Freezing Point Special Issue No. 1233

 Education is to give life one more way

Students and teachers go hiking.

Xiang Guoyue and his students are in the field.

Zhan Danian teaches students how to tug-of-war.

The teacher and the student broke their wrists.

Students go climbing.

The pictures in this version are provided by the interviewees

Students and teachers are playing games.

More than 2000 "problem students"

  Before sending her son to the Ugly Duckling Middle School in Yiliang County, Kunming, Yunnan, Wang Aiyue of Xinyang, Henan Province was troubled by her son’s dislike of studying.

After entering junior high school, his son didn't want to do his homework at first, and then he made an excuse not to go to school. After leaving school at home, he played with his mobile phone all night.

  Wang Aiyue works in an insurance company. Since her son doesn't like to study, she "is not comfortable to see him anywhere".

She values ​​her son's studies very much. She divorced her husband not long after his son was born. The monthly salary is 600 yuan, and the kindergarten tuition for one semester is nearly 3,000 yuan for her son.

  Later, she remarried, but her second husband, like her predecessor, "has a low level of education and can't communicate."

She hopes that her son will study hard and "don't live a life of nothing".

But his son's grades got worse and worse after he entered junior high school, and the supplementary lessons were of no effect.

  "I used to beat him and scold him whenever the teacher complained." Wang Aiyue felt that her son was unwilling to make a living, "you can't make a living without studying," but her son said that he could be a beggar.

She thought that her son was "mentally abnormal" and took him to Zhengzhou to see a psychiatrist for a consultation of 1,000 yuan. It felt too expensive to go there once.

  "Lying at home every day, I look anxious." In the spring of 2019, Wang Aiyue sent her son to Ugly Duckling Middle School.

  More than two years later, Chen Yan also sent her daughter.

Her daughter was in the first year of junior high in a key middle school in Hangzhou. In the first half of this year, her grades dropped from the top 10 in the class to more than 30. At the end of May, her daughter told her, “I would rather have a serious illness than study”, and said Looking down the hallway of the school, "a vast expanse of whiteness", I was afraid that I couldn't help but jump down.

  "I was a little flustered at the time." Chen Yan said. After that, her daughter never went to school again.

She took her daughter to see a psychiatrist. The doctor said there was "pressure to study" and "pressure to make friends."

  The family could not accept this fact for a while.

Chen Yan said that she was a rural child. In order to get ahead, she studied hard. The teacher said that her early love would affect her grades. She didn't talk to boys for three years in high school. Later, she stopped talking to girls. superior."

  She studied hard all the way and was admitted to the Ph.D. of Zhejiang University.

Her husband is also a doctor of Zhejiang University, her father-in-law is a graduate of Zhejiang University, and her mother-in-law is a graduate of Suzhou University. The family attaches great importance to their children's study.

  Chen Yan said that her daughter did well and became a class leader.

Once, she yelled at a classmate who violated discipline and was dismissed by the teacher.

Later, the students voted for the team leader, and she lost the election again.

She had no friends at school, and told her mother that she seemed to be two people, "One does not want to socialize with people, and the other wants to go out and socialize."

  After the leave of school, my daughter played with mobile phones all day, going to bed late and waking up late.

Chen Yan took her daughter to the summer camp. She was in good condition during training and "lay down" again after returning home.

In desperation, she enrolled the child for the summer camp at Ugly Duckling Middle School.

  This summer, nearly 50 students enrolled in this school’s summer camp. Some of them have been away from school for a year, some are suffering from depression, the scars on their wrists have not fully healed, and some have just gotten out of their mouths. The "psychiatric hospital" came out, looking depressed.

  In addition to these summer camp students, the school also has nearly 60 students with various problems such as Internet addiction, study-weariness, and suicidal tendencies.

The school said that since the school was founded in 2010, it has accepted more than 2,000 so-called “problem students”.

They come from all over the country, and most of them were "lied" by their parents to come to Kunming to travel and stay with relatives. They were sent here when they got off the plane.

