Liu Ji teaches at the School of Youth Politics, Xinjiang Normal University. Image source: Peking University official WeChat
Depart from Beijing, to Xinjiang Normal University in Urumqi City, Xinjiang, and then to Bakdun Primary School in Tawakule Township, Hotan County, southern Xinjiang. It takes more than 3,000 kilometers to take a green train to Urumqi, then take a two-day and two-night bus around the Taklamakan Desert to Hotan, and finally take a small bus in the city of Hotan to arrive. Liu Ji, a member of the Xinjiang Branch of the 19th Graduate Student Teaching Group of Peking University, is very familiar with the path of
. In 2017, Liu Ji, who had just graduated from undergraduate studies, left Peking University to teach at the Youth Political School of Xinjiang Normal University. A year later, in March 2018, Liu Ji followed the teaching team of the Youth Political School of Xinjiang Normal University to teach in the Uyghur village in Xianan Xinjiang, and his school was Bakdun Primary School.
htmlOn September 8, on the train back to school, Liu Ji used this sentence to describe his two-year teaching career, "Whatever your heart is, you are walking in plain sight; life is like a journey against the other side, a reed sails."Birth in the south, traveling to the far border, a Hunanese dream
Jianyuan Jiamu, born in the south; he was ordered to move westward, traveling to the far border. I have been through the wind and rain, and I have been caressing the past; I have reported to my alma mater that this trip has been accomplished!
Liu Ji is a native of Hunan. He has never been to Xinjiang before graduating from university, but he has had a dream since he was a child: to go to Xinjiang. Why
? Liu Ji said that he liked reading history since he was a child. When he read that the famous Qing Dynasty general Zuo Zongtang led the Hunan Army to recapture Xinjiang, he was very yearning. "When my grandma was a child (in the early days of liberation), she also had elders who followed General Wang Zhen to Xinjiang. Later, there was a 'Xiang Girl' who responded to the national recruitment to the Tianshan Mountains." It seemed that in the dark, Liu Ji from Xiangtan, Hunan had already formed an indissoluble bond with this land.
When I arrived at the School of Law of Peking University, the dream seeds of going to Xinjiang began to sprout. There are two classmates from Xinjiang at the same level of the law school where Liu Ji is located. A direct senior sister of Liu Ji also went to Xinjiang to teach. From their mouths, Liu Ji learned a lot about Xinjiang and became more and more interested in further exploration.
"I especially hope to go to Xinjiang to see it, but I didn't expect it to be in the form of volunteers." Liu Ji told reporters that going to Xinjiang to teach can not only fulfill his dream of going to Xinjiang, but also follow the footsteps of his predecessors to reduce his fear of an uncertain future. Once this idea is formed in my mind, it will never be gone.
Liu Ji's decision was questioned by his parents from the beginning: A southern baby needs to teach for a year, can he get used to eating? Can the climate adapt? What to do if you delay your studies?
The parents’ doubts are not unreasonable. "The climate and diet are difficult to adapt to in Xinjiang. The climate includes drought and winters are particularly cold. The diet is to adapt to pasta such as naan and beef and mutton." Liu Ji said that fortunately, the Peking University Teaching Team Management Office has relatively systematic pre-trip training. In addition to conducting strict physical examinations and allocating teaching sites for team members, it also includes urging everyone to exercise, teaching internships in the senior year to teach in the teaching site, and adapting to Xinjiang food in advance in the school's halal canteen.
Liu Ji himself was also mentally prepared. He went to the library to read many books and materials related to Xinjiang's history and geography to cultivate his feelings about this land. He also read some reportages and videos of the deeds of seniors from various fronts to aid Xinjiang, including the biography of Zuo Zongtang, the biography of General Wang Zhen, the 8,000 Hunan ladies going to Tianshan, the fifty years of Peking University's aid to Xinjiang, and the notes of seniors from the previous ten teaching teams, etc., and used the deeds of the seniors to motivate themselves, "In short, as long as you have strong physical fitness and mental preparation to overcome all difficulties, these problems can be overcome."
As for academic issues, Liu Ji felt that life is full of various possibilities. He did not want to follow the pace of most people's graduation work, but only wanted to do what he wanted to do most at different stages of his life. Liu Ji's parents were very open-minded and were successfully convinced by Liu Ji.
