"You are the representative of the frontier dedicated, and you are the model of building the Great Northwest in the glorious years. You can escape the bitter land, but you finally choose to stay, because the expectations of the students make it difficult for you to push back - they will remember your name for a lifetime, and this will always be your home, your hometown. This is the award speech written to Feng Zhiyuan by the Organizing Committee of "Moving Ningxia" in 2005.
In 1958, Feng Zhiyuan responded to the call of the state to support the education cause in the frontier and came to the countryside of Zhongning County in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to support teaching. This was 42 years, during which even if his eyesight dropped sharply or he was blind, he never wanted to leave Ningxia and leave the students. In May 2013, Teacher Feng Zhiyuan died at the age of 83 due to ineffective treatment, and his students still remember that the teacher's wish on the sickbed was to listen to the "hometown sound" of the northwest students.
Leaving his wife and children to choose to volunteer to teach for 42 years
In August 1949, Feng Zhiyuan was admitted to the Chinese Department of Northeastern University (now Northeast Normal University) with excellent results, and after graduating in 1953, he went to Shanghai Shinan Middle School to teach. In 1958, in response to the call of the state to support the cause of education in the frontier, Feng Zhiyuan left his newly married wife for a year and crossed thousands of miles from Shanghai to the countryside of Zhongning County in ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, where he taught at two middle schools in Mingsha and Guandi for a total of 42 years.
Mingsha Middle School, where Mr. Feng teaches, is located in Mingsha Town, more than 20 kilometers away from the county seat, a row of jujube trees in front of the school, hanging red and full of dates, a new playground with complete facilities, and two modern teaching buildings are spacious and bright. As a student of Teacher Feng at that time, the 66-year-old Liu Shide has retired from the position of English teacher at Mingsha Middle School, but recalling the situation of that year, he can still remember clearly, "At that time, there was no building, all low bungalows, the whole school only had a well, spring draft is a problem, Teacher Feng lived in the school, prepared a small bucket to tie a rope, as soon as there was time, he hit the water to the dormitory, boiled it to cool, and left it for us to drink." ”
After spending 14 winters and summers at Mingsha Middle School, Feng Zhiyuan was transferred to Guandi Middle School to teach in 1972. The current Guandi Middle School, which has been renamed Zhongning No. 3 Middle School, is about 10 kilometers away from the county seat, and the area around the school has become a lively market. As soon as you enter the school gate, there is a boulevard on the east and west sides, which is still the tree of the year, but the classroom has changed from four rows of red brick and gray tile bungalows to a four-storey multimedia teaching building.
Liu Shide said that later he and his classmates learned that many Zhining teachers chose to leave after completing their tasks, but Feng Zhiyuan did not even apply for leaving, "Ask him why he did not leave, he said that he fell in love with the teacher's profession." In fact, he can be a teacher anywhere, and he loves us students and doesn't want us. Liu Shide said that after Feng Zhiyuan volunteered to teach, he only returned to Shanghai during the winter and summer vacations, and the longest time he left Ningxia did not exceed 2 months, "Even if his son was sick, he gritted his teeth in the classroom and did not delay our learning." ”
Now Ningxia Mingsha Middle School
Blind in both eyes, insisting on going to class, it is full of peach and plum fragrance
Speaking of Teacher Feng, Liu Shide has used the four words "talented" several times to describe it. In the 70s of the last century, Mr. Feng's teaching method was very fashionable, not only standing on the podium during class, his body language was very rich, and often let students participate, sometimes dividing students into groups and dressing up in different roles, fully mobilizing students' enthusiasm for learning.