Why did "problem students" arise?

How to do?

  Before sending their children, most parents didn't know the school, and they didn't know whether their children could change here.

One parent said that she chose this place because the principal, Zhan Danian, is more famous on the Internet. She felt that the school was so famous that she did not dare to mess with students because "the cost of trial and error is greater."

"I was very pessimistic at the time. I wanted to at least get up and go to bed after the child was sent."

  Before founding this school, Zhan Danian had more than 20 years of experience as the principal.

In 1987, 23-year-old Zhan Danian went to a township elementary school in Taojiang County, Hunan Province as the principal and developed the school into a nine-year school.

At that time, in order to increase the enrollment rate, the local middle school tried every means to recruit excellent students and persuade them to drop out.

  "How can education blatantly eliminate people?" Zhan Danian disagrees with this "best selection" method, but if the poor students are not allowed to leave, the teacher will not be able to improve his grades, and he feels dilemma.

In 2000, he resigned from the school, hoping to run a school that "doesn't catch up with students".

  In 2003, Zhan Danian founded a nine-year private school in the suburbs of Kunming and survived for 7 years.

He found that although poor students will not be driven away, it is difficult to find a sense of existence: students with good grades do not want to play with poor students, and most teachers do not like naughty students.

There are also parents who require students to be divided into classes according to their grades.

  At that time, Zhan Danian had an idea, could he run a school that only accepts poor students?

  In 2010, Zhan Danian partnered with others to establish a school in Anning, Yunnan.

He said that not long after the school was founded, several partners had different ideas. Others advocated focusing on military training and not setting up cultural courses. He believed that this was "controlling students" through physical exertion and left after less than a year.

  In 2011, Zhan Danian found an abandoned school site on the hillside of the ancient town of Yiliang, Yunnan, and founded the Ugly Duckling Middle School.

The name of the school was named by Wang Yeju, vice chairman of the Kunming Political Consultative Conference.

Someone said: "How do you recruit students under this name?" Zhan Danian liked the name very much. "The Ugly Duckling is a white swan breed, and it will fly into the blue sky when it grows up."

  In order to recruit students, Zhan Danian put up advertisements everywhere. The admission advertisement wrote, “Help all children who are addicted to Internet, premature love, school-weary, rebellious, and confused, find their smart and lovely selves.” In the end, the school only recruited 8 students, of which, Seven students were sent by acquaintances out of trust.

  A student of the first class remembers that he was handcuffed by his father and taken into the car.

Halfway through, he ran out of the car, fell covered with mud, and was caught in the car again.

Later, the car stopped at the gate of this "tattered" school. The school was covered with weeds, the iron gate was still installed, and the dust was flying.

Three years later, when he left, the number of students had increased to fifty or sixty.

  Later, Zhan Danian didn't worry about enrollment anymore. When the number of students was the highest, there were more than 100 students.

Zhan Danian found that "problem students" have increased unabated over the years, and people have paid more attention and confusion to "problem students".

  On July 24, Zhan Danian participated in an education seminar in Kunming. More than 400 teachers attended the meeting. They came from all over the country. Some teachers took the train from Urumqi for 3 days and 2 nights. Some teachers I took the high-speed train from Zhengzhou. When I came, it was raining heavily in my hometown. The water in my home was as deep as 1 meter.

  Teachers have mentioned the confusion of educating "problematic students".

The teacher in Urumqi said that he opened a private middle school and accepted many poor students from key middle schools, but most of the newly recruited teachers had just graduated from college. “The experience of being loved exceeds the experience of loving others.” He didn’t know what to do. Teach them to love children unconditionally.

  Another teacher said that she had run a care center in the countryside. She found that many left-behind children were not cared about, and some played truant and ran away from home. They had "no professional knowledge" and wanted to learn how to manage "problem children".

  Many teachers participating in the conference have a common question: "Why do'problematic students' arise? What should I do?"

