Helping kids blossom like magnolia flowers
Print Edition
WHEN he talks about the children in Kashgar Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Zhou Fenglin always has a big smile on his face. When his wife sent him pictures of the magnolia flowers in Shanghai as he attended the national poverty alleviation awards ceremony in Beijing, he immediately forwarded them to students in Kashgar, noting that: “Magnolia, the flower of Shanghai, is as beautiful as you.”
Zhou, 63, was a teacher at Jiading No. 2 High School and had devoted himself to education for over 40 years. After he retired, he concerned himself with education in remote areas and took the lead role in the second group of Shanghai teachers to assist in Xinjiang, part of a volunteer teaching program initiated by the Ministry of Education. He launched the “Magnolia Construction” project, taking a group of 220 teachers to help improve education in Xinjiang last year.
Zhou also took on the role of headmaster at Kashgar No. 6 High School.
The environment of a school is vital to students not only because a beautiful exterior can be a feast for the eyes, but it can also provide healthy conditions for students.
After arriving at the school, Zhou heard the students saying that before you ask where the restrooms are you can find them by the unpleasant smell. Some might have regarded that as a joke, but Zhou took it seriously.
“It was not their casual remarks but a true situation. I felt aggrieved when I saw the restrooms, so I pondered what I could do to make changes,” said Zhou.
He later launched a “campus health improvement” project to thoroughly renovate the restrooms.
“Now I can say the restrooms are as clean as the ones in hotels,” said Yu Jiang, director of studies at the school. “It was headmaster Zhou who applied for the opportunity from our government to help enhance the environment, and he did all that on his own.”
Zhou carried a series of other measures in the following months, including building hot water facilities for hand washing, making improvements to two health-care rooms, adding 17 water dispensers and giving lectures on oral health, to provide a better living and study environment for students. This made the children like their headmaster even more as the changes he brought about were those they could never have imagined.
A teacher at the school said: “They have gradually developed the habit of washing their hands after going to the toilet and before eating, which leads to a healthier way of life. I believe it can benefit them in their future lives.” It was more important to help change students’ attitudes toward life than just upgrading hardware in the classroom, the teacher added.
“Kids always asked me what the schools looked like in Shanghai, so I showed them pictures. I could feel they were eager to get to know about the outside world,” Zhou recalled. “Although Kashgar is thousands of kilometers away from Shanghai, I hope the children here can study in modern schools like those in big cities, and my mission was to narrow the gap.”
In addition to improving the facilities, Zhou was also committed to building a local team that could raise the students’ capabilities.
Thirty workshops were launched through the Magnolia Construction project to offer useful advice to 170 local teachers. Most of the mentors were special and senior-grade teachers from Shanghai. The project promoted the development of local teachers’ specialities through methods such as pairing and mutual instruction, aiming to create a team of outstanding teachers in Kashgar.
“The number, energy and emotion of teachers involved in the project were unprecedented,” said Yu. “Their teaching ways were refreshing to us. We recorded the classes for reference to raise our own abilities.”
Zhou also organized a weeklong activity to present the results of the project to teachers in the region. He invited experts in basic education and headmasters and teachers from famous schools in Shanghai to Kashgar to give lectures and communicate with their peers face-to-face about advanced teaching concepts and techniques. In addition to the basic high school subjects such as Chinese, math, English, physics and chemistry, the activity covered course development, research guidance and moral education with 352 teachers in 12 cities and counties in Kashgar joining in.
The project was given the thumbs up by the local education bureau and regarded as a classic case of Shanghai’s poverty alleviation work in 2020.
Before heading to Kashgar, Zhou had started to think about the future development of its schools. Combining the actual situation at Kashgar No. 6 High School and his own experience of school management in Shanghai, he completed a five-year development plan for the school which sparked discussions among local teachers.
“We couldn’t imagine a school with no plan in Shanghai. It is hard to realize the long-term development of a school without any plan, even with a management team that has abundant experience,” said Zhou. His plan was approved last July with a target of establishing a first-rate high school in Xinjiang.
“These children are like magnolia flowers which blossom in the spring. I believe these little magnolia flowers will flourish in the future,” said Zhou.
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