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Protect village primary schools, protect left-behind children, and protect their dreams.

——A female colleague said

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Winter has arrived, Guang'an Village is covered with snow, and crystal icicles have formed on every eaves, making this place look like a fairy tale.

The 10-year-old Jiang Yunjie may not be able to imagine the carefree world in the fairy tale, becauseShe has never read a fairy tale book。

Since she was born, her parents left home to work in the city, and she has been dependent on her elderly grandmother.

In winter, the only thing she could think of was to help her grandmother with work who had difficulty walking, and then walk alone through the vast snow to attend the only school in the town.

In the camera, her back is thin and small. The director Jiang Nengjie, who recorded Jiang Yunjie's left-behind life, was once a left-behind child in Guang'an Village.

In March 2009, after graduating from university, Jiang Nengjie returned to his hometown with his savings from working in supermarkets and bookstores and established"Mianhuasha Image Studio", he decided to use what he learned to help the children in his hometown。

During the six years of intermittent and difficult filming, he recorded the lives of 22 left-behind children in Guang'an Village Primary School and made a documentary film in 2014."Children of the Village School"。

It is through the screening of this film that the real life of left-behind children has been seen by more people...

01

childhood

“Who would resist being a kid again?”

— Byron

Childhood is the happiest time in life. If we could really go back to the past, perhapsEveryone wants to travel back in time and relive it again.

but,The children of Guang'an Village Primary School don't think so; they just hope to grow up quickly.

Thinking back to my childhood,The memories are frozen in the sharp straw that cut my fingers, the leaky roof, the hunched backs of my grandparents, and the long and muddy mountain road.。

This 5-kilometer mountain road is the only way for children in Guang'an Village to go to school.

Jiang Yunjie learned to walk to school by herself when she was 6 years old. When she was in the second and third grades, she still walked with a large group. As everyone moved away or dropped out of school,She was the only one left on this long mountain road.

sometimesSlippery roads in rainy daysShe had to wear tight rain boots all day.When I got home, my two big toes were so swollen that I couldn't touch the ground.。

sometimesHeavy snowThe mountain road was difficult to walk on, so she had to get up earlier andShovel the snow off the roads one day in advanceShe worked in the mud with a shovel that was almost as tall as herself.My face is red and purple from the cold。

At night, she bent over the wobbly wooden table to do her homework, the dim lightIt made it very difficult for her to write every word.。

She often worried that she would not be able to keep up with the progress, or that she would be expelled from school due to missed homework.Apart from studying, she couldn't find any happier thing in this difficult life.

Grandma is old, and she still needs to share a lot of farm work and housework. Although she is small, she is very strong and can do all kinds of work. In her naive eyes, there is more hard work than innocence.

When the director asked Jiang Yunjie if she was willing to go to school where her father worked, she shook her head repeatedly, saying that if she left, her grandmother would be left alone at home.

Like Jiang Yunjie, the children in Guang'an Village are more mature and strong than their peers.

Harvesting riceThey have already mastered the technique.Take care of younger siblings, do laundry, cook and wash dishes, these houseworks have long been clear in mind.

Children are naturally playful and want to be lazy. They may hide in their neighbor's house to watch TV or play with another kid's game console. However, when faced with grandparents who have to get up at three in the morning to work,Their mischief stops here.

They are the most sensible, but they understand the world the least.The joy of childhood not only disappeared in the busy farm work and poverty, but was also trapped in the remote mountains.

“Where is the capital of China?”

"do not know."

“Do you know where Tiananmen Square is?”

"have no idea."

"Where were the 2008 Olympics held?"

"have no idea."

The knowledge in books is not enough to describe the wonders of this world.In the village blocked by layers of mountains, the children have no way of exploring these wonderful things.

"Sea, sea, I ask you, why are you so blue? The sea smiles and answers, I hold the sky in my arms..."

The children sat in a crowded classroom, reading about the sea they had never seen and about their childhood.

02

Travel

China Rural Education Development Report (2020-2022)It shows that as of 2021, there are 1,000 left-behind children in rural areas in the compulsory education stage nationwide.11.992 million people。

On the train back to his hometown to shoot, the director was surrounded by young parents who were working away from home.

If you want to make money to give your elderly and children at home a better life, you have no choice but to go out to work.They left their homes and had to say goodbye to their young children. They endured separation and the pressure of survival.

In remote and poor mountain villages like Guang'an Village, there are more people left behind.

According to rough statistics, the children who go to Guangming Primary School,About 90% of the children are left behind.。

Both my parents left when I was young, and sometimes I could only see them once a year.The image of my parents in my mind has slowly become blurred.。

An old man in the village recalled that one Spring Festival, his grandson and his mother met on the main road leading into the village. They faced each other.They didn't recognize each other.。

After returning home, the grandson just thought that it was a person from the city with a lot of bags on his body.During the hard-earned reunion, he kept hiding. After years of separation, parents and children have become very unfamiliar.