"We have no shortage of Beijing Eleventh School, nor the High School Attached to the National People's Congress"

  On this issue, Zhan Danian made a personal exploration.

  Zhan Danian said that at first, he felt that "the child had a problem", but the more students he contacted, he found that "the child encountered a problem, he did not have the power to solve the problem, and he could not get effective support."

  In Ugly Duckling Middle School, almost every child has a sad story behind it.

A girl from Shanghai said that she hated her patriarchal family and her parents turned to her younger brother everywhere.

She suffered from depression, cut her wrists, and was afraid to go to school.

In order to vent, she stabbed a stray cat in the community.

Later, she was sent to a closed hospital by her parents for treatment. She "tied you as soon as she became ill". After staying for more than a month, she was sent here by her parents.

  In 2014, Ugly Duckling Middle School randomly surveyed 100 “problem children” and found that 74 children came from divorced families, remarried families, single-parent families, left-behind families, etc. Some children only met their parents for a few years, and some were with one family. Dad and two "moms" live together, and they want to survive in the "crack".

  In Zhan Danian's view, many families in Ugly Duckling Middle School have lost their family functions.

"These children have not received the care they deserve since they were young. They only hope that they will grow up quickly and be free, willful, and revenge."

  "We also found that there is another type of children whose parents lack personality. They treat the children as their own private property and a tool for venting." Zhan Danian said that an official father told him that he can command thousands of troops. It just can't command the "dog day" of the child.

He told the father that the problem lies in the word "command", "Don't think that parents are training people, and parents are responsible."

  He noticed a girl whose parents were both college teachers, but the girl called her parents "a bitch with a dog" and committed self-harm.

He felt that the girl’s psychological problems were very serious, and asked the parents what was wrong with the child. The first thing the parents said was "bad study."

  The tuition fee of Ugly Duckling Middle School is nearly 30,000 yuan for one semester, and most of its students are urban children.

Zhan Danian found that many children come from families with "three highs" (highly educated, high-income, and high-status). While enjoying the superior conditions, they are given excessive expectations by their parents.

  Because her parents are both PhDs from Zhejiang University, Chen Yan's daughter Chen Yang feels that she "cannot make sense without taking a Zhejiang University exam."

Dad taught in a college in Hangzhou. She remembered that when she was a child, Dad said that if she was admitted to that school, he would beat her.

When at home, she often locks the door. If she doesn't lock the door, she feels "insecure" because her mother "looks at it every few minutes" to see if she is studying.

Once I saw her painting, my mother was crying and cursing.

  The decline in grades made Chen Yang anxious, "I am afraid that the decline in grades will affect the entrance examination for high school, and the entrance examination for high school will affect the college entrance examination." She has no friends at school and feels that no one can talk about the decline in grades.

  Although knowing that his mother Wang Aiyue worked very hard, Li Kang hated his mother calling him "unsatisfactory stuff" because of his poor grades.

He feels that the teacher is very snobbish, whispering to high-status and wealthy parents, and "should not save face and swearing at his parents", causing his parents to get angry after returning home and say, "If you are called by the teacher, you will hit you." "I won't support you if I don't take the exam again."

  Li Kang said that at that time, he began to doubt the meaning of learning, "Is learning just to make them quarrel?" He believed that his parents let him study to find a job and earn money to support them in the future. "Everyone entangled for profit." .

  A student said that during the leave of absence, he felt that his "life was going to end." "After all, they instilled the notion that elementary school will die if you don’t get a good junior high school, and you will die if you don’t get a good high school."

  "A good parent will pay attention to the children's joys, sorrows, sorrows, and children's life growth and psychological needs, not just the children's scores." In Zhan Danian's view, "problem students" originate from the family and become the fundamental problem in the school. It is the evaluation system of education. "The evaluation of school education is subject to the design of interests. Scores become the weight of interests, and students become the means of education. In this way, the core of the relationship is no longer'people', but'profits'. "

  Li Zhenxi, the dean of the New Education Research Institute and the former principal of Chengdu Wuhou Experimental Middle School, noticed that in recent years, there have been more and more "problematic children" and the characteristics of a younger age.

