He Yigang was determined to let children in the mountains see hope

????

????He Yigang instructing students in an experiment. File photo by reporter Jiang Yunlong

Chengkou County in Chongqing is located deep in the Daba Mountains. It is one of the most remote counties in Chongqing and the only county in Chongqing without an expressway. He Yigang was, during his lifetime, the Party general branch secretary and principal of Gaowang Junior Middle School in Gaoguan Town, Chengkou County.

"We must let our children in the mountain areas enjoy quality education without having to leave the mountains. This is the education dream in my heart." This plain-spoken principal once wrote this sentence in his diary. After 23 years of teaching, his life ended at the age of 41 when he died of a sudden heart attack from overwork. "He brought hope to education in poor mountain areas." Local people evaluated him this way.

At present, rural compulsory education in China covers 110 million students, but the rural teaching force remains weak. Taking the primary school stage in Chongqing as an example, the number of rural teachers is far from enough, and some village primary schools cannot even reach one teacher per class. Among these teachers, most are older teachers over 50 and newly recruited teachers in recent years, and mobility is very high. Chongqing has large cities, and even more vast rural areas. Rural areas have complex and steep terrain, and some students have to cross mountains and ridges for more than 1 hour from home to school. At present, Chongqing has 939,000 left-behind children, including 589,000 primary school students and 349,000 junior middle school students, most of whom lack parental care and supervision.

As a native of Chengkou, He Yigang had a deep understanding of the backward education in the mountain areas. More than 10 years ago, he explored the "layered asynchronous teaching method", preparing 3 sets of lesson plans for 3 types of students and teaching according to aptitude.

"At that time there was no multimedia equipment, so Teacher He used potatoes as teaching aids and cut them into geometric shapes." Lin Li, a Chinese language teacher at Gaowang Junior Middle School, still remembers Teacher He's teaching innovations from those years, such as "interesting tangrams" and the "interest teaching method".

In management, He Yigang also innovated boldly. In 2003, he served as director of political education at Xiuqi Junior Middle School and carried out reforms based on the actual conditions of mountain schools.

Township middle schools are not a pure land, and young people in society often bullied students near the schools. Some parents, afraid their children would be bullied, supported their children bringing controlled knives and other items into the school. Under this vicious cycle, many students had no heart for studying. He Yigang prescribed the right remedy. Targeting the unhealthy atmosphere outside the school, he coordinated with the local police station to carry out "police-civilian joint campus building", and the area near the campus gradually became quiet; inside the school, he launched "Operation Zero Hour". Homeroom teachers, dormitory managers, security guards and others conducted surprise spot checks on dormitories at irregular times and locations. "In order to make it truly effective, we got up at 6 in the morning and did not sleep until 1 or 2 at night." said Li Qing, head of the security section at Xiuqi Middle School.

In addition, He Yigang also promoted throughout the school the activity of "democratic formulation of class rules and self-management of discipline", letting students take action themselves, govern themselves and serve themselves. Gradually, the school finally began to look like a school, and its results ranked among the top three in the county. Many of these measures introduced more than 10 years ago are still promoted and used today in primary and middle schools in Chengkou County.

As a national-level poor county, Chengkou has deep poverty and a wide scope of poverty. At Gaowang Junior Middle School, the proportion of left-behind children was as high as 60%, and many came from poor families. In 2001, He Yigang began exploring the establishment of a care and assistance system for poor students and left-behind children.

He first tried to introduce a new boarding management model for rural children. From big things such as folding bedding to small things such as the placement of toothbrushes and toothpaste, everything was clearly stipulated. In those years, He Yigang lived near the school. Sometimes the school had power or water outages or the boiler broke down, and boarding students had no food to eat. In order not to let the children go hungry, he brought these children to his own home to eat. "Every time 20 or 30 children would come." said his wife Li Yunqing.

In addition to giving education and love as much as possible, He Yigang also gave financial help to many poor students. Wang Jingping, who was admitted to Chengkou County Vocational Middle School this year, lives in Xingtian Village, Dong'an Town, Chengkou County. Her parents are often ill, and the family is very poor. Besides giving money to support her, He Yigang often encouraged Wang Jingping. "We must not only teach them knowledge, but also let these children in the mountains see hope. If they do well, their next generation can truly escape poverty." This is what He Yigang said to the school's teachers.

On the day before his death, He Yigang was still telling Wang Kejiang, Wang Jingping's junior middle school homeroom teacher, that Wang Jingping needed 6,000 yuan in tuition each year at the vocational middle school, and her family certainly could not afford it. "He said that although Wang Jingping was no longer at our school, he asked me to find time to go to the vocational middle school and ask the school to reduce or waive her tuition. He said if that failed, he would find a way to pay the tuition." Wang Kejiang did not expect that this would become his unfulfilled wish.

In fact, signs of illness had already appeared in He Yigang's body, but he concealed his condition from everyone. He always said: It is only the start of the school term, there is too much to do at school, wait until these busy days are over. Unexpectedly, once he got busy, he never stopped, until he was found by a teacher lying on the bed in his own dormitory, already without breath.

After He Yigang's death, colleagues sorted through his belongings. On his office desk, the 5 documents He Yigang had signed and reviewed on the afternoon before his death had not yet been issued, and the handwritten materials clearly recorded every class's personnel changes, while the campus inspection log missed not a single day and was recorded in detail...

"Earlier he also said that during the summer vacation he would find time to take his parents out to travel. The elderly had never traveled far in their whole lives. But during the summer vacation he was busy the whole time, and later he said he would try to take a few days off during National Day." Recalling this, Li Yunqing waved her hand and could no longer continue.