In 2015, during the summer vacation of his junior year, Liu Ji, who was only 20 years old at the time, submitted his application to teach in Xinjiang. A year later, Liu Ji embarked on the road to help Xinjiang to teach.
and the teaching team travel west together, and we are not alone in our hearts. For me, shedding youthful sweat in the heart of the desert will not only realize our personal Xinjiang dream, but also pursue the great Chinese dream in the name of youth.
"Welcome good times and go alone, or plant a stick to wet the bob." This is a sentence from Tao Yuanming in "Returning to the Go". In Liu Ji's opinion, going to Xinjiang to teach is "to be kind and not alone". "This sentence contains the desire for ideals and is moved by the spirit of moving forward for the sake of ideals. Of course, this is a literary expression. Good luck is certain, but not "alone". Because we have a very strong team, the leader Zhang Jiawei, the members of the group, Chen Tianhe, Qiao Jing, and Feng Xingchen are all friends who are deeply nourished by Weiming Water and full of idealism and enthusiasm, so they are not alone."
set off from Beijing and took a green train of more than 40 hours, and Liu Ji finally arrived in Xinjiang. At the School of Youth Politics of Xinjiang Normal University, students are about the same age as Liu Ji, who has just graduated. How can
teach them a good lesson? In the list of courses provided by the school, Liu Ji chose courses such as ancient literature, ethics, speech and eloquence that he is more good at. Because many students in the school take the Chinese test in the Chinese exam, they are not very high in Chinese and academic level. Despite this, Liu Ji, who was inexperienced, was still a little panicked when he gave his peers his first lecture.
"Time is also very tight, so you must first learn about the textbooks and understand the textbooks thoroughly." Liu Ji said that the main difficulty in teaching lies in how to explain the knowledge in an easy-to-understand manner. Fortunately, the professors are all junior college students, plus the experience of school teachers and senior sisters in the teaching team. Two months later, Liu Ji has fully mastered the skills of teaching.
Liu Jizeng recalled his life teaching here like this: in the class "Ancient Literature", I led my classmates to recite poetry, analyze history, and travel in the vast sea of books of Chinese traditional culture; in the class "Ethics", I led my classmates to read Spinoza and Kant from Plato and Aristotle to understand the great hearts of Western culture; in the class "Speech and Eloquence", we whine and learn from the great speakers from ancient and modern times, and draw nourishment from the great speakers from ancient and modern times, and in the national class Mandarin tutoring class, we talk from poetry to movies, and appreciate the infinite charm of modern culture carried by the national common language in rich materials.
Liu Ji and other students of the teaching team have established a deep relationship with the students here, and they are still in touch with many of them until now. "Our team leader Zhang Jiawei was also the head teacher of a sophomore class at that time. Students had to deal with major and minor matters such as illness. Last year, the students in their class graduated, and he also made a special trip to attend their graduation ceremony. The relationship was very deep." Liu Ji said.
went deep into the heart of the desert and vowed to "plant" a spring
If there was no such "invitation", Liu Jihui, like other members of the teaching team, ended his teaching support life at the Youth Political School of Xinjiang Normal University in the fall of 2018, returned to Peking University, and started his master's life in the law school.
but no if.
In March 2018, the School of Youth Politics of Xinjiang Normal University once again organized volunteers to teach at Bakdun Primary School in Hotan, southern Xinjiang. The members included teachers and students. This teaching activity actually started as early as the end of December 2017, but since most of the members of the teaching team are students and have no teaching experience, the students' grades of Bakdun Primary School have entered a bottleneck period.
At this time, Fan Honglin, the head of the Qingzhengyuan teaching group and the principal of Bakduan Primary School, sent an "invitation" to Liu Ji. "President Fan Honglin had a colleague when he was at the Normal University and had a certain understanding of me. It was in this situation that I contacted me and asked me to go to the village to be responsible for academic affairs and cooperate with him to open up the situation." Liu Ji recalled.
Liu Ji is not without hesitation.
"My parents, family and school teachers are worried about my safety issues, and I am also worried about my language barriers, not to mention that I do not have the teaching experience in elementary school." Liu Ji said that he still did not go, and he thought about it for three days.
What did Liu Ji think about during the past three days?
"My original intention of coming to Xinjiang is to devote education. I attended the Peking University Global Alumni Association in Urumqi in November 2018. When I met more than 100 old seniors who have been rooted in Xinjiang for 50 years, I felt that I was a Peking University student and I had to go to Xinjiang to support my teachings. What's more, all the students I taught in the Qingzhengyuan have gone down, so what reason do I have to back down?" Liu Ji said that the school also gave support. The school's Youth League Committee teacher said that no matter what decision I made, Peking University will be my strong backing.