He believes that this is related to the increasing emphasis on scores in the education evaluation system. “It turns out that our evaluation standard is basically scores. This standard has not been diluted, but it has become more and more demanding. Teachers in China force students to do IQ tests and drive away poor students."

  Against this background, Li Zhenxi advocated leaning toward "problem children", "We do not lack Beijing Eleventh School, the High School Attached to the National People's University, but we lack schools for the study of "problem children"."

Education can only happen if you raise your child

  In the past 10 years, Zhan Danian has made many attempts to deal with the "problematic children" of Ugly Duckling Middle School.

  When the school was first established, Zhan Danian recruited 14 teachers, most of them college students, but within a year, all the teachers were gone-these teachers were helpless when they saw the students making noise, and some told Zhan Danian that they would shake their hands when entering the classroom. Fear that students beat themselves.

  Later, Zhan Danian recruited a group of old teachers, who often beat and scolded "problematic students", and the relationship between teachers and students was tense.

  Later, he recruited a group of poor local college students as teachers. The recruitment conditions focused on "laughing and playing." The training content changed from classroom skills to how to psychologically intervene students and establish a good relationship with students.

  Zhan Danian believes that under the influence of the evaluation of the traditional education system, the teacher-student relationship, parent-child relationship, and classmate relationship of the "problem students" have cracked. Return to the normal state of life.

  A teacher said that the school usually does not make questions or take exams, and only takes the unified examination of the province in the middle and the end of the term.

Before new teachers start their jobs, the school gives them training, emphasizing that they cannot beat students, criticize students publicly, or use words to insult students.

If students make trouble in class, let them participate in military training.

  The school arranges life teachers to live in student dormitories, handles student conflicts, and makes "pre-plans" for some outstanding problems: For example, if students fight, pull students away first to calm students' emotions; if students self-harm, don't make a fuss and stay with him. Provide help as much as possible; if the teacher is emotional when dealing with the problem, calm down first.

Through these methods, Zhan Danian hopes to make students feel safe and stay in school.

  When the school was first established, the students tried every means to escape. In order to build trust with the students, Zhan Danian printed his QQ number and mobile phone number on the student workbooks and wall paintings, telling them that before they grow up, no matter where they are, they will encounter anything. You can ask him for help if you have any questions.

  In 2014, he took students to rescue in the earthquake-stricken area of ​​Zhaotong, Yunnan, and acted as their "drivers", allowing them to teach themselves psychological knowledge, giving psychological counseling to children in the disaster area, and taking them to travel all over the country. During the trip, there was not a single student. Run away.

  "Trust takes time. When a child agrees with your thoughts, sees you are serving and contributing to him, and believes in him, he feels that I have hope, and I have to correct my mistake." Zhan Danianchang said to the teachers, "Okay. A good relationship is a good education. Only when the child is raised can education happen."

  But it takes time for teachers to truly agree with these ideas.

28-year-old Xiang Guoyue is the veteran of the school. When he first came to the school, he was only 18 years old and full of vitality.

In the face of disobedient students, he used violence to subdue him. Some students did not want to stay in school, and if they did something with him, he beat them back.

  In 2014, a student from Baoshan, Yunnan, came to his class.

This student always smoked and made trouble at school. Once, he was smoking in the toilet and was discovered by Xiang Guoyue. Xiang Guoyue asked him to hand in a lighter and cigarette, but the student refused.

Xiang Guoyue was very angry and told him to lie on the playground and beat him with a belt as punishment.

As soon as the beating was over, almost all the boys from the school rushed up and pressed Xiang Guoyue to the ground and beat it until the other teachers came over.

  Later, the boy made an appointment with Xiang Guoyue and was defeated by Xiang Guoyue both times.

But the boy still made trouble, and applied to Guoyue to apply to the school to transfer the boy to another class, but he didn't succeed.

