Meet you丨Standing in the countryside for 28 years! He used "left-hand writing on the blackboard" to lead the children out of the mountains
There is a rural teacher named Wang Xiaoyi in Shuangfeng, Hunan. When Wang Xiaoyi was three years old, his right hand was curled up due to polio, and the only thing he could hold the penholder with was his left hand. On the way to school, he received the care of his teachers; when he grew up, he chose to return to his hometown to take root in the mountain village and teach, and finally practiced neat chalk calligraphy with his left hand.
Since 1995, he has taught in 4 remote village primary schools and used "left-hand blackboard writing" to send more than 600 students out of the mountains. In addition to teaching, in order to create a better educational environment for children, he also raised funds to build roads, build playgrounds, collect donations of books, and build libraries. Let’s hear his story together.
1
28 years of "Left Hand Writing on the Blackboard" has sent out more than 600 college students in rural areas
At 7:30 in the morning, Wang Xiaoyi came to the school gate early as usual. Polio not only made his right hand curled up and basically unable to do anything, but also made his right leg 3 centimeters shorter than his left leg. But over the years, he has developed a delicate sense of balance and looks just like any other person.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
When we were in primary school, we saw that other students wrote with their right hands, but I wrote with my left hand, and my writing was crooked. Maybe you are different from others, others laugh at you, and your handwriting is poor.
I saw the classmates laughing at Wang Xiaoyi. At that time, Wang Xiaoyi's class teacher told a story to the students.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
He also gave an example, saying that we live in a rural area. In spring, bamboo shoots grow. He said that the bamboo shoots inside the stone slabs grow extra strong because they have a perseverance. At that time, I made a wish. I thought that the teacher taught me so well that when I grow up, I also want to be a teacher.
In 1994, in order to improve the shortage of teachers in rural primary schools in various villages and towns, Shuangfeng County, where Wang Xiaoyi is located, organized an examination in the county, and students who passed the examination were able to participate in teacher training collectively. At that time, 18-year-old Wang Xiaoyi was studying Chinese, mathematics, psychology and other normal content in the training class. A year later, Wang Xiaoyi, who passed the test, was assigned to work as a teacher at Fengjia Primary School in his hometown, Suo Shi Town, officially embarking on his first job in life. However, when he welcomed the new students for the first time, the reaction from the parents surprised him.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
When parents came to sign up on September 1, the first day, they saw that I was writing crookedly with my left hand. They said on the spot, why do you, a teacher, have such poor handwriting? Later, they told other parents Let's just say that this teacher's handwriting is very poor, and the child will definitely be worried if he is placed in his class. Tears welled up in my eyes at that time.
After the sadness, Wang Xiaoyi, who refused to admit defeat, immediately cheered up and practiced writing with his left hand again. In order to write good calligraphy that would convince children and parents in the new semester, Wang Xiaoyi never missed any opportunity to practice calligraphy.
I practice on the blackboard after class, on the newspaper after school, and on the door panel when I get home. In the first school year, Wang Xiaoyi chose to live on campus because he was far away from home. Seeing that he was willing to work hard, the old teacher who lived with him on campus taught him how to write on the blackboard, where to start and end a word, the font, and Wang Xiaoyi studied the framework and structure seriously from scratch.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
Later in the second semester, when their parents came to send their children to pay school fees, they saw that my pen writing was regular and they said, Teacher Wang, you still have perseverance and determination. You write with your left hand. There is still a lot of progress.
2
"I am both a teacher and a parent of children"
Starting from the rural primary school in his hometown, Wang Xiaoyi took one step at a time, not only developed a neat and beautiful left-hand blackboard writing, but also gained a firm foothold on the three-foot podium.
After more than 20 years of teaching, his identity has also undergone some changes. In 2015, Wang Xiaoyi took up the position of principal; in 2021, he was transferred to the current Yuxian Primary School as the principal. Although there are only more than 60 children in five grades in Yuxian Primary School, which covers an area of several hundred square meters, Wang Xiaoyi said that the burden on his shoulders is even heavier.
Yuxian Primary School is located in Qunshan Village, Suoshi Town. The school is located on a hillside. In the few years since Wang Xiaoyi came here, he applied to his superiors and raised funds, paved the road in front of the school with cement, and leveled a playground for the children.