Three days after receiving the invitation, Liu Ji made up his mind: Go.
Despite sufficient psychological preparation, Liu Ji was surprised by the arduous environment of Bacdun Primary School.
"The desert is lonely smoke straight, and the long river is round and the sun sets." The ancients once described the beautiful scenery of the desert in this way. But for Bakdun Primary School, located in the heart of the southern Xinjiang desert, the desert means a drought climate and sandstorms often rage. Liu Ji had very serious rhinitis. When he first arrived in southern Xinjiang, his entire respiratory tract was paralyzed when it was severe.
is not just a climate. "The school conditions are even worse. The teachers in the primary school department only have two prefabricated houses, which can only accommodate 6 classes. The remaining three classes have to borrow the kindergarten activity room as classrooms; the teacher turnover room has just started, and the teaching teams all live in unfinished brick houses; there are basically no modern electronic teaching equipment except campus radio." Liu Ji recalled that even going to the toilet had to go to the dry toilet five or six hundred meters away from the dormitory.
The hard conditions did not make Liu Ji retreat. He secretly told himself that he must "plant" a spring in the desert.
As the director of academic affairs and vice principal, Liu Ji's main job is to focus on teaching design and teaching management of the whole school. Where to start? Based on the characteristics of the transitional period of Mandarin education in southern Xinjiang and the actual situation of the school, Liu Ji thought of Mandarin education.
A month and a half later, Liu Ji led his companions to start the investigation. "The survey mainly involves two aspects: one is the actual teaching situation of our school, and the other is the teaching experience of advanced local schools." Liu Ji said that there is no shortcut to the survey, that is, to attend classes, communicate with teachers, and have discussions with students. Our school has more than 200 students, township central primary school, and Hotan County No. 3 primary school. After three schools have gone through, they have written more than 100,000 words in their research notes alone.
has no way to go. During this investigation, Liu Ji compiled a "Bakdun Teaching Manual", which re-selected the textbooks for Mandarin education based on the different characteristics of local students in each grade, and formulated a "six one" Mandarin education method system according to local conditions. Before leaving southern Xinjiang, this method was carefully assigned to local teachers and a new group of volunteers.
One year to the west, a lifetime of Western love
teachers are also making achievements. Our hearts are lit up by the previous generation of teachers, and we also hope to light up more people.
The best student in the top sixth grade class, Aliya Saitirdin, is very kind, cute and sensible, but is autistic because of his father's crime sentence and finally comes out under the care of his teacher... Liu Ji, who left Bacduan Primary School, often thinks about his days there, and has recalled that time on countless occasions, "Although the conditions are very difficult and the work is very hard, life is very simple and his thoughts are pure. A group of kind and enthusiastic people work together to contribute education to their ideal goals and light up a lamp to the civilized world for their children. This is something I have never experienced in my life in more than 20 years before."
Suddenly infectious dysentery caused by unhygienic diet, Liu Ji had to end his teaching in advance.
travels to the west for a year, and a lifetime of love for the west. Looking back on his teaching support life, Liu Ji sighed a lot, "I like the metaphor of 'Lanner' very much. Just like the mutual connection between people, the lights are forever, and teachers contribute to education is also achieving themselves. Our hearts are lit up by the previous generation of teachers, and I hope to light up more people."
"Liu Ji, I am very happy to see you become a member of the Xinjiang teaching support group. This is not only a blessing in personal growth, but also a rare opportunity to fulfill your responsibilities as an ordinary citizen.Selfless dedication, not seeking fame and fortune, and abiding by laws and regulations are the consistent traditions of our Liu family. Now our generation is gradually entering the ranks of the elderly, at most it is to use its remaining energy and can only place hope on you. People only consider their own gains and losses and will be in vain. Silent dedication to the country and the people is the value of life..."
In Liu Ji's mobile phone, this kind of chat screenshot has been kept. It was in 2017. When Liu Ji was about to board the train to Xinjiang, his uncle Liu Changlin sent him a message. Liu Changlin was one of the earliest batch of normal students in the 1980s and spent his whole life teaching in rural Hunan.
Liu Ji said that every time he encountered difficulties and wanted to retreat, he would look out and take a look. The elders' instructions can ignite the courage in his heart.
Beijing News reporter Yang Feifei Proofreading Xue Jingning
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