One day, Xiang Guoyue decided to "put down his posture" and talk to the boy. He asked the boy why the two couldn't get together.

The boy said, you are too strict, don't like to laugh, always have a straight face.

  After that, Xiang Guoyue began to reflect on himself, "(By beating and scolding), the students are afraid of you face to face, but resist you in their hearts." He changed his methods, told jokes to make them happy, broke his wrists with them, and helped them cut their nails. Even help them take a bath.

Xiang Guoyue found that these small actions can bring about great changes. The students gradually liked to stick to him, calling him "Brother Xiang" and "Elephant Teacher".

He believes that when students need help, they should show up as soon as possible, "provide help and comfort."

Forced to pull into the collective

  In order to help students integrate into the collective, after the new students arrive at school, the school will arrange for the old students to chat with the new students, soothe their emotions, and take them to eat and organize housekeeping.

The school often organizes group activities, such as swimming and hiking.

  The reporter observed that there was a fat girl who didn't want to stay in school when she first arrived. She grabbed her father's clothes corner, pushed her mother with her hand, and cried and asked her parents why she tricked her.

  The two teachers grabbed her wrists and pressed her onto the chair to calm her emotions.

But after letting go, the girl still cried.

Later, the teacher arranged for two "handsome boys" to chat with her. After a few hours, the girls calmed down.

The teacher explained that they arranged for boys to go because most girls care about their image in front of boys. Sometimes, the school also finds students from the same province to appease new students based on the province where the student is located.

  Li Kang mentioned to reporters that his mentality has changed in this collective atmosphere: when he arrived at school, he always wanted to escape, but he couldn't tell, he wanted to "find an opportunity and then go out". Later, he was "forcibly drawn into the group." Go in."

Once, the school organized an outing and he was forcibly pulled away, watching everyone play and laugh, he was also infected, and felt that "it's good to be joking."

  A student said that the school organizes swimming and he does not want to go into the water. The life teacher said that within 5 minutes, if he does not go into the water, let his classmates strip him naked and drag him into the water. He chooses to take off his clothes obediently.

Li Kang described the process as "violently smashing a door in the atrium". After repeated repetitions of this process, he developed a sense of attachment to the collective, "like a big planet attracting a small planet."

  When the environment becomes relaxed, interpersonal relationships tend to ease, and changes occur quietly: before, Li Kang felt that everyone was revolving around interests, but he gradually discovered that some things could not be explained by interests. For example, in schools, some teachers would Buy fruits and snacks for students at their own expense.

For another example, in order to send him to study, his mother borrowed money from people everywhere, and she could have chosen a more economical way-abandon him.

In August of this year, Li Kang left Ugly Duckling Middle School. Li Kang's mother found that he was willing to communicate with his family, instead of "looking down on you."

  A student who has graduated for 7 years feels that this school can at least accommodate himself.

After three years in school, he ran several times. Once, after running home, he ran away from home for six months without food or drink. He asked Danian for help and returned to Ugly Duckling Middle School until he graduated from junior high school.

Some of his friends were later sentenced, some were killed in fights, and some disappeared on the border of northern Myanmar, where their whereabouts are unknown.

He later enrolled in a general high school, was admitted to a junior college, and worked in an electronic product company after graduation.

  However, not all students have changed in this school.

Some students came here for less than a week and left if they couldn't stay.

Some parents told reporters that after their children returned home, they were still addicted to playing with mobile phones.

  There are also students who make their teachers "powerless" while in school.

There was a girl at school who didn't wash clothes, bathe, or throw clothes around.

Girls in the same dormitory have repeatedly reported the smell of the dormitory.

The teacher combed her hair, she would mess up her hair, stared at her washing clothes, she threw laundry detergent everywhere.

The teacher talked to the parents and found that the parents were dressed decently and spoke decently, and could not find the source of her behavior.

Later, the teachers asked Zhan Danian for help about the student's situation, but Zhan Danian could not find the reason.

