a qualified teacher and take up a school leadership position, which is inseparable from the tolerance and open-mindedness of the old principal. ”
At the age of 43, He Yong took over the baton from the former principal and became the youngest principal since the establishment of Zhixin Middle School. At that time, the retired old principal Chen Chixin also deliberately shared his experience in governing the school through the oceanic telephone, and urged He Yong to inherit and develop the excellent culture of the school. For more than ten years, the old principal was very pleased to see the school develop and improve step by step.
From the beginning of the school to the present, Zhixin Middle School has always advocated the democratic spirit of running a school. The pioneers of Zhixin Middle School were all pioneers of the democratic revolution, and they incorporated the spirit of democracy into the school from the beginning of the establishment of the school. For example, the earliest adoption of the "633" school system not only broke the teaching mode of the old times of colleges and academies, but also introduced Western scientific and democratic ideas from the concept of running a school.
The concept of "inclusive democracy" of Zhixin Middle School runs through all aspects of the school: in the relationship between teachers and students, advocate "equal personality, different roles", education is not a one-way payment of teachers, but teaching and learning, emphasizing that teachers in the process of guiding students to grow up healthily also obtain professional development and value realization; in school management, give full play to the enthusiasm of teachers and students to participate in the democratic management of schools, the introduction of school management measures and systems, must be through in-depth discussion and research of teachers and students, reach a consensus, teaching congress, The Student Congress will become an effective platform for teachers and students to put forward constructive opinions on the development of the school...
A good teacher should cook "sandwich rice" into a "nutritious meal"
The talents of the middle school are inseparable from the dedicated cultivation of a group of good teachers and famous teachers. Referring to the significance of "good teachers" to the growth of students, He Yong laughed and joked: "If I met a teacher like myself in middle school, I might be admitted to Tsinghua Peking University that year." He Yong only began to learn English when he was in the third year of junior high school, and the teacher who taught him English was a teacher who recommended him to a middle teacher from the position of production captain, and his pronunciation was crappy, and He Yong often used Hanyu Pinyin to mark the pronunciation of English words, and learned to cope with the exam "dumb English". After graduating from high school, He Yong was admitted to the Department of Mathematics of South China Normal University, and then entered Sun Yat-sen University to pursue a master's degree. After work, He Yong had the opportunity to go to the United States, Britain, finland for education and training exchanges, although he was determined to improve his oral English expression ability, but he was still limited to being able to understand some English, and he was still clumsy in oral expression.
The weak foundation of English learning made He Yong deeply feel that the "sandwich meal" of learning was really uncomfortable. Therefore, after becoming a principal, he often said to teachers: "We must lay a solid foundation to practice internal skills, have a solid foundation of knowledge, a unique personality charm, treat students equally, have a heart of benevolence, and adhere to the feelings of education with a reverential heart." Teach students for 3 years and think for students for 30 years. ”
Life is education, and society is school. He Yong believes that education must be closely linked to life, not only to "apply what we have learned" and apply scientific and cultural knowledge to solve practical problems in real life, but also to "use it to learn", let practice go first, and acquire knowledge and shape the mode of thinking in the process of solving practical problems.
What does a living classroom look like? A math class at Zhixin Middle School is still fresh in Ho Yong's memory. In the classroom, the mathematics teacher first used the case of the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the white dolphin crossing the bridge at will to guide the students to explore the function zero point problem and cultivate mathematical thinking ability; secondly, to guide the students to feel the huge construction scale, unprecedented construction difficulty and top construction technology of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge from the numbers, to feel the country's independent innovation ability and enhance national self-confidence; finally, the construction process of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge did not have safety accidents, quality accidents and environmental pollution accidents, so that people and engineering, The environment is harmonious, achieving the goal of zero accidents, zero pollution, and "zero casualties" of white dolphins at sea, for example, advocating students to protect the ecological environment... He Yong believes: "Such a classroom is close to students, close to life, close to society, using problems to drive students' desire to learn, stimulating strong interest in learning, and truly organically integrating the core literacy of students with subject teaching." ”
Education should eliminate non-benign competition leading to "human alienation"
"Starting line" anxiety, school choice anxiety, further education anxiety, teacher-student relationship anxiety, homework anxiety... At present, the contradiction between the unbalanced and insufficient development of education in China and the people's strong demand for quality education has spawned "educational anxiety" that makes students, parents and schools helpless. According to a data released by the National Health Commission, about 30 million people under the age of 17 in China are plagued by various emotional disorders and behavioral problems, and comprehensive measures need to be taken to intervene. How to alleviate the "educational anxiety" of students and parents and lead each student to become a better self is a problem that He Yong is very concerned about.
