The RCEF Blog 博客

English translation is available here.

RCEF成立以来组织的第一次教师培训在黄山休宁县顺利结束。整个过程没有丝毫的虚浮，实实在在地印烙在老师们的记忆中。作为主办组织的工作人员，虽说我并不是一个擅长教育的人，然而亲历这次培训，却给我的人生补充了一次重要的教育课堂。

南京与黄山的两日旅行让整个关爱团队的气氛融洽而和谐，随处散发着相互关怀与轻松诙谐的气息。而我更加相信这样的氛围可以在未来的工作中辐射出巨大的能量，这或许是我们每一个人都应该为之所庆幸的。

我们所选择的培训地是“休宁德胜平民学校”，由于其特殊的理念，以及与关爱某些相似的模式；再加之黄山导游为我们介绍的休宁“中国第一状元县”的特殊身份，多少给了我们“未见其人，先闻其声”的感觉，实在想一探究竟。而当挤满将近30人的中巴车驶进这所学校的时候，我们所看到的是一片绿色映衬出的美丽而平和的校园，让人感到一种真真实实的踏实与平静，此刻南方闷热的天气丝毫不能将其掩盖，这正与他们的校训“勤劳，不走捷径”相得益彰。而在人心日益浮躁的今天，这份踏实与平静更显得弥足珍贵。我想，教育也许本该就是这样，在平静的氛围中让人具备踏实与勤劳的性格，可是如今有谁能说自己做得到呢？

南方的草生长得很繁茂，我们的思想也在这样的水土中恣意的发散。从培训第一天林治美演讲的“教育先行者”与之后讨论的主题“农村学生的出路”开始，每一个人都在反思到底我们的农村教育应该培养什么样的人，而我们的教师应该教给他们些什么样的东西？例如，农村的学生走出校园后，会开始尝试自己做小生意。那他需要什么技能呢？计算能力、调查能力、沟通能力、自学能力、电脑知识、自信、拼搏、等等；而他们在学校里，能够学到这些么？如果不能，我们又应该从现在开始通过什么方法培养他们呢？正如李光对在最后总结时提及的陶行知“教学做合一”的含义，为我们多少提供了作为农村老师，大家应该探索方向的参考。

培训的高潮出现在第二天，我们有幸请到了著名的左兆军老师来为我们讲课。左老师曾在教育改革方面做出过杰出的成绩，其教育的理念与实践经验让我们所有人惊叹。在几乎不间断一整天的讲座中，他一次又一次的开启了我们关于“创造教育”理解的大门。“曾经有一次，我推了一辆自行车到教室里让孩子们观察，他们提出了各种各样，五花八门的问题，比如自行车的轮子为什么是圆的？…… 后来我让他们去自己研究自行车，于是在这之后一个月的时间里，孩子们每天都在讨论自行车。最后班里的每一位同学都写出了关于自行车的论文，写的最多的孩子居然写了36页稿纸！连平时写作文只能写三两句话的孩子也足足写满了5页。”还有激光灯的例子，死黄鼠狼的例子等等。对农村老师来说最头疼的科学课，在左老师的手里变得如此活泛，如此的充满生机。我想我们的教育是否也应该是这样，不仅让孩子们学到“真知识”，而且还学到探索知识的方法。满满当当的一天讲下来，还是感觉时间不够用，还有很多东西没有讲完。后来才听说，左老师说他最长的一次连讲了六天，不是一般人。

The first teacher training organized since RCEF’s founding has been concluded smoothly in Xiuning County, Huangshan city. The whole process didn’t have the slightest bit of pretension and made a real imprint on the teacher’s memories. Though far from being an education expert, I find this training experience intellectually very important to my life as an employee of the host organization.

The two days’ travelling from Nanjing to Mt. Huang was blessed with a harmonious atmosphere as everyone got on well with each other. All around there was an ambience of candid camaraderie and fun. Moreover, I believe this kind of ambience will help release even more energy into our future work, which is something perhaps everyone would rejoice in.

This place for the training is called “Xiuning Desheng People’s School” which we selected for its special ethos and the fact it shares with Guan Ai a similar schooling model. To spice things up, our tour guide introduced Xiuning’s special dentity as ‘China’s number one county for the imperial examinations which really gave us a sense of its historical prestige and standing. Whilst travelling to school on a bus filled with 30 people, all we could see the greenery embracing this beautiful and peaceful campus. It made us feel truly at ease and calm. Even the notoriously humid weather of the south could not repress this feeling. The environment really complemented nicely their school motto “work hard and take no short cuts’. In today’s increasingly restless world this peace is very precious. I think education originally was meant to be like this where amids a tranquil atmosphere people could develop a practical and diligent character. However, nowadays who can take for granted that he/she can do just that?

In the south, the grass grows luxuriantly and in these surroundings our thoughts were also released from all restraints. After the first day of training which featured Lin Zhimei’s speech “pioneers in education” and the debated topic of “way out for rural students”, everybody began to think about exactly what kind of individual rural education should cultivate and what exactly our teachers should teach them. For example, when rural students graduate from school, some may attempt their own small businesses-what skills would they need? To name a few: arithmetic skills, research skills, communication skills, the ability of self-study, computing skills, self-confidence and perseverance, etc. While they are in school, can they acquire these? If they cannot, from now on through what means could we develop them? Just like the way Li Guang mentioned in his conclusion about Tao Xingzhi’s meaning of “the combining of teaching, studying and doing” we gained some insights about this direction, which everyone should think harder about as rural teachers.

The training’s high point came on the second day where we had the luck to invite the famous Teacher Zuo Zhaojun to give us a lecture. Zuo Zhaojun is noted for his great achievements in the field of educational reforms. his experience in educational theory and practice left us all in awe. During almost a full day’s teaching, he again and again opened the door wide to us with “creative education” concepts. “Once I pushed a bike into the class and asked the students to inspect it and they asked all sorts of different questions. For example, why are the bikes’ wheel round? Afterwards, I got them to go and research about bikes. Consequently, for the next month the kids were all discussing bikes. Later, every student in the class wrote a paper about bikes. One child went as far as writing a draft paper running 36 pages! Even a child who normally would only write two or three sentences worte a full five pages.” His list also included the laser light example, the dead weasel example, etc. For rural teachers, science classes are the biggest headache but in the hands of Teacher Zuo, they become dynamic and full of life. I think about whether or not our education should be like this in not only making the children acquire “real Knowledge but also study methods of how to seek out knowledge. A full day of speeches was made and still it did not feel like the time had been fully used; there were still many things that had not been discussed in full. Afterwards, I heard that Teacher Zuo said that the longest he had talked for was six days in a row- truly no ordinary individual!

Translated by Mike Thomson and edited by Naikei Wong