"When I was studying "The Donkey of Qian", when the text talked about tigers, donkeys and other plots, the teacher would let the students dress up as tigers, read the relevant chapters, and the students would pretend to be tigers, but they could talk about 'donkeys are not angry, hooves.'" When no students are willing to learn donkeys, Teacher Feng is learning by himself, after a class, the students have talked and laughed, no need to memorize by rote, and the content of the article is all memorized. ”
When talking about Gorky's "Petrel", Teacher Feng divided the students into several groups, some simulated lightning, some people used cloth to imitate the sea surface and the fierce wind, when the students read the text, sometimes the wind was fierce, sometimes the lightning thundered, like watching a movie, "These have a deep impact on me, and later after I became a teacher, the situational teaching also became my feature, and my students also loved it very much." ”
In fact, Feng Zhiyuan originally suffered from eye disease - retinitis pigmentosa, "At that time, the conditions were not good, there was no electricity in our classroom, and in the evening, he could only rely on candle lighting, and he often used the faint light to take a magnifying glass to correct the homework for students, which was very harmful to his eyes." Liu Shide said that at that time, in class, the teachers entered through the back door, the students stood up to say hello, and the teacher walked through the desk aisle and walked up to the podium. Once When Teacher Feng came to class, a student got up and kicked the bench down and crossed the aisle, "Teacher Feng couldn't see clearly, he almost tripped at that time, and his eye disease was already somewhat serious." ”
Excessive use of his eyes during teaching caused his vision to decline sharply. During a language class in 1985, his surroundings suddenly became dark, and at the age of 55, he was permanently blind. But he did not leave the podium and began to teach the children history lessons for 5 years based on memory.
"I worked with Mr. Feng for 2 years, he retired in 1990, after retirement he still stayed in school, 10 years to use the students' spare time to do voluntary tutoring for the students, until 2000, Mr. Feng was seriously ill, his sister took him back to Changchun to recuperate, he did not leave." Teacher Zheng Jun, who now works in the teaching office of the Third Middle School, said, "In our rural area, he has taught a lot of college students, and students are all over the country, and we admire him very much. ”
Seriously ill bedridden biggest wish to listen to students ' rural sounds "
42 years of no complaints, no regrets, selfless dedication, 42 years of hard work, bowing and exhaustion, Feng Zhiyuan has been rated as the second China's top ten elderly news figures, 2005 moved Jilin top ten people, 2005 moved Ningxia top ten people, his story has also been made into a movie, touched more people.
In fact, soon after returning to his hometown of Changchun from Ningxia, he was admitted to the Jilin Provincial People's Hospital. Lying in bed for many years, Teacher Feng has become thinner, his eyes are deeply sunken, and his left body has not listened to the call, but his mind is still awake. In 2012, when a reporter interviewed, when asked about his life and illness, he was silent, but when he mentioned Zhongning County, his cloudy eyes flashed a little light, "Ningxia is good there." He said that he remembered the long dates and fried noodles there, and he read out a long list of students' names, and he had never forgotten them for a moment.
Liu Shide still remembers that on the sickbed, Teacher Feng had the desire to "want to listen to the rural sounds of northwest students", and he and many of his classmates at that time thought of various ways to send the voice to Teacher Feng's side, "We collected everyone's voices in the form of recordings, some said that Teacher Feng we miss you very much, and some blessed Teacher Feng that her condition could improve, when Teacher Feng was lying on the hospital bed, listening to our recordings, and nodding with a smile." ”
In the early morning of May 29, 2013, Feng Zhiyuan left forever, and when he heard the news, Liu Shide choked up several times to finish the class for the students. Immediately, the district and the county organized relevant personnel to rush to Changchun to mourn, Liu Shide very much wanted to go, but he knew that if Teacher Feng knew that he was delaying the students' studies, he would not agree, "Because he is my teacher, I am very proud, I also want to be like him, I think my best condolences to him is to teach every student well." ”
Ningxia in early autumn does not have much coolness, and the afternoon sun is still exceptionally abundant. Today, in Zhongning County, straight and clean roads, spacious building communities, wolfberry shops and wolfberry shapes on street lamp poles can be seen everywhere, all promoting the reputation of "the hometown of Chinese wolfberries" to people who come and go.
Although Zhongning County has long ceased to be what it was 61 years ago, in the past 61 years, the reverence for Feng Zhiyuan by groups of students here has always been the same...
Feng Zhiyuan's story was put on the screen
(Jinyun news reporter Bao Yan from Ningxia Zhongning)