The Beijing police who went to Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province to support education:
Let football take the children out of the mountains
In winter, in the mountains of Qianxinan, Guizhou, the air-conditioning is wrapped in rain and it is bitingly cold.
Even indoors, Cai Shuo was wrapped in a thick down jacket, and only by boiling a pot of water would there be a tinge of warmth in the room.
When he first came here last year, he was extremely uncomfortable, but he liked the playground here very much.
Clouds and mists in the mountains come frequently and move quickly, changing their appearance from time to time. For many afternoons, he took the children to run, stretch, and practice turning back and controlling the ball on the playground. , It seems to be able to overturn the clouds over the entire playground.
A group of young soccer players are trying their best to rush forward with the ball under their feet, break through the opponent's goal, rush to the professional team, and rush out of the mountain.
And Cai Shuo is the football teacher who takes care of this group of children, a football teacher in police uniform.
On March 18, 2021, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau formulated a three-year teaching support plan. 18 outstanding policemen with football and English skills went to Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province to support teaching. They were scattered in 6 schools, and 6 of them taught English, 12 people teach football, Cai Shuo is one of them.
In September 2022, after the end of the first phase of teaching support, Cai Shuo applied to stay on as the second batch of supporting teachers to stay on the playground of Longxi Shiyan School in Pu'an County.
This year, the children achieved a lot, and more and more players were selected by the Qianxinan State Team and became "good seedlings".
For Cai Shuo, teaching football has become more and more handy, and he has also "grown up" in getting along with the children.
Cai Shuo, who just passed his 30th birthday, said that this experience of supporting education in Guizhou made him "stand up" in his 30s.
Recently, Cai Shuo, a Beijing policeman, was interviewed by a reporter from the Beijing News and told about his experience of supporting education in Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province.
From police to "teacher"
I am a policeman in the Bus Corps of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, and I am now a football teacher at Longxi Shiyan School in Pu'an County, Qianxinan, Guizhou.
These two professions do not conflict. The police is my job, and the football teacher is my job at this stage. I have been doing it for one year and nine months. According to the plan, I will do it for another half a year.
After graduating from Beijing Sport University with a major in social sports, I became a civil servant and became a police officer. At that time, I thought that this major would not be useful in the future, but I never thought that when I returned to school, what I learned would be applied to this group of elementary school students. .
The Longxi Shiyan School in Pu'an County where I live is a typical rural school. The whole school building is bright and tidy. There are libraries, canteens, basketball courts, and football fields. The playground is very open and the air is good. It is better than many Beijing schools. .
When we came, the school had moved to this new campus for less than a year, and everything was very new.
But football is also very "new" to the children here, it is fresh "new".
There are not many children who have played football in the whole school, and even looking at the whole Pu'an County, football is not popular.
So we are here, on the one hand, to form and train a team that can represent the school to play games, and at the same time, to popularize football among the children, so that they can run and move on the playground.
Since March 2021, we have first selected a group of boys with good physical fitness in the fifth and sixth grades to form the first campus football team.
The children of the school live in the school from the first grade, so every Monday to Thursday after school, we will have 2 hours of training, the intensity is still very high, but fortunately, the children are generally in good physical condition.
The difficulty of just starting out is self-evident, not only from how to teach children, but also from facing some doubts and pressure.
After a child with good academic performance is selected for the team, the teacher or parents are afraid of delaying their studies and ask the child to quit. I can see the child's reluctance, but they can only persuade them to stay, not force them.
The children have a head
The turning point is accompanied by some achievements.
The earliest time was in May 2021. We had just formed a team for two months. Eight of the 12 children were selected for the county football team of Pu'an County. They went to Beijing to participate in a competition and won the "Glory Group Champion".
The children were very excited, not only because of their good grades, but also because of their own selfishness. They took a plane for the first time and had the opportunity to go to Beijing, a place that even their parents had never been to.
Later, our school took the lead in organizing the Pu'an County Campus Football League, which has been held for the second time this year.
