Chapter 12 Postscript education, I can't stop

When General Secretary Jiang Zemin published "Talks on Educational Issues" on February 1 this year, it was at the time when I was finishing the second part of my "University Education Series" trilogy. After nearly four years of focusing on education, Looking back and studying the important speech of the General Secretary carefully, I feel a lot.Literature and education originally belonged to different fields, but after I visited more than a hundred universities, middle schools and primary schools, and interviewed hundreds of people, I deeply felt that there are too many connotations and extensions between literature and education.In fact, this itself exists objectively, but our literary creators may have neglected and forgotten the original special functions of literature to varying degrees over the years.

The first time I wrote about education, I was ordered by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League to carry out a survey and interview on the living conditions of impoverished college students in the "University Hope Project", which was a long reportage published later.The repercussions after the publication of this work and the lawsuit of a small scale happened without my mental preparation. On the one hand, it was the praise and repercussions of the whole society; It was an inexplicable legal dispute.This lawsuit that shouldn’t have happened has been going on for more than a year, and the psychological and spiritual damage caused to me is beyond the knowledge of the parties involved. In the end, the Beijing Higher Court returned the innocence of me and the work. So I don't want to say much about it.

What I want to say is that after I have inadvertently turned my attention to Chinese education in the past few years, I never imagined that I would never be able to pull out my origin.It took me an entire year and a half intermittently to interview and write. It took me to more than 40 universities and directly had spiritual dialogues with more than 300 parties.You can imagine the hard work involved.But what I didn't expect was that after the work was published, I had to go to more than 40 universities—this time they invited me to give a report, and at the same time, they also connected more than 300 poor college students successively——Good intentions There are too many people, and until now I still often receive letters and phone calls from those well-meaning people who have read the book and asked to show their love to poor college students through me.From the initial interview to the upsurge of love in the whole society after the publication, although it took me a lot of time and energy, I am deeply gratified that I personally feel that a writer has written a book that is beneficial to All the rewards after the works of the society: Tens of thousands of impoverished college students across the country have received help from all walks of life. To donate several million yuan to the society, and more importantly, to make people living today clearly understand that China is still a developing country, and there are still a lot of people who are still living very difficult lives. They should use enthusiasm and sincerity to The heart extends a helping hand to those college students who have financial difficulties.This is one of them.The second is because of this work, I have become good friends of many college students, middle school students, and even elementary school students.Most of my current correspondents are these students. During the New Year's Day and Spring Festival this year, I received the most greetings from college students on campus. The number of them is too large for me to count.To this day, my weekends and Sundays are still often "robbed" by students.Among them are the protagonists in my works, and more are readers. We have become very close friends with each other. They are willing to discuss with me after problems in study, love, and family, and even such things as part-time jobs and employment. , have become the content of our communication and discussion.My third achievement is that they made me "sink" deeply into the field of education. With the creation plan of the "University·Education" trilogy, this long-form reportage to be published is my latest one of the gains.

The big difference is that the production process of this "College Entrance Examination Report" can be said to be the result of the joint participation of countless students, families and teachers, because almost all the interviewees were arranged by relevant organizations and schools. When writing the "College Entrance Examination Report", almost none of the hundreds of families, dozens of schools, and hundreds of students I interviewed were appointed by any organization or unit. Actively willing to make time to talk to me.I still feel excited when I think about some things. For example, in Shenzhen, Beijing, and Nanjing, some students and parents gave up their work and study time to sit down and tell me about the process of the college entrance examination they have been or are going through. Many insights.There are four or five middle school students in Zhejiang, Xinjiang, and Hunan. Over the past year or so, they have continuously provided me with fresh materials about what is happening in the college entrance examination of themselves, their families, and their schools.In order to let me understand and appreciate the "poor parents in the world" more clearly, a parent in Shenzhen sent me all the correspondence between himself and his daughter who is in high school for two years.When I was writing about the resumption of the college entrance examination, many candidates who were now in various important positions in leadership positions or who had already become famous and married, extended a warm and friendly hand for free... Every time I think of these, I always think I made up my mind to show the feelings of the people of the whole country for going to university, and the tragic, shocking, and almost "tragic" decisive battle scene that arose from it, so as to arouse people's deeper feelings. think broadly.

China's college entrance examination is a big book. It is the "first family matter" of the people, and it is a national event that almost everyone in the country will participate in. From the president of the country to ordinary citizens, who doesn't talk about it? In fact, when I wrote this "education series", it was not just because I was a famous writer, especially when this "College Entrance Examination Report" was in progress, I had integrated myself into one of the protagonists of the work.Because I am also a father, the learning status of my daughter who is studying in middle school, and my painstaking feelings as a parent so that my child can go to a key school and be named on the gold list in the future have already made me feel uncomfortable.To give a small example, on February 19 this year, I learned from the "Beijing Evening News" that the "International College Entrance Examination Education Tour Exhibition" will be held at the Beijing International Convention Center the next day. "too" atmosphere and took a few photos along the way.But that day was extremely difficult for me, because a tutor hired by my daughter, who was about to enter the senior high school entrance examination, was going to give her a lecture on this day at 8:30 in the morning at No. 101 Middle School in Yuanmingyuan.My family lives in Xisi, the city center, and it takes hours to get to 101 Middle School by taxi.I was afraid that we would not be able to catch up with the touring exhibition at the International Conference Center, so my daughter and I made an appointment to get up at 6:30 the next day before going to bed the day before.The daughter who was still doing homework at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night agreed, but she couldn't wake up after the small alarm clock rang early the next morning. Her mother and I were helpless and couldn't bear to pick her up from the bed... We The family of three rushed to the Yuanmingyuan, which is very remote for city people, early this Sunday morning. When we arrived at the teacher's dormitory of No. 101 Middle School, we saw that many doors were still closed tightly.Seeing my daughter yawning non-stop, I scolded myself in my heart, what are you doing?It's a shame that you are still writing works that slam exam-oriented education!But I had to sigh at the Old Summer Palace full of vicissitudes: what can I do, don’t all Chinese children have to go through such exams—remedial lessons—remedial lessons—exams, and then go to participate in the "high school entrance examination" and "college entrance examination" Battle after battle!After a while, my wife and I reluctantly handed over our daughter to the female math teacher who was still yawning.