The mother shed tears and blamed herself, saying that her child no longer recognized her. Although she was reluctant, she had no choice but to leave.

The Fan siblings have hardly ever seen their parents since they were born.

My elder sister Fan Weiyuan is about to graduate from junior high school. Compared with most girls in the village, she is "lucky".Because many children of her age have already dropped out of school to work or farm.

Relying on the money her grandmother earned from growing corn and the savings she made from secretly working as a child laborer, she worked hard to support herself in school.

She doesn’t know how far she can go on this path of studying.

Since their mother passed away, the brother and sister lived with their grandmother. Not long after, their father, who was working away from home, was arrested and imprisoned for robbery. Without their source of income, they had a hard time getting by.

After their grandmother passed away, they could only live with their grandmother. Because they were young, they wanted to work but were always rejected by their bosses...…Faced with so many difficulties, my sister had already prepared to drop out of school.

My younger brother Ha Bao has said more than once that he has lost the interest in studying and all he thinks about all day is how to get by at home.He was only 9 years old when he said these words.

My younger brother has nothing but complaints about his parents, whom he has hardly ever met. Like other kids his age, he longs for love and companionship.

My sister is more helpless.Life was too much of a burden, and she no longer had time to complain. She could only work harder and save more money.Only then can life go on.

Brothers Jiang Xin and Jiang HengI can only see my parents once during the Chinese New Year.。

Because they are relatively unfamiliar with their parents, their communication only stays at a few indifferent words such as "What did you eat?" and "Are you cold?"

Faced with their sons' estrangement, parents often shed tears silently.

The sons may not understand why they are traveling so far away.MotherShe said that she and her husband work at least 12 hours a day in the factory. When they get home at midnight, they have to do laundry and cook, and then get ready to go back to work at 6 a.m. the next day.

And these efforts are to ensure that my sons,I hope I can continue to go to school and leave the remote mountains as soon as possible.

What annoys the brothers most is their parents’ nagging every year:

If you don't study hard and go to school well, you will be like me and have to work outside.Studying is the only way to leave the mountains.

In 2013,A group of college student volunteers went to Guang'an Village and helped Jiang Xin and Jiang Heng, who had not seen each other for a year, to contact their parents who were working in the factory.The students brought their computers so they could video chat with each other, but after a whole day of coordination, Jiang's parents could only find less than an hour of rest time.

In the video, the distance between parents and children is both far and close, and the endless longing finally turns into these nagging - "Study hard and get out of the mountains."

The short video was about to end, and the brother finally told his parents about his deep-seated vulnerability."Mom and Dad, I love you."

The mountains are high and the roads are long.If it cannot survive and change, where will this love be placed?

03

hope

The elderly in the village, the young people working away from home, and the children,Their hopes of changing their fate all rest on the only primary school in the village.

For children, this is not just a village primary school.It is also a window that allows you to see the outside world and a bright future that allows you to climb over mountains.

Before the village primary school was rebuilt, the school building was already in a state of severe dilapidation.A heavy rain or strong wind can cause it to collapse at any time.。Countless children spend their primary school years in such dilapidated buildings.

In 2009, Guangming Primary School was demolished and rebuilt. During this period, the children went to a temporary school in the village.

“If there is no school, our village will become dark.”

Thanks to the efforts of the village secretary, running the school never stopped no matter how difficult it was.

It was not until January 2010 that the newly built teaching building of Guangming Primary School in Guang'an Village was finally put into use.Although only children below the second grade can go to school in the village primary school, children in higher grades still have to walk several kilometers to the town to go to school.But for the villagers, as long as their children can still go to school, it is the best outcome.

Teacher Zhang is one of the few teachers who has stayed in the village primary school for the longest time.

Due to the shortage of teachers, he had to teach two classes by himself. When the first class was teaching math, the children in the second class could only play or wait. One class was followed by another, and he had to help with homework after class. Fortunately, there were not many children, so such classes did not make Teacher Zhang feel too tired.

What really keeps Teacher Zhang busy is the students’ “disobedience”.

The lack of family education for children in the village makes classroom teaching somewhat difficult.

They left their parents when they were young, the older generation had low education, and they had countless farm work to do.They don't have time, and don't know how to educate their children, so they always let their children grow up on their own.

Therefore, many children in school have little sense of rules.

Fortunately, Mr. Zhang is very patient and understands the frustration of the children being left behind.Occasionally, I also play a role like a parent, teaching them how to take responsibilities at home.

When Jiang Yunjie returned home, she often mentioned Teacher Zhang's kindness to her grandmother, but her grandmother expressed a common concern:With such hard work, will he leave next year?

