What if Jiang Ping wasn’t a genius? The invisible technical secondary school students and their teachers

The news about Jiang Ping made Yu Yongda feel a little complicated.

On June 13, the finalists of the 2024 Alibaba Global Mathematics Competition were announced. Jiang Ping, a 17-year-old girl from Lianshui, Jiangsu, ranked 12th in the world, becoming the first technical secondary school student to enter the finals since the Alibaba Mathematics Competition was launched. The emergence of the "genius female technical secondary school student" set off a sensation on the Internet. In the face of the overwhelming follow-up reports, Yu Yongda, in addition to praising her, unconsciously focused on Jiang Ping's instructor Wang Runqiu.

Both graduated from mathematics majors, both chose to work because of failure in the doctoral examination, and more importantly, both worked as teachers in technical secondary schools. Wang Runqiu's experience is exactly the same as Yu Yongda's. However, now in addition to being a "technical secondary school mathematics teacher", Wang Runqiu is a "talent scout of a genius girl", while Yu Yongda is still just an ordinary "technical secondary school mathematics teacher".

"To be honest, I'm definitely envious. After all, which teacher wouldn't want a student like this?" Yu Yongda paused and said, "But this is ultimately an extreme case, and can even be said to be a miracle, so there's no point in being envious."

Miracles are miracles because they are difficult to replicate. Jiang Ping became famous overnight and became the "visible" technical secondary school student, while Yu Yongda, an ordinary technical secondary school math teacher, has to face a group of ordinary technical secondary school students who have been "invisible" for a long time. However, the inherent prejudice and stereotypes about vocational education have made them "invisible" and be viewed by the public with tinted glasses.

With high work pressure, low sense of professional achievement, and lack of social recognition, the "invisible" secondary school teachers face a series of unique practical problems. At the same time, like their students, they are often intentionally or unintentionally ignored, devalued and misunderstood, and even regarded as marginalized people in the education system.

On June 22, the finals of the Alibaba Mathematics Competition came to an end. Whether Jiang Ping is a genuine "genius girl" will be determined by public opinion after the results are announced. It can be predicted that no matter what the result is, the "visible" female technical secondary school student Jiang Ping will gradually fade out of the public eye in the future. Vocational education workers, on the other hand, all hope that vocational education can be "visible" more.

Yu Yongda works at a secondary vocational school in a prefecture-level city in Jiangsu. Including him, there are only four math teachers in the school.

This full-time national key secondary vocational school in Jiangsu Province was founded in the 1980s. It currently has more than 2,000 students and offers more than 20 majors, including Chinese cuisine, Chinese and Western pastry making, and mechatronics. Yu Yongda officially joined the school in 2012. Prior to that, he taught advanced mathematics to undergraduates at a third-tier university at the time, and later taught at another high school in Jiangsu Province. When he first arrived at the technical secondary school, Yu Yongda felt a huge gap.

Yu Yongda still remembers the first time he taught a class. There was no loud noise, no open absences, and no fighting as expected. The students' discipline was surprisingly good. But Yu Yongda soon discovered that he seemed to be teaching the air. From the moment the bell rang, the students were already daydreaming. No matter what Yu Yongda said on the podium, there was no feedback in the classroom, and the questions he raised received no response. When the bell rang, Yu Yongda hurriedly "escaped" from the classroom with his textbook.

After spending one embarrassing 45 minutes after another, Yu Yongda realized with disappointment that in this school, mathematics is more like a "secondary subject".

"It's not because the students are not interested, nor because they have a poor foundation or can't understand. The most important thing is that in their minds, there is no need to learn mathematics. Because most of them have no intention of continuing their studies and will not take the college entrance examination." Yu Yongda said that the importance of the subject in the minds of students is linked to the test. When these half-grown children are outside the mainstream college entrance examination system, it is not easy to convince them to pay attention to mathematics.

Yu Yongda is unwilling to be an insignificant "secondary teacher" and does not want his math class to become a "wasting time" for both the on-stage and off-stage teachers. He tries hard to convey the importance of learning math to students, but the results are limited: "Whether you tell students how practical math is in their future work and life, or tell them that the essence of learning math is to exercise their logical thinking ability, students will only think you are talking in a nice way. A sentence like 'we are not taking the college entrance examination' can shut you up on the spot."

In 2015, Jiangsu Province took the lead in implementing a unified provincial academic proficiency test for secondary vocational schools. Five courses, including mathematics, were listed as public basic course test items. As a result, the status of mathematics in students' minds has slightly improved.

However, as a "pass" exam, the questions in the Vocational College Entrance Examination are not difficult and are still not enough to arouse students' attention to mathematics. It is also difficult for Yu Yongda to gain the expected sense of accomplishment.

