Source: Teachers' Daily October 21, 2020, author: Ding Honggang, original title: "Zenggu County Wudu Junior High School: Behind the "Old Look""
If you don't see it in person, you would never have thought that a mountain school that had frequent power outages and had difficulty drinking water a few years ago has undergone great changes now: teachers and students drink direct water, built student bathrooms, and even the toilet has become a water-flushed style. There are more than just these changes. New teacher turnover rooms, teacher-student restaurants, and student video phones are installed...
This is the "old look" of Wudu Junior High School, Chenggu County, Hanzhong City, located in the hinterland of Qinba Mountains. "In recent years, we have helped poverty alleviation and ambition, and strived to make every student eat well, live well and learn well, ensuring that they enjoy fair and quality education." said Hu Juncheng, the principal of the school. In the "help" and "being helped" in education to get rid of poverty, Wudu Junior High School has worked hard to run mountain education, providing an important way for poor children to change their destiny.
Teachers' Apartment Building of Wudu Junior High School in Chenggu County
"Food, housing, use, many changes make people proud"
From 22:00 to 6:00 the next day, heavy rain suddenly fell in Wudu Town, Chenggu County, and the flood crossed the river embankment outside the school and washed down the wall. The Wudu Junior High School campus became a vast ocean: the playground, school buildings, and warehouses were filled with floods, and the restaurants and kitchens were silted.
Disaster is the command. Faced with the devastated campus, Chenggu County Education and Sports Bureau special affairs, with strong support from personnel and funds, investing a total of 1.02 million yuan to rebuild the courtyard wall, rectify landslides, and build drainage channels. All teachers in the school actively participate in post-disaster reconstruction, clear silt, and add water-repairing facilities. On September 1, when the teachers saw that the students started school as scheduled and no students lost school due to disasters, they smiled. "Without the strong support of the bureau, there is really nothing I can do with the school alone." Hu Juncheng said excitedly when recalling this past.
In fact, the superior departments have not stopped investing in the renovation of weak facilities in this mountain school. Through the "thin reform" project funds, the school has built a student restaurant that can accommodate 343 seats, invested more than 1 million yuan to build a student canteen and student dormitory; invested 120,000 yuan to build the "Siyuan Well" and raised 190,000 yuan to build the first direct drinking water school in the county; invested 470,000 yuan to renovate dry toilets and build a special toilet for girls' dormitory; invested 270,000 yuan to renovate transformers, changed from 50KVA to 400KVA, and the school's frequent power outages have become history; in 2016, teachers' apartments were built, and 18 housing units were provided for teachers who worked long hours... "From food, accommodation, electricity and water, they have changed in recent years. If you recall carefully, you will feel that we are a little proud." Speaking of many facilities construction, it is the first in schools in the county, Hu Juncheng's tone is full of pride and pride.
Not only received assistance in hardware, but also received a lot of assistance in improving teachers' abilities. In recent years, five teachers in the school have participated in the "Suzhou-Shaanxi Exchange" training, three teachers have participated in the provincial poverty alleviation on-the-job exchange training, and five teachers have participated in the counterpart assistance training for English, physical, music and aesthetic teachers in weak subjects. In the past three years, brother schools have sent teachers to Wudu Junior High School to exchange and rotate more than 30 people, which has effectively promoted the professional development of mountain teachers. The trained teachers have grown into backbone of various disciplines. In response to the actual needs of the school, the assisted schools also provided a large amount of material assistance to Wutu Junior High School, which effectively improved the operating conditions of schools in the jurisdiction.
Wudu Junior High School also contacted volunteers and caring people from multiple sources, and donated more than 100,000 yuan to poor students. Xi'an University of Foreign Studies and Xi'an University of Electronic Science and Technology "Chaoyang" Sanxia Township Social Practice Team have carried out teaching support activities for three consecutive years, providing free psychological counseling and cultural tutoring for poor students, and opening interest classes such as tea art, football, calligraphy and other interest classes and a number of literary and artistic activities. The investment and support of superiors and external assistance have greatly improved the hardware and teaching level of Wutu Junior High School, filling the school's "shortcomings".
"Let students receive better education is the greatest poverty alleviation"
As a mountain boarding school, Wudu Junior High School has more poor students: 353 of 478 students receive funding, which is equivalent to 3 of the 4 students being poor students.In view of the large proportion of poor students, the school implements that each teacher will take charge of two poor students with files and cards, and each party member will help three poor students.
Poverty alleviation requires ambition. In order to encourage poor students to enhance their self-confidence, Wudu Junior High School has made many explorations. Let outstanding poor students participate in activities such as flag-raising, oathing under the national flag, and reciting gratitude words, and provide inspirational and gratitude education to them. The school has also established multiple clubs to carry out activities to care for poor students, allowing them to sing and dance, and can also tell the teachers and the principal what they are not easy to say. Left-behind students in mountainous areas are very common. In order to care about the psychological needs of poor boarding students, the school has set up a left-behind children's activity center, which is open every day during rest hours, and opens family phone calls and family videos to let them contact videos with migrant families. They use psychological counseling rooms, science and technology activity rooms and other departments to carry out activities for them, and contact well-known psychological experts for psychological counseling and counseling. Install radio in student dormitories, implement the "New Thousand and One Nights" project, and tell stories and broadcast news to boarding students every day.
With the decrease in students in rural schools year by year, Wutu Junior High School has seen a return of students in recent years, with the number of students increasing year by year, from 435 students in 2017 to 478 in 2020. "The most important thing we are to run the school well. There are many poor households in the mountainous areas, so that students can receive better education. Everyone has a promising future. I think it is the greatest poverty alleviation. This is much better than funding. Especially in poor mountainous areas, running education well is equivalent to lifting poor students' families out of poverty." Hu Juncheng said, "After working hard, we have basically realized this idea. In terms of teaching quality, we are not inferior to any rural school in the county. The mobile red flag of "Excellent School of Education Quality" issued by the Education Bureau has been with us for seven or eight years."
Wudu Junior High School is located at the junction of three counties. Now, because of the good school facilities, management, services and teaching quality, it has attracted many students from two neighboring counties to study. The poverty alleviation policies of the three counties are basically the same. As long as you are a poor student with a file and a card, you will enjoy a lot of policies. The students come from three counties and three towns. The school’s dropout control situation is complicated. The teachers have done a lot of work, and no student has dropped out of school due to poverty.
"Through the education and poverty alleviation in recent years, my greatest experience is to narrow the distance between teachers and students, and communication between teachers and students has become smoother." Hu Juncheng introduced that in the past, teachers did not have a personal experience of poverty, but now they have helped poor students and visited students' homes. The journey is difficult. The poverty of some mountainous families has shocked the teacher's hearts. Some students have no parents, or grandparents are too old to control, and sending students to school is equivalent to handing the students over to the teacher. "With this kind of caring experience, teachers believe that to change their educational concepts, we must not despise any student."