  Zhan Danian once said that in terms of students returning to a normal life state, the success rate of Ugly Duckling Middle School's conversion of problem children is 100%.

Li Zhenxi believes that the so-called "return to the normal state of life" is vague and even subjective.

He suggested that Zhan Danian use a "more objective way" to describe the results of the Ugly Duckling Middle School, "especially there should be as accurate as possible tracking data (10 years, 20 years or even longer after students leave school)."

To fundamentally reduce the generation of "problem students"

  Mao Weidong taught in key middle schools and vocational middle schools, worked as a reporter for several years, and went to Ugly Duckling Middle School several times.

He believes that this school provides a relatively tolerant environment for students. "Students are not accepted in other schools or even at home. Teachers may punish corporal punishment. If they can't corporal punishment, they despise them, but they are not treated as aliens here."

  However, he also observed that the school is still not satisfactory in some aspects, especially in "targeted development of psychological counseling and related courses according to the child's condition", which is still relatively weak.

  At present, Ugly Duckling Middle School teachers are divided into cultural teachers, life teachers, and psychology teachers.

There is only one psychology teacher in the school.

Culture teachers are divided into liberal arts teachers, science teachers, and English teachers. Zhan Danian explained that after this setting, the number of teachers will be reduced and the time spent with students will be longer, which is more conducive to building relationships with students.

  However, according to the reporter's observation, the teacher turnover rate here is relatively high, especially the cultural teachers, many of whom are new teachers who come to the school for one or two years, and the longest time in school is less than 5 years.

  A liberal arts teacher said that she was very contradictory, because the students had a poor foundation, she tried to explain the knowledge as simple as possible in class, but she felt sorry for the students with better grades and wasted their time.

A student said that she was very anxious and wanted to study, but the classmates were very noisy during self-study. "The teacher said in the study room in one second and quarreled again in the next." Another student was afraid that after leaving here, she would not be able to keep up with the original school. Study progress, get a thick pile of review materials from home.

  "You were deprived of emotions at the original school, and deprived of grades here," Li Kang said.

After many students leave here, they want to return to their original school. Faced with the original education system, parents are still anxious.

  In May of this year, Li Kang returned to Xinyang to take the high school entrance examination.

Wang Aiyue said that when Li Kang first came back, he was full of confidence and felt that it would be no problem to get into Pu Gao, but he did not go to school after studying for a month and said that he could not understand.

She bought online lessons for her son, and Li Kang stopped studying for a few days. In the end, she didn't even want to take the high school entrance examination.

"I was so anxious that I didn't even have a grade, and I couldn't get to the secondary school." She persuaded her son to take the exam, and the final grade of the high school entrance examination did not pass the general high school.

  Wang Aiyue was confused about the future of the child, "He doesn't read books, there really is not much way to go." In the end, Li Kang obeyed his mother's arrangement and chose to go to Zhengzhou to study technical school, although he didn't like this way.

  一位西安的家长也担心,儿子回校后仍然无法承受学业压力怎么办。她说,在老家,很多家长都在为孩子的中考焦虑,最近,孩子原来的学校停止给学生补课。有家长堵在学校门口,要求学校开课,有的还去举报其他补课的私立学校,家长群每天滚动着语音条,“其实家长也是无力,谁想把孩子逼成这样呢?”

  陈艳给孩子提供的备选项是读国际学校,但她担心孩子无法适应。她和老公去找詹大年,聊了几个小时,最终问题总是绕回孩子离开丑小鸭中学后怎么办。面对父母的焦虑,詹大年只能告诉他们,不要太在乎成绩,“孩子如果有喜欢的就让他去做,没有喜欢的,轻松就是最好的状态。”

  在李镇西看来,作为一所民办学校,丑小鸭中学有做得好的地方,但目前缺乏“科学的制度体系”,“学校无论大小,还是应该有现代管理所需要的合理制度,这能保证学校运行于‘法治’的轨道,而不是‘人治’的窠臼。作为一所必然会向前发展的学校,如果长期缺乏制度,必然埋下一些隐患。”