Yu Yongda's colleague Pan Shufang has to teach 17 classes a week. Although the absolute number of classes he teaches is much more than that of math teachers in ordinary high schools, Pan Shufang admits that due to the lack of pressure to enter higher education, the intensity of work is not comparable, and the results of work are also difficult to quantify: "Teachers in ordinary high schools can compare how many of their students have been admitted to undergraduate programs and how many have been admitted to 985 universities, while the requirement for the vocational high school entrance examination is 100% passing. How can they compare?"

Math teachers in technical secondary schools, who have nothing to compare, are inevitably treated differently. "When people ask you what you do, and you say you're a teacher, everyone respects you. When they ask you what school you teach in, and you say you teach a technical secondary school, the other person's expression becomes a little bit subtle. When they ask you what subject you teach, and you say you teach math, the expression becomes even more subtle," said Pan Shufang.

Having taught in technical secondary schools for more than 20 years, Pan Shufang is used to this kind of tinted glasses and has found a way to reconcile with herself. In her opinion, compared with test scores, it is the responsibility of technical secondary school teachers to guide these children who are not expected and seen to always maintain their enthusiasm for learning and not give up on themselves. Pan Shufang said that she is very pleased every time a student gives a brilliant answer in class or comes to her office after class to ask her questions. For her, this is the "little happiness" that belongs exclusively to technical secondary school teachers.

"Not every technical secondary school mathematics teacher can meet a student like Jiang Ping. As long as there are more students willing to ask questions, it is a kind of affirmation for me," said Pan Shufang.

In Jingjiang, Jiangsu, Pan Shufang's colleague He Jilong has also been a secondary technical school mathematics teacher for more than 20 years.

The Jiangsu Jingjiang Vocational Secondary School where He Jilong teaches was founded in 1958. It is the only secondary vocational school in this county-level city under the jurisdiction of Taizhou City, which is famous for its shipbuilding industry and pork jerky. He Jilong graduated from the Normal University in 1998 and joined the school. He joked that he did not catch up with the "good times" of secondary vocational schools.

He Jilong recalled: "Technical secondary schools were very popular in the past. Only the best students in the county's junior high schools went to technical secondary schools. They could get a decent job after graduation, and everyone was envious. In the 1990s, everyone's ideas gradually changed, and everyone wanted their children to take the college entrance examination and go to university. By the end of the 1990s, there was a huge competition among students, and the number of students for technical secondary schools became increasingly poor."

To this day, going to high school and taking the college entrance exam is still the most mainstream, or even the only, choice for Jiangsu families to plan their children's life paths. According to industry insiders, the ratio of high school and vocational school admissions in Jiangsu in 2023 is close to 7:3, and this year the ratio may further expand to 8:2. In other words, only the bottom 20% of all high school entrance exam candidates have the chance to become vocational school students.

This ratio is directly reflected in the school's enrollment plan. The 2024 enrollment plan released by Jingjiang Secondary Vocational School shows that the admission control line for three-year vocational secondary schools is 300 points. At the same time, students with scores below 300 points also have the opportunity to be admitted after passing the school's comprehensive test. For reference, the admission control line for Jingjiang's general high schools in 2023 is 580.5 points; the minimum admission control line for Jingjiang Senior High School, a local hot high school, is 709 points.

As a major educational province, Jiangsu's secondary education is famous for its "test papers". A cruel fact is that being "divided" in the high school entrance examination is basically equivalent to being "abandoned". As Pan Shufang said, "supporting" these "abandoned" children so that they don't "give up on themselves" is the biggest and most urgent task for secondary school teachers such as He Jilong and Yu Yongda, in addition to daily subject teaching.

"You can imagine the level of these students who scored more than 300 points in a total of 830 points." He Jilong said that he used to be a hot-tempered and impatient person, but now he has become a slow-tempered person who speaks slowly. Compared with students in ordinary high schools, the difference in academic ability of these children is visible to the naked eye. The simple formulas that were taught in the first half of the math class in ordinary high schools have to be broken down and repeatedly explained by He Jilong, and students have to remember them repeatedly. In He Jilong's words, there is no skill, only patience.

"If you can't remember it today, I'll explain it tomorrow. If you still can't remember it tomorrow, I'll explain it the day after tomorrow. I'll explain it until you remember it." The impatient He Jilong back then now teaches in a style similar to Tang Monk in "A Chinese Odyssey".

However, He Jilong never thought that his students were essentially different from ordinary high school students in terms of talent. Poor academic performance is more due to the failure to develop good study habits and attitudes in junior high school, which is often related to the students' original families. According to the person in charge of the relevant department of the school, a considerable number of "problem students" in the school are left-behind children and de facto orphans, or come from divorced families. Compared with academic performance, these children who have long lacked family care have more serious problems in terms of psychological and moral cognition.

An industry insider who has been observing Jiangsu education for a long time told the reporter that there was a saying in a certain place in Jiangsu that summarized the goal of running a technical secondary school: boys don’t bleed, girls don’t have miscarriages. He Jilong was quite disgusted by such a statement: “Isn’t this naked prejudice?!”

