This summer, a rural primary school in Hengshan County, Hunan Province opened swimming lessons for the first time. Village physical education teacher Tang Huan built a swimming pool at his own expense to teach children about swimming and drowning prevention.
Tang Huan worked hard for three years to do this. The reason was that two of his students drowned unfortunately two years ago. He decided to teach the children swimming and drowning prevention skills so that the tragedy would never happen again.
Recently, Tang Huan told a reporter from the Yangtze Evening News, Ziniu News, "Every summer, left-behind children drown from time to time, and sometimes several people drown at a time. I think that to prevent drowning, we must first master swimming skills, and at the same time let students understand that they will swim in the river without permission. What are the dangers?"
By mistake, I became a primary school physical education teacher
"A man is drowning, and the other people are holding hands to save him. This is good. Several people are going to die together. Even if a primary school student has learned to swim and can swim more than ten meters, he cannot jump into the water to save him, you guys. It's still far from being able to save people." Tang Huan repeatedly emphasized these matters to his students during his swimming lessons for more than a month.
Tang Huan is a physical education teacher at Central Wan Primary School in Xinqiao Town, Hengshan County, Hunan Province. From May 25 to July 5 this year, he built a swimming pool at his own expense and offered free swimming lessons for fourth and fifth grade students.
In order to promote this plan, he worked hard for three years.
Tang Huan is a graduate of the School of Physical Education. In 2009, he applied for the Wuhan Institute of Physical Education with a score of more than the first line, majoring in physical education, specializing in Sanda.
"I never wanted to be a teacher before. When I took the college entrance examination, my scores could be applied to any college such as Hunan Normal University, but I just want to go to that kind of professional sports university, get in touch with professional sports, and go to the level after graduation. Gao was a coach or engaged in the fitness industry, so he chose Wuhan Institute of Physical Education."
Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, formerly known as Zhongnan Institute of Physical Education, is very strong.
During his university studies, in addition to studying this professional course, Tang Huan also took advantage of the school's convenience to get a lot of certificates, such as Sanda coach certificate, basketball coach certificate, basketball referee certificate, etc., swimming coach certificate and lifeguard certificate. time to test.
"I haven't learned anything in this area before, and I haven't been exposed to professional swimming training, but the school has a lot of resources, and there are many professionals. The General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China has a test center in our school. If you pass the written test and skill test, you will get the certificate.”
With the skills and certificates, Tang Huan took part-time jobs outside during the holidays, and his college life was very fulfilling.
In 2013, Tang Huan graduated from Wuhan Institute of Physical Education with an undergraduate degree. At that time, his family suddenly encountered some problems and had to return to his hometown. By accident, he became a primary school physical education teacher.
As a primary school teacher in a rural area, in his words, "Life can be seen at a glance, and there is not much room for development and progress." And many of his college classmates are teachers in colleges and universities, or have great careers in all walks of life. Development, but Tang Huan felt more satisfied. In his spare time, he raised bees, chickens and ducks, volunteered to remove wasps for the villagers, and made a short video, so he could do what he wanted to do, "My current life is what I thought about it myself. "
He was saddened by the drowning of two proud students
Swimming lessons in rural primary schools were due to some tragedies Tang Huan experienced.
Two years ago, Tang Huan's two students drowned unfortunately, which made him very sad.
"These two students have a very good relationship with me. When they were studying in school, they were all members of my basketball team and were very obedient. After graduating from junior high school, they were admitted to key provincial high schools."
"One of them went to play in a small river below Hengshan Mountain in Nanyue during the summer vacation. When his companion fell into the water, he went to pull it. Neither of them could swim, and they were both drowned. Another student He went to the river with his family to play, accidentally fell into the river, and drowned silently, and his family didn't even see it."
Tang Huan felt very sorry for the two students, "Both children are about 1.8 meters tall, and they play basketball very well. I used to tutor them one-on-one after class. I have taught them for many years. Proud student."
Tang Huan likes fishing, so he did a survey by the way, and found that among adults who like fishing, nearly 70% of them can't swim. Accidentally slipped into the water while fishing in a steeper place.
The education sector takes student drowning very seriously.
In 2007, the Ministry of Education released the "Analysis Report on the Overall Situation of Safety Accidents for Primary and Secondary School Students" for the first time, showing that drowning accidents occupied the first place among all kinds of safety accidents, accounting for 31.25%, and the drowning casualty rate of primary school students was significantly higher than that of middle and high school students.
Shanghai also released the "Shanghai Primary and Secondary School Safety Report" in 2013, which showed that drowning deaths ranked first among student fatalities in 2012, accounting for 42.5% of the total, mainly due to privately swimming in the river, or accidentally slipping into the river, resulting in drowning.
Every summer, drowning prevention education is a key task of education departments at all levels. In many places, primary and secondary school students are strictly prohibited from swimming in rivers and lakes without permission.
However, the ban does not completely prevent children from sneaking into the river to swim, and accidents of drowning due to accidental falling into the river are not uncommon.
What is even more distressing is that there are also many incidents of rescuers drowning together when they rescue drowning people because they do not know how to rescue them.
Most of Tang Huan's students are left-behind children. They live with their grandparents and their parents work outside. The supervision at home is not strong enough.
He found that although drowning prevention education is vigorously carried out, most of the emphasis is on staying away from rivers and lakes.