Taking the children to participate in the selection in Qianxinan Prefecture, more and more children went out and saw more of their peers how to kick, how to fight, how to get good grades, and also saw the prosperity of the city.
The children seem to have a head start.
They go to self-study at 8:30 in the evening and turn off the lights at 9:30 to go to bed. There is an hour of washing activities in between. Two children often come to my dormitory and knock on the door to talk to me about how to move. They are not satisfied after training and want to continue learning at night.
There was a girl who once troubled me. Her name was Xiaofang (pseudonym). She was selected by us in May and June of 2021. She has good physical fitness, strong explosive power, and quick mastery of skills. She can play forwards and defenders. Can also be a goalkeeper, very versatile, a good seed.
But she never looked up, didn't speak, and didn't give us any response during training. If I asked a few more questions, she would cry, and I really had no choice.
Until March of this year, we took the girls from the women's team to participate in the state team selection. Xiaofang was selected as the goalkeeper. She muttered, "I'm really good." Since then, it's like a different person. At that time, I It was only then that she was sure that all her performances in the past came from her deep lack of self-confidence.
Although we often encourage her verbally, she lacks a proof for herself.
After going to the state, she found that she was still the best, and she really never cried again.
The girl who used to run away when she saw me even joked with me now, "Coach, you can't run anymore, you're not as good as me."
Xiaofang is now in the sixth grade, and her academic performance has always been very good. She is among the top three in the class, and she took the first place in the latest exam.
Among the 12 children who graduated from our school team this year, 6 were recruited by the key middle schools in the state as special students, and went to junior high schools in Xingyi City, and 4 children entered the key middle schools in the county. A rare opportunity for kids.
This year, the first group of members of our teaching support group returned to Beijing, and the second group of members came to Guizhou.
I applied to stay on and continue to teach football at Longxi Shiyan School.
The reason is simple. I feel that I am still young, and I can discover and bring out more children like Xiaofang, and let football take them out of the mountains to better schools.
grow with the team
With the foundation of the first year, the students are easy to lead in the second year, and they can play the game more easily.
Now our school team has increased in number, with 3 boys' teams and 1 girls' team.
In addition, the interest class can also satisfy some children who do not participate in the football team but are interested in playing football.
In addition, the campus football league in the county is held in our school, the campus is more lively, and the football atmosphere is very strong.
I grew up with the team and myself.
The job of the police is to spot criminals in the crowd, find clues, arrest people, and interrogate. In all links, the brain must run quickly, make judgments, distinguish the truth from the false, and fight wits and courage.
During the more than one year in Guizhou, getting along with the children made me feel that the world is very simple. Whether they are crying or laughing, you don’t need to be too entangled, just welcome them all. Those are the most real feelings of children one side.
Xiaofang's "transformation" was actually quite long and difficult, and I felt very sad for so many times in the middle.
After she became cheerful, I thought about whether I was too impatient or too serious with her before. The child’s heart is pure, and their thoughts are also extremely simple. The knot in her heart may be just a small matter, and we need to accompany her to solve it open.
I grew up, studied, and worked in Beijing, and my journey went smoothly without suffering too much.
But seeing the appearance of the children here and seeing Xiaofang's transformation, I feel that I have to take on more responsibility. I can't still treat myself like a child. It is these children in front of me that really need to be cared for and nurtured.
I also got good news this year. Our principal said that the school's enrollment situation is better than in previous years.
In the past, parents in the surrounding villages sent their children to the county at home, but this year they turned more attention to our school, and the number of students has increased from more than 700 to more than 1,000.
The competition is still going on, our principal told me specifically, don't be under pressure, it is not necessary to win the championship.
She said that there is a saying among schools in Pu'an County that "talking about the dragon's color changes", and this "dragon" is our Longxi Shiyan School.
The children have become more confident. This is the most important thing. "Football is round, and anything can happen in the future." (Beijing News reporter Zhang Jingshu)