At Yuxian Primary School, although Wang Xiaoyi is the principal, he is also responsible for the fifth-grade Chinese, moral and physical education courses. In this way, he can grasp the children's study, life and even mental state at the first time.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
The number of left-behind children reaches over 85%. I am basically both their teacher and their parents at school and at home, caring about them in their studies and taking care of them in their daily lives.
Kuang Su, a student at Yuxian Primary School:
Teacher Wang will expand the text and expand the content of the lecture. The classes he taught were very humorous and I enjoyed his class very much.
In order to increase children's reading volume, Wang Xiaoyi organized a vacant library in the teaching building as a reading room for children.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
To be honest, I am from a rural area myself. The only way for rural children to have a future is through learning and reading. If they have books to read, they won't feel lonely, so I try my best to seek help from caring people and donate more books to our school.
From one or two hundred books to more than a thousand books now, the library has become the children's favorite place during after-school service hours after 3:30 p.m. Here, they not only borrow and read books, but also sit together to ask each other questions and share their reading experiences. After listening to the classmates' sharing, everyone looked for their favorite books in the bookshelves and wrote their names on the borrowing register one by one. This register is now a thick one.
3
A rural primary school with only six teachers: “change” and “no change”
Wang Xiaoyi has gradually secured more educational resources for the children in the school, hoping to lead them slowly out of the mountains. But in a rural school surrounded by mountains, his strength alone is not enough. There, there are others, following in Wang Xiaoyi's footsteps, leading the children to learn about the world. At present, this rural primary school with only six teachers has "changed" in the past 28 years, and what has "not changed"?
Every morning, after the children return to the classroom after doing their homework, Wang Xiaoyi will call all the teachers and hold a simple meeting. There is no conference room in the school, so everyone will be outside, basking in the sun, while communicating about the recent situation. . Including him, Yuxian Primary School has only six teachers in total, three of whom are college students assigned just last year.
Hu Zepeng, who just came to Yuxian Primary School in September last year, is in charge of third-grade Chinese and English. He originally worked as an intern in the city, but he had expected to stay in his hometown. However, when he came here, he met Wang Xiaoyi and these lovely children, and his inner thoughts gradually changed.
Hu Zepeng, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
When I first came here, Teacher Wang was a very thoughtful person. He could tell that I had a psychological gap, so he told me his story about my mentality. A change has occurred. No matter where you teach, you should teach well and educate good people.
Wang Xiaoyi hopes that this group of teachers in their 20s from the city will not only accompany the children in the village to complete their studies, but also become another window for them to understand the outside world.
28 years ago, Wang Xiaoyi returned to the countryside and walked onto the three-foot podium with more than 60 like-minded classmates. He has visited four schools over the years. In his opinion, the teaching conditions and teaching methods of schools are changing with the times, and the students and parents they face are also changing. However, the criteria for what makes a good teacher have not changed.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
I just hope that each of their teachers can become a good teacher in the hearts of students. But this good teacher is not something he says, but something he does. What does not need to change is that you must have a love for education and teaching, and maintain this heart.
Wang Xiaoyi, a teacher at Yuxian Primary School:
The first day I stepped into the podium, I wanted to teach my children well. I only had such a simple and honest idea. The communication between people is emotional, and dealing with students is the happiest thing for me.
4
Deeply rooted in rural education, holding up the sky of love with one hand
If Wang Xiaoyi's story were a painting, the center of the picture would be a spring bamboo shoot growing tenaciously under the stone slab. When I was a student, the ridicule of others was a slate; after I became a teacher, my parents’ doubts were a slate. When life pressed down a stone slab, he overturned another one, so he grew extraordinarily strong and lived a tenacious life. He thanked his teacher for his encouragement. Like his teacher, he deeply rooted himself in the fertile soil of rural education.
For 28 years, he has used rural schools as a breeding base, caring for young seedlings and nurturing young comrades. A spring bamboo shoot has now grown into a forest, and there are more people like Wang Xiaoyi who devote themselves to rural education. They dedicate their youth there and lead the children in the mountains to go out and see the wider world.
(CCTV News Client Headquarters reporter Yan Naizhi, Zhang Shengqiang and Lou Chao)