General Secretary Xi Jinping’s concerns | Concerns behind a letter
"When I saw the letter, I recalled the scene of laying the foundation for your school 20 years ago. I am very pleased to know that the school has been getting better and better over the years. The students study hard, love labor, and grow up healthily and happily." May 30 On the occasion of the upcoming International Children's Day, General Secretary Xi Jinping replied to the students of Zhijiang Primary School in Jialing District, Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, cordially encouraging them and wishing them and children across the country a happy holiday.
Behind this reply from the General Secretary is a touching friendship that spans mountains and seas and goes in both directions.
"I'm so happy to receive a reply from Grandpa Xi!" "Grandpa Xi's encouragement makes me full of strength." In early summer, everything is beautiful and full of vitality. The Zhijiang Primary School campus located on the bank of the Jialing River is full of joy, and the children's faces are filled with happiness and pride.
Walking into Zhijiang Primary School, the sound of books is audible. The school has a library, computer room, dance studio, plastic track and other hardware facilities. In this situation, it is hard to imagine that this school once suffered from dilapidated buildings, academic difficulties, and environmental problems.
This is the campus of Zhijiang Primary School taken on May 31. Photo by reporter Xu Bingjie
Zhijiang Primary School was formerly a mountain primary school in Jialing District. The original school site was located halfway up the mountain. The mountain was high and the road was steep, and the school building was old. Pu Hui, who has graduated from university, studied in this primary school. His family lived at the foot of the mountain and had to walk more than an hour on the mountain road every day to go to school. “In winter, we have to set off before dawn. What’s worse is that the school building is in disrepair and is dilapidated and leaky. Rain is very unsafe."
The turning point came in 2004. The school was relocated with the assistance of counterparties in Zhejiang Province. Xi Jinping, then Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, laid the foundation stone for the school in May of the same year. The school was officially put into use in September 2005. The school was named Zhijiang Primary School. Zhijiang is the alias of Qiantang River to remember Zhejiang’s support for construction.
The school building was moved from the middle of the mountain to the foot of the mountain, so it is no longer difficult for children to go to school; old dilapidated buildings have been turned into buildings; the new school also has a canteen and is equipped with direct drinking water dispensers, so the children can eat healthy and nutritious hot meals; the teaching staff is strong It is getting stronger and stronger, and more and more young teachers are coming here, many of them are college students...
"The school has changed so much, let's write a letter to Grandpa Xi." Before May Day this year, Tang Hailing, the monitor of the fifth grade class at Zhijiang Primary School, and his classmates came up with this idea. In order to let Grandpa Xi directly feel the current situation of the campus, the children also drew the school gate on the letter paper. "I didn't expect Grandpa Xi to reply so quickly. I was surprised and happy. This is the best message we received on Children's Day." one's gift".
This best "gift" is full of the General Secretary's deep concern for the children.
In 1996, Zhejiang counterpart assistance began in 12 impoverished counties and districts in Guangyuan and Nanchong, Sichuan.
Zhijiang Primary School is the fruitful result of Zhejiang-Sichuan counterpart assistance in the field of education. After the launch of a new round of east-west collaboration, two female teachers, Li Linyun and Yao Haihong, from Zheshang Primary School in Linhai City, Zhejiang Province, came to Zhijiang Primary School in September 2022 to provide support teaching for a year and a half. They not only brought advanced teaching methods and educational concepts, but also forged a deep friendship with local children.
On May 31, students interacted with teachers in science class. Photo by reporter Xu Bingjie
Zhijiang Primary School currently has 58 teaching staff and 287 primary school students. While serving as the Chinese teacher and head teacher of Class 1 of the third grade of Zhijiang Primary School, Yao Haihong made many students in the class fall in love with reading.
"Mr. Yao's class is very interesting. There are rich activities such as sitcom performances, 'train driving' idioms, etc., which made me fall in love with Chinese classes." 10-year-old Zhou Shuyu said that her Chinese scores improved last year. Teacher Yao She was given a book "Mi Xiaoquan's School Notes" as a reward. "This book is very interesting. Later, I read more extracurricular books, and writing essays no longer felt like keeping a running account."