When I rushed from the most northwest corner of Beijing to the International Conference Center in the southeast corner, what I saw was even more uncomfortable: in less than an hour, tens of thousands of Chinese parents brought My own children crowded into the exhibition hall full of foreign schools. The hot scene and pairs of eager eyes made my heart ache, and I was more determined to dedicate myself to China's education and write about us in this field. Determination of what parents and children want to say! Education has become the source and motivation of my creation in recent years.However, I often ask myself: How much do you know about education?Do you know what education is?

Yes, what is education?I really can't answer much, but I know that education is a major issue for the whole party and society, and it is also a major issue for each of us and every family.Knowing that it is an important part of children's lives, knowing that it is an important part of us adults besides our own work, knowing that it is the most important part of a complete family that is often concerned and talked about, knowing that it is also extremely important for the revitalization of our nation I also know that education is an extremely rich and fertile land for literature, because it is not only the most resonant topic in the lives of ordinary people, but also covers the largest group of people.Today's students are the mainstream of tomorrow's society, so the state of education today will, to a certain extent, determine the appearance of our life and social development tomorrow.Can literature ignore it?Can stay away from it?Of course not.

Literature and education have a natural relationship, because the main function of literature is to educate and influence people, and the content and form of education cannot be separated from literature itself and its aesthetic significance.In my opinion, if a country, a nation, its literature survives independently of education, the prospect of such literature must be short-lived and meaningless.Similarly, once socialist literature exists independently of education, it is also pale and vain.Because China is a big educational country, the majority of young students are the main recipients of today's literature and all the recipients of tomorrow's literature. Losing today's young students means losing all the objects of tomorrow's literature.

Today's education and literature, I think, have become "distant relatives". It is not like when Mr. Liu Xinwu wrote "The Head Teacher", which can arouse the love of literature among young people and the whole society. ""Good aunt".In the past ten years, literature seems to have stopped paying so much attention to education and the 400 million young students. Therefore, to a large extent, our literature has been mercilessly abandoned by today's young students!They are no longer satisfied with what our writers have written. Boys and girls love "Little Swallow" crazily, and college students are happy to create literature on the Internet by themselves. This is why students are not satisfied with what our contemporary mainstream writers have created. Highlight.

Literature should wake up!With the rapid arrival of the knowledge age, if our literature does not pay attention to today's school students who are the mainstream citizens of the future knowledge age, then our literature can only be ruthlessly abandoned and forgotten by the times! I also think that the involvement of literature in education is not enough for a few children's literature writers to write a few children's literature works. The current situation of Chinese education requires more "surgery" and "internal medicine" that can perform major operations. X-rays, not some "pediatrics".Perhaps it is my "education complex" in the past few years that made me realize in advance how meaningful it is to be an educated literary surgeon and X-ray examiner.

I am willing to continue on this road, although it is very tiring and sometimes troublesome, but as long as I think about my own daughter and the children of all ordinary families, I feel that it is not a bad thing to be tired. Still like when all "reports" were completed, I would like to thank all those who helped me, such as Comrade Liu Changzhan from the Ministry of Education, Mr. Yang Dongping, an educational theorist, Mr. Ran Yunfei, author of "Shen Illness", and Ma Bailan, author of "Blind Spot". , Mr. Yu Jie, the author of "Entering a School", Mr. Zhou Daoxiang, the author of "Jiangnan Gongyuan", and Wang Xuewen, a senior teacher in Heilongjiang, Beijing No. 4 Middle School, Beijing No. 31 Middle School, Guangqumen Middle School, Suzhou Middle School, Suzhou No. 10 Middle School, Changshu, Jiangsu Leaders and teachers from Middle School, Hebei Yanjiao Middle School, Zhejiang Yiwu Middle School, Shenzhen Middle School, China Business Technology Management University, Chinese Social University, Beijing Humanities University, Nanjing Lantian University, etc., including many other friends, students and parents who I can't count , It is they who provided me with a lot of convenience in the interview, and provided reference materials and works, and I would like to express my deep gratitude here. Among the people I would like to thank, there are several important people. They are Chen Zeshun, deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief of Huaxia Publishing House, Gao Su, and Ms. Zhao Hong from "Chinese Writers". memorable. Here, I would like to make two points: one is about education in China, the common people still have a lot to say, especially about the college entrance examination. Everyone can use various channels to speak out what they want to say. This should be a kind of social progress.Second, at the request of the interviewees, the names and schools of some protagonists in this book have undergone some technical processing due to well-known reasons, which are hereby explained together. Now, most families have only one child, and the living conditions are better. It is natural for parents to have the mood of "hoping for their children to succeed" and hope that their children can receive better education.Our schools, education departments, and other departments of the party and the state must pay attention to their work, guide parents' eager desire for their children to become talents, teachers' mood of teaching and educating people, and students' enthusiasm for learning, and guide them in the right direction. Qualities of teenagers.