In Beijing's education circles, Li Lie is a golden signboard. She is the first primary school educator to become a counselor of the State Council, an expert who enjoys special government allowances from the State Council, and the vice president of the China Education Society for two consecutive years.
After more than 40 years of teaching, Li Lie has a deep understanding of education. This understanding can be condensed into simple eight words - whole-person development, love to nurture love.
In Li Lie's view, "whole-person development" is the starting point and foothold of educational work. Among them, the word "ren" is the simplest but most meaningful, condensing Li Lie's understanding of the law of children's growth: the left one represents academics, is the development of cognition, the landing point is the quality of thinking, and the cultivation is the wisdom of people; the right one represents the development of people, is the development of sociality, the landing point is the quality of virtue, and the cultivation of human virtue.
"Nurturing love with love" is the essence of education that Li Lie believes. In her conception, "A person's life cannot be without love, and a life without love is sad; an education that interprets life cannot be without love, and an education without love is pale." Therefore, when she took over as the principal of Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School (hereinafter referred to as "Experimental No. 2 Primary School") in 1997, she put forward the educational concept of "educating love with love", advocating the "four haves of love" (the emotions of love, behavior, ability, and wisdom) of teachers to cultivate students' "four haves of love".
Teachers and students are the two main bodies of education in Li Lie's eyes. In the year when the "student-oriented" educational ideology prevailed, she took the lead in proposing the idea of "dual-subject education": students are the main body of learning activities, teachers are the main body of educational work, and the two subjects at different levels, through self-education, mutual education, coordinated interaction, and common development. At the same time, in line with the idea that "the principal directly acts on the teacher rather than the student" and "the most important thing in school management is the awakening of the teacher's internal drive and the stimulation of creativity", "promoting the active development of the main body of teachers" is regarded as the primary mission of the head of a school.
After 20 years as the principal of Experimental No. 2 Primary School, Li Lie led the school to become a benchmark for primary school basic education in The country. In 2017, Li Lie, who stepped down from the experimental second primary school, embarked on a new journey - becoming the principal of the state-owned Zhengze School in Beijing. She looks forward to combining her more than 40 years of teaching and management experience to build a high-quality school with a Chinese foundation and a world vision, and strive to explore the practice mode of whole-person development in view of the shortcomings of the times. The name "Zhengze" comes from Li Lie, which contains the pursuit of running a school with "Zhengben Zegen and Zhengjize people". Li Lie hopes that the school can grasp the essence and law of education and become the most humane and conducive place for individual growth.
"The principal must be a person who stands tall in the sky, and heaven is to have ideas and ideas, and the earth is the practice of this idea and thought at the practical level." This is Li Lie's positioning of the role of the principal, and it is also her consistent insistence.
Published in the June 2019 issue of Educator Magazine, Issue 177