  近些年,接收“问题学生”的机构、学校屡屡被曝存在殴打学生的行为。据媒体报道,2009年,广西南宁一家训练营发生教官体罚、殴打学员致死事件。2012年,浙江金华一家矫正教育学校的学生控诉,被教官要求仅穿内衣给其洗脚、按摩。2020年末,一家戒网瘾学校被曝强制学员喝烟灰水、殴打学生导致其骨折……

  21世纪教育研究院院长熊丙奇认为,矫正学校乱象背后是家长“病急乱投医”的苦衷。他提到,我国现在没有专门针对“问题孩子”的正规学校,家长也不愿意送孩子进特殊的工读学校,发现孩子有网瘾、夜不归宿、打架斗殴等问题后,只能打听哪里有矫正学校。

  “这给一些不正规的社会培训机构发财良机。近年来,一些以拯救、矫正为名的训练营、学校相当红火。”熊丙奇提到,由于缺乏监管,矫正类学校体罚、虐待学生的行为屡禁不止。

  他认为,不能指望专门的学校来解决“问题学生”,要从根本上减少“问题学生”的产生。“只有融入平等的教育环境中,让孩子更好地成长,才是我们要注意的问题。”

成为孩子们心里的那块糖

  熊丙奇认为,解决根本问题,要让“所有的学校都关注每一个孩子,这个理念不重构,10年之后问题会更加严重。”他强调,要扭转基础教育的应试教育倾向,“这种模式之下一定是培养考生不培养人的。不培养人老师怎么会关注一些成绩不好的学生?这是我们当前最大的问题。”

  在昆明的教育研讨会上,李镇西希望教育工作者反思,丑小鸭中学的这些“问题学生”,为什么被原来的学校抛弃了?

  “我很惭愧,丑小鸭中学收留的是我们放弃、虐待过的丑小鸭。”谈到这个问题,成都武侯实验中学蒋长玲老师说,她也曾放弃过“问题孩子”,是她第一届教的一个男孩。男孩在单亲家庭中长大,爸爸常打他。在学校,他不写作业、偷东西、打架,蒋长玲从内心里“盼着他早点走”。有一次,男孩偷了生产队的变压器,被爸爸吊在房梁上打,后来离家出走。

  后来,蒋长玲得知,这个男孩因犯罪被判10年,出狱后又染上毒品。多年后,想起这个学生,她后悔自己没用更多办法帮助他。

  “我自己也曾经是一只丑小鸭。”蒋长岭在会上分享了自己的成长故事。她说,为了供养三个女儿,父母很辛苦,爸爸总是喝酒发泄情绪,妈妈则经常打骂孩子,她是老大,挨打最多。

  从小,她很少体会到父母亲情,只记得生活的辛苦,八九岁那年,她得了皮肤病,“脖子、手、脸都脱了皮”,还要去地里劳作,汗水流淌进皮肤里,“苦得没地方倾诉。”

  有段时间,她想过死,准备好农药,把自己反锁在家,开始给家人写遗嘱。先是爸爸,然后是妈妈,写到奶奶时,她写不下去了,她想起奶奶在她生日时给她煮鸡蛋、烤红薯,把一碗稠米粥留给她喝,给她夏夜扇风、冬天暖脚,吃水果糖。

  “我觉得我不能死,死了最伤心的是我奶奶。”蒋长玲放弃了自杀。她说自己很幸运,因为奶奶陪伴她长到19岁,奶奶是她心中“最后一颗糖”。她用自己的经历告诉其他老师们,“人活在关系中,坏的关系危害生命。”

  后来她遇到过不少问题孩子。其中有一名患有交流障碍的学生,得知他喜欢读《三国演义》《水浒传》,蒋长玲也跟着读。有一次,学生在食堂发脾气,她先抱了抱他,拿面包、牛奶给他吃,告诉他,等他什么时候愿意说话,就来找她。