On the title page of Zhou Shuyu's Chinese language document, there is written Yao Haihong's phone number and address, "Teacher Yao said that when I am admitted to a university in Zhejiang, she will treat me to dinner, and I will work hard to fulfill this agreement."
Zhijiang Primary School has established an educational cooperation pairing mechanism with many primary schools in Zhejiang, and teachers are regularly sent to each other for exchanges and learning. Rural teachers have more opportunities to go out and "learn from experience." Wang Junli, a Chinese teacher at Zhijiang Primary School, once went to Hushan Primary School in Wuyi County, Zhejiang Province for training, exchange and temporary employment. "I went to a city school to learn how to effectively communicate with children and learn diverse teaching methods." After returning from the training, Wang Junli shared her learning experience with other teachers in the school and applied the methods she learned in teaching.
Cheng Minjiang, leader of the Zhejiang-Eastern and Eastern Collaboration Linhai City work team in Jialing District, said that in recent years, with the help of Wuyi County and Linhai City in Zhejiang Province, Jialing District has cooperated in vocational education, infrastructure construction, school co-construction, talent training, etc. "We will further deepen the cooperation between the east and the west, focusing on school teaching reform, subject co-construction, school management, talent training, resource sharing, cultural exchanges, etc., and further deepen and expand areas and enrich the content of educational cooperation."
Mountains and seas are not far away, nor are we limited by geography. Over the years, the education authorities in Zhejiang and Sichuan have continued to deepen exchanges and cooperation, jointly strengthened project planning and implementation, supported and promoted Sichuan paired counties to improve school running conditions, subsidize students from financially disadvantaged families, train teachers, deepen vocational education collaboration, etc. Zhechuan Education Collaboration in various fields blooms flowers of friendship and bears fruitful results.
In his reply, General Secretary Xi Jinping hoped that the students would set up lofty aspirations, cherish the good times, adhere to the comprehensive development of morality, intelligence, physical education, art and labor, strive to be good young people in the new era who love the party and patriotism, are self-reliant and striving to make progress, and strive to grow up to be worthy of building a strong country. , a pillar of national rejuvenation. Warm and powerful words inspire young people to pursue their dreams and run.
With the teaching of music, physical education, art, labor, science and other subjects taking root in Zhijiang Primary School and the improvement of the school's soft power, students' comprehensive quality has been comprehensively developed. In addition to the colorful second classroom, field work classes are very popular among children. In the plantation in a corner of the campus, eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers are hanging on the branches. This is a labor practice base opened by the school using open space. In their spare time, children weed, sow, fertilize, and water here... In the fragrance of the soil, they learned about plant care and the knowledge of the twenty-four solar terms, participated in spring plowing in summer, autumn harvesting, and winter storage, and experienced "the fragrance of rice flowers says a good year." The hard work and joy of making a sound.
On May 31, teachers led students to learn vegetable knowledge at the labor practice base of Zhijiang Primary School. Photo by reporter Xu Bingjie
"This is a primary school built because of the relationship between the two places. The school has been providing gratitude education to children for 20 years, allowing students to feel love, understand love, and learn to love." Chen Zhenya, the principal of Zhijiang Primary School, said that through gratitude education, children We inherit the red gene, repay the society, warm more people with light and heat, and pass on the love.
Twenty years have passed, and many students have now gone to work and become the backbone of various industries. Some of them have devoted themselves to the forefront of science and technology, writing innovative stories with wisdom and sweat; some have taken root at the grassroots level and served the people with hard work and dedication.
"When I pass my alma mater when I go back to my hometown from other places, I will go and take a look." Jiang Ming, who works in the Chengdu Basic Court, witnessed the groundbreaking ceremony of Zhijiang Primary School as a student representative and presented the team flag to Grandpa Xi.
"Grandpa Xi's smile and hugs have always encouraged me to work hard." Jiang Ming said that these moments of being inspired by love have nourished her life for a long time.
Seeds of hope take root and sprout in the fields. Every child is bathed in the sunshine, enjoys a fairer and higher-quality education, and has a brilliant life.