"Some people always think that being a teacher in a technical secondary school is easy. To be honest, in terms of teaching pressure alone, it is indeed less than that of teachers in regular high schools. But it is here that we are tired," He Jilong said, patting his chest.

Smoking, drinking, fighting, petty theft... These bad habits that are acquired in society can be reversed in time by "following the rules" in school, in He Jilong's opinion. However, the psychological trauma of the "abandoned" children requires long-term and careful care. Over the years, He Jilong has taught students with perverse and violent personalities, as well as students with depression and even self-harm in class. Facing these children, the only choice for He Jilong and his colleagues is to "not give up."

There are exceptions. The school had no choice but to persuade a student to drop out. Later, the teachers learned that the student was diagnosed with a serious mental illness.

"In fact, the child's problem was already very serious when he was in junior high school. He should have received medical treatment earlier, but no one cared at home." He Jilong sighed again.

"Winning a hundred awards in skill competitions at all levels is not as good as Jiang Ping's overnight fame. Jiang Ping's appearance is of course a good thing for vocational education, but being 'seen' in this way is not what we expect," said Dai Fenfei, director of the Finance and Commerce Department of Jingjiang Vocational School. Not long ago, he and his students won the first prize in the higher vocational group and the third prize in the secondary vocational group in a national e-commerce skills competition.

Dai Fenfei is also a veteran teacher at the school. He experienced the "tail" of what He Jilong called the "good times for technical secondary schools", and then there was the low tide of vocational education that has continued to this day. He joked that as a technical secondary school teacher, not only was his "status in the world" inferior to others, but even his "family status" was not good: "My family always criticized me, saying that I could only get by in the technical secondary school."

Dai Fenfei certainly doesn't think that his job is just "getting by". He believes that the huge gap in high-quality skilled talents has been exposed. The further development of the industry requires a large number of technical talents as support. This is especially true in Jiangsu, where the manufacturing industry is developed and trade is prosperous. Against this backdrop, it is just a matter of time before vocational education can get out of the trough. But before that, more recognition of vocational education is needed, and some conceptual issues also need to be changed urgently.

"We hope that the whole society can gradually reach a consensus that vocational education can also lead to success," said Gu Weiguo, principal of Jingjiang Secondary Vocational School.

Deep-rooted ideas cannot be reversed overnight. Going to a technical secondary school does not mean that there is no chance to go to university. Perhaps this can be seen as the first step in promoting this change in ideas. In 2019, Jiangsu began to implement the vocational education college entrance examination system. By taking the vocational education college entrance examination, technical secondary school students also have the opportunity to enter a junior college or a second-tier college. At the same time, taking Jingjiang Secondary Vocational School as an example, in addition to launching a five-year higher vocational education, the school has also cooperated with Taizhou University, Changzhou Mechanical and Electrical Vocational and Technical College and other universities to launch "34 secondary vocational undergraduate" and "33 secondary and higher vocational education connection" and other academic systems.

Gu Weiguo believes that with the progress of the times, it will be a general trend for technical secondary school students to continue their studies in higher-level institutions after graduation. At the same time, it is also a practical need to cultivate high-quality skilled talents: "The future goal must be full coverage, so that all technical secondary school students have the opportunity to go to university."

Although the competition is as fierce as the general college entrance examination, the vocational education college entrance examination at least gives the "abandoned" children a direction to work hard, and also gives them a reason to convince themselves to study. The scores of the vocational education college entrance examination are arranged in a "334" structure, that is, professional theory accounts for 30%, skill practice accounts for 30%, and cultural courses account for 40%. This requires students to pay equal attention to their majors and basic subjects, without neglecting either.

In Yu Yongda's class, 26 out of 32 students chose to take the vocational education college entrance examination next year. He found that these students' enthusiasm for learning was significantly higher than that of the students he had taught before. He would often brag to his students, telling them that mathematics was the key to making a difference in their test scores.

"The passion for learning is ultimately driven by the pressure of exams," Yu Yongda said with a smile.

In Jingjiang, He Jilong, director of the Mathematics Teaching and Research Section, increasingly feels the pressure of insufficient teaching staff. There are more than 20 mathematics teachers in the school. Although there are many teachers, there is an obvious age gap and a serious lack of successors. In addition to the two normal school graduates recruited in previous years, the youngest teacher in the teaching and research section is already over 40 years old, and there are several retired and re-employed teachers who are still teaching. He Jilong said that it is not because young people do not want to come, but because the staffing is tight: "The low tide of vocational education has not yet passed. In recent years, the number of students in the school has been decreasing, and the staffing of the school has naturally decreased accordingly."

However, both Yu Yongda and He Jilong believe that this long period of low tide will soon end. For vocational education, which has long been "invisible", Jiang Ping's "being seen" may be just an unexpected episode. However, in order to give those children a chance to be truly "seen" and to remove the stigmatized identity label, the "invisible" secondary school teachers have never given up their efforts.