  后来,这名学生考入一所当地很好的高中,但读了两个星期,就不想读了,家长找蒋长玲劝,蒋长玲了解后得知,他想休学是因为在新学校没有朋友,也没有可信任的老师,她又帮助学生转到一所有朋友的学校。

  蒋长玲说,面对这些问题孩子,她能做的是温柔对待他们,“成为他们心中的那颗糖。”

  “教育首要培养的是人,其次是人才。”李镇西认为,在当前教育背景下,尤其需要强调这一点。他以陶行知的名言“皮鞭下有瓦特”举例,“这个孩子以后不是瓦特就应该给他皮鞭吗?瓦特可能会有出息,但假如他是个普通的劳动者,能自食其力,这叫不叫有出息?”

  他在书里讲过一个“普通学生”的故事。那是他带的第一届学生,成绩一般,长相一般,表现一般,以至于站在一群学生中,“自然就融化到集体中了”。

  多年后,李镇西与这个学生重逢,得知他后来高考落榜,在一所技工学校读驾驶专业,经历了分配、下岗、创业,最终成为一名公交车驾驶员。学生对李镇西说,因为开车,他见过形形色色的人,有黑社会性质组织的人、犯人、后来被枪毙的贪官,“见过很多阴暗面”。

  “我有这么复杂的经历,本来是很容易堕落的。但没沾染社会上的邪恶风气,我常提醒自己不要越界,像老师说的,做一个好人,一个善良和正直的人。”他对李镇西说。

  后来,李镇西专门去坐了他的公交车,两人聊了一路。学生说起他最倒霉的事,是被一个醉酒的乘客殴打,导致眼角缝了7针,最开心的时刻是有乘客夸他开得好、态度好,坐过站后,宁可等半个小时也要坐他的车返回。学生还说,“李老师,我没有出息,但乘客很喜欢我。”李镇西告诉他,“这就是出息。”很多家长不能接受这种“出息”。

  王爱月认为,自己受周围人的评价影响,把分数看得过重。“社会上看人的标准都是分数,比如亲戚朋友聚会,都是问孩子考多少分,没有人说孩子在家里干家务,大家去表扬孩子,对吧?”

  儿子厌学后,李康的妈妈开始学习“父母成长课程”,以前,儿子学习成绩下降,她会抱怨儿子不争气,说“不是为了你,我的生活会好一点”。如今,她反思,对儿子发泄情绪是因为自己“内动力不足”,要从自身找原因。

  陈艳也开始反思自己。她回想自己成长经历:在农村长大,通过读书改变命运,为了学习牺牲人际交往。她觉得自己可以做到的,女儿也可以做到。为了不让女儿“输在起跑线上”,她让孩子四年级学习新概念英语,给孩子报舞蹈、画画等各种兴趣班。

  她反思,自己只关注孩子学习,忽略了她的心理需求。“我活在我自己的经验里”,陈艳说,她意识到“时代不一样了”,不能再让女儿像自己以前一样,为了读书牺牲人际交往。

  有时候,想到女儿以后可能“上一所一般的学校,找一个一般的工作,成为一个普通人”,陈艳又陷入焦虑中。但她又告诉自己这么想不对,“我们看待一个人的时候似乎总有一套很强的世俗标准,关注他有没有稳定的工作,有没有找到对象,而忽略了一个人的基础品质,去关注他是不是善良、开心,是不是一个健全的人。”

  “必须承认,教育不是万能的,有时候甚至是无能的。”詹大年说,当不知道怎么做的时候,第一信条是“保护生命”,“让他们好好活着,开开心心的。以后会有路的,说不定这条路是他自己悟出来的,说不定他哪一天能得到一种帮助。要相信种子,相信岁月。”

  他说,教育就是多给生命一条路,一条任何时候都可以玩下去的路。

  (文中王爱月、陈阳、陈艳、李康均为化名)

  中青报·中青网记者 尹海月 来源:中国青年报