After years of observation of educational practice, He Yong realized that an important reason for students' anxiety was "the lack of presence". He Yong said: "Now the child is the focus at home, highly concerned by the family, and after entering the collective, this degree of attention will naturally be thin, if the grades are flat and there is no outstanding strength, the degree of attention will be lower, the student's sense of existence is missing, and then lack of self-identity, loss of confidence in progress, serious psychological deviations." Based on this, Zhixin Middle School emphasizes in the cultivation of talents that "everyone has talent, no one has all-round talent, special development, everyone becomes a talent", each student is a unique life, has its own value, the function of school education is to tap and develop the potential and strengths of students, so that each student can find the best development direction and get the best development. He Yong said that "every student should be seen": "The student's academic performance is not very good, which does not mean that the student is not excellent. There are many possibilities for the future development direction of students, and the school should respect the differentiated development of students, and strive to build a stage for students to show their strengths and talents, so that each student can experience success, find self-confidence, and shine upwards. ”
Behind the education problems often contain deep-seated, complex social problems, in He Yong's view, parents, students blindly over-compare, non-benign competition will lead to "human alienation" and reduce students' happiness. For example, "improve a point, kill a thousand people" often becomes a declaration of struggle shouted by some school college entrance examination students, He Yong believes that this kind of incentive overemphasizes the competitive relationship between people, renders the tense atmosphere of zero-sum game like "you die and I live", breeds a utilitarian mentality, and is not conducive to the healthy and happy growth of students.
The slogan of "don't let children lose on the starting line" has been shouted for many years, driving many parents to let their children learn cultural knowledge from kindergarten ahead of time, and increase the number layer by layer, afraid that children will suffer losses if they learn less than other children, unconsciously increasing their children's learning burden, and parents are becoming more anxious in comparison. He Yong found that sometimes children's grades are already quite good, but once parents compare with other children, they feel that their children's grades are not good enough. In this regard, He Yong said: "Life is not a 100-meter race, nor is it a marathon, but a long journey, and the starting line does not determine who will run faster, more stable and farther." ”
He Yong pointed out that anxiety stems from competition and comparison, competition is objectively existing, to some extent is also the driving force for development, but we need to correctly look at "competition", can not suppress competitors to win their own interests, may wish to learn from the spirit of sports competition, unity and cooperation, respect for opponents, respect for rules, victory is not arrogant, defeat is not discouraged, and constantly surpass yesterday's self. For example, in the 3,000-meter race of the Zhixin Middle School Games, cheers, shouts, cheers, and applause belong not only to the leaders, but also to the students who persevere in running the whole course. "Every hard-working student deserves to be respected and praised. Human intelligence is pluralistic, and education should find a balance between multiple evaluation and competitive screening. He Yong said.
"Education should lay the foundation for students' happy lives" is what many principals often hang on their lips, and what kind of "foundation" and how to "lay the foundation" for students is an educational issue that He Yong constantly seeks to solve. Standing at the crossroads of the development of Zhixin Middle School in the new century, He Yong ran on the road of pursuing dreams in education, striving to be a dream builder of the "dream team" of the Chinese nation, bravely being a pioneer in the reform and development of education, being down-to-earth, overcoming difficulties, taking the cause of education as a lifelong cause, sowing the seeds of high-quality educational resources to more areas with weak education, turning the "depression" of education into a "highland", so that more children can enjoy the nourishment of high-quality education.
(Author: Wu Shuang)
Source: Educator Magazine