China Youth Network, Beijing, January 21 (Trainee reporter Gao Xin) The phenomenon of "ice flower boys" has recently received widespread attention from society. How to avoid the recurrence of the "ice boy" phenomenon? What changes need to be made in education so that children in remote areas can receive high-quality, creative and dynamic education like children in big cities? At the 22nd Chang'an Street Reading Meeting held recently, three educators conducted an in-depth analysis of this issue.

It is reported that this event is sponsored by the Chang'an Street Reading Club United League Central "Voice of Youth" Learner Service Alliance and Renmin University of China Press, and is sponsored by the National Reading Promotion Committee, China Youth Network, "Youth Voice" A collective reading and learning activity organized by the "Voice" Comprehensive Service Office and co-initiated by ***.

The most fundamental gap between urban and rural education lies in teachers

Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy, Deputy Secretary-General of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Member of the Standing Committee, China Education Policy Zhu Yongxin, deputy director of the institute, believes that the phenomenon of "frozen boys" has a lot to do with the withdrawal of schools and the merger of schools. "Actually, we started writing suggestions to the country on this issue five years ago, but we basically stopped it."

Zhu Yongxin spoke at a reading meeting. Photo by special reporter Xing Yan

Zhu Yongxin said that this involves an issue of educational philosophy. From the perspective of giving priority to complete efficiency, of course the more centralized the better. But from the perspective of children, teaching points should be retained in small schools in rural and remote areas. Of course, many places now solve this problem by setting up boarding schools.

What thoughts does the phenomenon of "Ice Flower Boys" leave people with? Zhu Yongxin said that the most fundamental gap in education between cities and rural areas, big cities and ordinary cities, and capitals and other cities lies in teachers. Good teachers from the village go to the town, good teachers from the town go to the county, good teachers from the county go to the city, good teachers from the city go to the provincial capital, and good teachers from the provincial capital go to Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. The place went. This is a relatively common phenomenon.

How to deal with and curb this phenomenon? Zhu Yongxin said that the key is how to encourage excellent teachers to go to rural areas so that the best educational resources can go to rural areas? This requires addressing the issue of teacher treatment. The first thing that needs to be addressed is those teachers in the most rural and remote areas, which requires a plan to double the income of rural teachers.

Zhu Yongxin mentioned that China also has a very important force of private volunteers. How can it be better used? "For example, let's say retired teachers, intellectuals, and scientists go to rural areas to teach. If this policy is formulated, and a retired teacher goes to the countryside to teach, we will provide salary and accommodation. There are many retired teachers over 55 years old. If this force is mobilized If it is promoted as a national action, it can solve some of the problems of rural teachers.”

Rural children read as many and as good books as urban children

Zhu Yongxin believes that in addition to teachers. In addition, it is necessary to create a scholarly campus. One of the major differences between rural education and urban education is reading. If the reading problem is solved, rural children will not lose to urban children. Suhomlinsky once said that in front of books, all students are equal. When rural children read the same number of books as urban children, and when they read the same good books, there will not be such a big gap between their development and that of urban children.

Zhu Yongxin gave an example. Suixian County is a new education experimental area, and the entire county has participated in the new education experiment. It’s been 6 years now. In 2017, according to the statistics of mathematics, physics and chemistry in Suizhou City, Sui County Experimental Zone ranked 8 among the top ten; among the top 20, the Experimental Zone scored 16. All 23 junior high schools in Sui County No. 1 ranked among the top 27 in Suizhou City. This shows that reading plays a very important role in improving the quality of rural school education and improving students' competitiveness.

Zhu Yongxin said that the reading amount of students at Suixian New Education Experimental School is almost five times the average reading amount of other schools. Therefore, reading is very important for improving the quality of children in rural schools. "I set up a new education foundation specifically to send new education libraries to children in remote rural areas and select some books so that children can have books to read. I think this solves the key problem."

< p>Zhu Yongxin said that every book is selected by experts. It doesn’t have to be a lot of books, but the best children’s books should be given to the best childhood, so that children can grow up better. Therefore, to solve rural education problems, the first is teachers, and the second is reading. If these two things are done well, rural education will have better changes.

We should try our best to bring schools to students’ doorsteps

Wang Dinghua, director of the Teacher Affairs Department of the Ministry of Education, said: “The story of Ice Flower Boy has attracted widespread attention after being reported on the Internet and in the media. I have two feelings about this.”