Teacher Zhang was reluctant to leave. Having been a substitute teacher for 16 years, he could not let go of the responsibility of teaching and educating, and he was full of affection for Guang'an Village Primary School.He worked hard to get a regular job from his superiors and get more subsidies every year so that he could give an explanation to his family.

However, Guang'an Village was too poor.Teachers can only be paid two or three hundred yuan a month, and the regular benefits they have been applying for are nowhere in sight.

Recalling the more than ten years he spent at Guangming Primary School, Teacher Zhang was still reluctant to leave.

At the beginning, he did not go out to work like other young people, but chose to stay and become a teacher, so that he could have an income so that he could accompany his children and help the students in the village primary school.Now, forced by life, he has to plan for himself.

When it comes to survival, no one can always be great.

Teacher Zhang left Guangming Primary School and went to teach elsewhere.

His departure was a big blow to the children.From then on, there were fewer teachers in the school, and the road to studying became more difficult.

Poverty and remoteness make it difficult for village primary schools to improve，The school is considerate of the children's family difficulties and charging one cent less in tuition means the teachers will lose one cent in income.

The playground was soaked by rain and cracks appeared, the walls of the classrooms were peeling and dusty, and the desks and chairs were old and damaged.These problems cannot be dealt with in a timely manner...

Despite the hidden worries, the children's innocent and happy laughter still rings out on time every day.

Childhood disappeared, parents traveled far away, family relationships were separated, and life was poor and difficult.These are normal in the eyes of children, or in the eyes of the entire Guang'an Village.Because the whole village, for several generations, seems to have made this choice.

There are also some young parents who want to accompany their children as they grow up.But the pressure of life makes it difficult for them to stay.

Tuition, transportation, meals, accommodation... In an ordinary two-child family in the village, the expenses for a primary school student in one semester are about 2,000 yuan, and for a junior high school student it is even more. If you only rely on farming at home, after deducting the farming costs, you can only earn about 3,000 yuan a year by farming 4 to 5 mu of land.In comparison, a young parent working away from home can earn at least three to four thousand yuan a month, and those who are willing to endure hardship can earn eight to nine thousand yuan.

But the cost of living in cities is high.Even rural parents who have worked for more than 20 years find it difficult to buy a house and settle down there, and cannot make their children's education path more stable like citizens with urban household registration.

"A city where I can't stay, a hometown where I can't return to",Many parents can only live between rural and urban areas.Hard sawing, and their children can only become left-behind children.

It is also difficult for these children to escape their fate while being left behind.Studying is difficult,When they grow up, they can only go out to work, and their children will become left-behind children like themselves and continue the same life.

Staying behind seems like an unsolvable cycle.

The village primary school may be the only right path in the reincarnation maze.

As the film was screened, it received constant responses from all walks of life, and these children who were left behind in the mountains received more and more social attention.

All parts of the country continue to pay more attention to left-behind families and left-behind children.Provide assistance in education, mental health and living conditions。

With the support of society, the Fan siblings successfully went to school, walked out of the mountains, and opened up more possibilities in life; Jiang Yunjie became the protagonist of the director's new film "The Dwarf Woman". She also walked out of the mountains with support and saw a more colorful world.

Many left-behind families have contacted social organizations or township governments to receive targeted assistance, so that more children can continue their studies.

In order to avoid alienation caused by parents' absence,Many places have launched "anti-visiting relatives" activitiesAlthough parents cannot go home, children can go to their workplaces to have a meal and talk with them.

The love and companionship that were lacking during the growth process were somewhat compensated through repeated "anti-relative visits".

With policy support, more and more rural children can return to their hometowns to work, allowing them to earn money to support their families not far from their children.

The village primary school, which is regarded as the hope of the whole village, is also getting better and better under the protection of all parties:Subsidies for rural teachers have increased, school canteens and dormitories have been improved, and remote classroom hardware has gradually been completed...

New Oriental invested 200,000 yuan in Tongjiazhuang Town, Heyang County, Shaanxi Province

The first New Oriental Hope Primary School built

The village primary school has newer desks, a larger playground, and more teachers, where children can study attentively in a safe, comfortable and environment.

Maybe in the future, through the lens of director Jiang Nengjie,More and more children will no longer walk alone on the mountain roads, more and more young people are willing to devote themselves to rural education, and more social care can help these left-behind families.。

Although the road to protection is still long and difficult, the glimmer of hope will always shine on the road.

References:

1. Documentary "Children of the Village School" (all text and pictures are from here)

2. Guangming Society Educator: Real rural education through the lens of a director

3. Xinhua News Agency: Let love no longer be "left behind" - the "100 lectures on construction sites" activity for caring for and protecting left-behind children in rural areas across the country builds a bridge for family affection

4. People's Daily Online: Make small-scale rural schools small but excellent (People's Eyes: Revitalizing Rural Education)

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