"I think it is appropriate to publicize this aspect, to make children aware of the dangers in the water. However, it is the most important for children to master swimming and life-saving skills. Just threatening children and telling them not to play in the water is not a good thing. It's not very useful for children who really want to play with water. I like playing with water since I was a child. I was beaten with a stick by my parents, but after being beaten, I would sneak into the water again."
Having witnessed the tragedy of drowning, Tang Huan had the idea of popularizing swimming and drowning prevention education in schools.
In order to prevent drowning, he felt that "the key is to learn to swim, and know how to save yourself or save people when drowning occurs.
Blocking is worse than sparse. If you teach children to swim, or provide children with a safe water platform, so that they do not sneak into unsafe places to play, you can largely avoid swimming in the river without permission.
"He started swimming lessons with the support of the school.
In recent years, local education departments have been promoting swimming education in primary and secondary schools, and Tang Huan's idea coincides with this.
In 2017, Hainan issued an implementation plan to popularize swimming education for primary and secondary school students, and made it clear that by 2020, the goal of "everyone of the province's primary and secondary school graduates will be able to swim safely".
Last year, the Hainan Provincial Department of Education also adjusted and optimized the physical education subject examination at the junior high school level in the province, and included swimming as an elective item in the middle school physical education entrance examination.
In 2019, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education launched the Action Plan for Strengthening School Sports Aesthetic Education and Labor Education, which clearly requires that from 2020, all localities should try to find ways to start swimming education in a certain grade of primary school (recommended fourth grade).
In order to solve the problem of student drowning from the source, Ganyu District, Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, began to organize the first-year students in the district to participate in swimming training from the summer vacation of 2019, and asked for a teaching package.
In 2019, Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province proposed in the "Minsheng No. 1 Document" that "special courses such as swimming will be piloted in 20 compulsory education schools".
However, in many places, the conditions for swimming education for primary and secondary school students are still lacking, especially in rural schools.
Swimming lessons are also risky. Not only did the school have concerns, but Tang Huan also hesitated whether it was worth taking the risk, "No one has ever done this in Hengshan County, and I have never heard of any teacher building a swimming pool in the countryside. Teach the kids to swim." But after much thought, he was determined to keep going.
Since the summer vacation of the previous year, Tang Huan began to promote the opening of swimming lessons. The school gave strong support, and the matter was settled the following year. This year, a swimming training class was finally held.
He teaches fourth and fifth grades this year, and swimming lessons are aimed at children in these two grades.
The swimming pool is mobile, and Tang Huan invested more than 10,000 yuan to buy it.
Although his salary is only more than 3,000 yuan per month, "but I can afford the cost of 10,000 yuan, because I do things like wild honey in my spare time, and I have some income. Big financial hardship. Some say I'm stupid, but I think it's worth it!"
There is an enclosed site in the school, between two classroom dormitory buildings, which becomes the site for the swimming pool.
The local water company provided a lot of help for the swimming pool water, and specially connected a relatively large water pipe to facilitate them to release water.
Despite the difficulties, we will continue to advance the course
The first is the changeable weather conditions, which affect the training progress.
Tang Huan thought that the outdoor swimming pool was similar to the indoor swimming pool. At most, he would "work your throat a little harder and shout more."
After the swimming pool is completed, it will be exposed to the sun when the weather is sunny, and it will not be possible to swim when it is thunder and rain. The swimming pool was put into use on May 25 this year, and it was completed on July 5. Nearly half of the time could not be taught due to the weather, which seriously delayed the training plan. , so he is not very satisfied with the teaching effect.
"Accordingly, the pass rate of the students I taught used to be above 98%, but now it is at most 70%, and one-third of the students did not learn because of the weather."
In addition, some parents are not very supportive, thinking that learning to swim is harmful and unhelpful, and they are more likely to drown when they learn to swim.
"Only half of the students can actually participate. Many parents have no way to change their attitudes. They refuse to sign the waiver of liability. I can't force them."
Even so, more than 100 students participated in swimming training.
He used to have 3 physical education classes every day, plus 2 after-school tutoring, a total of 5 classes, in this more than a month, he changed it to swimming class, even when it rained, let the students Practice on shore.
Tang Huan acted as the coach, his wife and another physical education teacher acted as lifeguards, ensuring that there were two teachers at the same time.
"My throat hasn't stopped for more than a month, and I just shout at my throat."
Drowning prevention and rescue is the key content of Tang Huan's teaching, which has been interspersed in the swimming teaching process.
"Because you talk to them on the shore, it's not vivid and vivid, and they don't have an impression. I used some specific language and movement in the water to tell the content a little more witty, and the students were impressed."
He repeatedly stressed that he could not go into the water hand in hand to save people.
"Many people think that the number of people is powerful, and the hand-in-hand method has killed a lot of people, and there will be a lot of deaths. I tell my students that no matter how good swimming skills are before they are adults, they should not easily go into the water to save people. When they grow up, If you have a rational understanding of your own behavioral ability, you can do it when you feel that you can do it, and you are willing to risk your life to go into the water to save people.”
The children all love learning to swim and enjoy playing in the water.
He taught for 40 days, and each student went into the water for 6 lessons on average. "Two-thirds of the students have no problem swimming 10-20 meters. Later, when they walk to the pond and accidentally fall, they can definitely climb up."
Tang Huan said that the education department of Hengyang City has started swimming training on campus this year, and in the future, when conditions are ripe, swimming will be listed as a high school entrance examination project.
"When the senior high school entrance examination takes swimming, there will be less resistance to popularizing swimming. I will definitely continue to promote swimming teaching in the future."