First, there is still a lot of room for improvement. We should try our best to bring the school to students' doorsteps so that they can enroll nearby. It is necessary to strictly control dissolution and mergers in accordance with the opinions forwarded by the State Council in 2012 on regulating the layout adjustment of compulsory education schools, and to increase guarantees in accordance with the opinions of the State Council on running small-scale rural schools in 2017.

Second, the society is very warm. This story is not particularly sad, because after the news spread, all walks of life extended a helping hand and showed a lot of love. This school now has more development opportunities, and When the CCTV reporter took the camera to the school, the school was a brand-new teaching building, a project constructed using central financial funds in the comprehensive reform plan. This "ice boy"'s new house is less than 10 minutes' walk from the school. However, due to the family's financial conditions, the house has not been renovated yet, so the difficulties are temporary and we can look forward to the future.

Wang Dinghua spoke at the reading meeting. Photo by special reporter Xing Yan

“Of course, we must also think about how to prevent similar incidents from happening again.” Wang Dinghua said that it is necessary to run small rural schools well, increase investment, and combine teacher-student ratios with class teachers. way to increase funding investment. Otherwise, if there are few children, the total funding investment will be very small.

3.3 million rural teachers support the blue sky for children's growth

Wang Dinghua said that there are now 3.3 million rural teachers in our country, and they all work below the town level. The majority of teachers learn to be teachers and behave Shifan, rooted in the countryside, dedicated quietly and made outstanding achievements, is the backbone that supports the development of the countryside and the blue sky that supports the growth of children. Therefore, I want to praise them and pay tribute to them. In order for them to truly study and teach well, we need to increase the living allowance for rural teachers.

Wang Dinghua introduced that living allowances are now fully covered. Among them, for contiguous poverty-stricken counties, the central government now provides 390 yuan per teacher per month, and provincial governments and local governments at the grassroots level also provide subsidies. Rural teachers earn 700 yuan more per month than urban teachers of the same age and level.

“We need to increase the income and benefits of teachers, broaden their development channels, and appropriately increase the proportion of intermediate and senior teacher positions.” Wang Dinghua said that in the past, it was difficult for everyone to evaluate senior teachers, so everyone said they would not take the foreign language test. , it will be easier if you don’t read the paper. Later, I discovered that this was not the case, mainly because the proportion of positions was too small. Since then, the Ministry of Education has negotiated with relevant departments to increase the proportion of intermediate and senior teaching positions.

Wang Dinghua believes that rural teachers will get better and better. At the same time, the level of rural teachers will be improved through national training plans, provincial training plans, municipal training plans, county training plans, school-based teaching and research, and shadow learning. In this process, it is not only learning, but also observing cases.

Wang Dinghua said that in the past 17 years, the new education experiment has included theory, practice and exploration. It has gone from a single branch to a hundred flowers blooming, and is now forming a scattered situation.

Take teacher growth and teacher development as core tasks

Shi Zhongying, a professor at the Department of Education of Beijing Normal University, said that since the new era, the party and the government have introduced many policies to improve the quality of teachers. . Front-line education administrative departments and primary and secondary schools have also exerted their enthusiasm, initiative and creativity, and formed many new mechanisms. There are national training programs across the country, and now China has a five-level teacher training system, which is remarkable. On top of this system, there are many special projects, such as the Ministry of Education’s Famous Teachers and Principals Pilot Project, as well as the Future Educators Project in various provinces, prefectures and cities, many famous teacher studios, teacher development organizations, etc.

Shi Zhongying spoke at the reading meeting. Photo by special reporter Xing Yan

“From the government to society, various platforms have been built for teachers’ professional growth.” Shi Zhongying said that for a teacher, if he has a good career vision If you have surging enthusiasm for education and motivation for professional growth, you will not worry about finding a way and a platform for growth. Generally speaking, the country has indeed done a lot of work for the professional growth and quality improvement of teachers.

Shi Zhongying is more concerned about the impact of the school’s internal environment on teachers’ professional work. What kind of school environment is more conducive for teachers to release their professional ideals, exert their professional abilities, and achieve the purpose of teaching and educating people? He believes that it must be fair, equal and democratic. But in fact, many teachers’ autonomy in education and teaching cannot be fully guaranteed when working in schools, and a lot of time and energy are not spent on creating a better learning and growth environment for students.

“Teachers’ right to speak, autonomy, and participation in school reform and development are not enough. Therefore, in the past few years, I have called for strengthening teacher training and improving the quality of teacher supply. This is very important. But The school system and culture also need to be reshaped," Shi Zhongying said.

Shi Zhongying expressed the hope that schools can take teacher growth and teacher development as the core work of improving school quality. Real education is provided by teachers.