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On August 3, Chen Meng successfully defended her title in the women's singles table tennis event at the Paris Olympics, becoming the third athlete to win the women's singles table tennis title in two consecutive Olympic Games. During the competition, a jade pendant worn by Chen Meng unexpectedly went viral. It was like a dancing green leaf, exuding vitality and became the focus of discussion. It is understood that this exclusive jewelry for the Olympic champion was not designed by a top jewelry designer, but by Dong Jie, a teacher at Qingdao Economic Vocational School.

On March 15, Dong Jie, a jewelry teacher at Qingdao Economic Vocational School, received a notice to design a jade jewelry for Olympic champion Chen Meng to wear at the Paris Olympics. "Designing jewelry for an Olympic champion is something I am particularly proud of, and it is also a test of my professional ability," said Dong Jie. She began to conceive as soon as she received the task.

"This piece of jewelry was custom-made for Chen Meng by Chen Meng's father. During the initial communication with Chen Meng's father, he requested that the jewelry reflect elements such as youth, fashion, and dynamism. Therefore, the design cannot be too complicated, but must be simple and light, and must reflect the wearer's love and pursuit of table tennis." Dong Jie said, "At first, I wanted to incorporate elements of table tennis rackets and use jade as the racket surface. During the hand-painting process, I found that the area of ​​jade was relatively large, so the design would be too bulky and not in line with the temperament of an athlete."

Due to his professional teaching and class teacher duties, Dong Jie can only calm down and think at night. After a month of late-night thinking and dozens of hand-drawn drafts, Dong Jie finally chose to design a table tennis racket on the buckle of the pendant, forming a gourd shape with the round jade below. "In traditional Chinese culture, gourd is homophonic with 'fortune and luck', which means peace and health, and is a good blessing for Chen Meng to fight in the Olympics." Dong Jie explained.

In the end, this ingenious design was highly recognized by Chen Meng's father. Dong Jie introduced that the whole set of jewelry is divided into three parts: pendant, earrings and bracelet, all of which are closely integrated with the elements of table tennis rackets, carrying the love and expectations of Chen Meng's father for Chen Meng and witnessing Chen Meng's struggle. Seeing Chen Meng win the championship wearing the jewelry designed by himself, Dong Jie was also sincerely happy.

Dong Jie's successful completion of this task is inseparable from his solid professional skills. It is understood that Dong Jie studied under Ren Jin, a Chinese jewelry design master, and entered Qingdao Economic Vocational School as a jewelry design teacher in 2004. In the past 20 years of teaching, Dong Jie has been committed to the teaching of jewelry design. At the same time, he has participated in the writing of high-quality course teams, teaching reform experimental projects, provincial projects, and provincial teaching guidance plans many times, and has achieved fruitful results.

She compiled the school-based textbook "Basics of Jewelry Design" suitable for secondary vocational schools; the modern apprenticeship characteristic course "Jewelry Design" she presided over was selected as the first batch of modern apprenticeship characteristic courses in Qingdao; the "Jewelry Design" course she presided over and developed was rated as a high-quality school-based course in Qingdao; the "Sketch Micro Classroom - How to Sketch the Head of a Figure" she produced won the first prize in the secondary vocational group of the provincial education and teaching informatization competition...

What Dong Jie is most pleased and unforgettable about is that the students he coached won the first prize in the national competition. In 2023, in addition to being a class teacher, Dong Jie also teaches 15 classes a week, and at the same time received the task of coaching students to prepare for the National Vocational College Skills Competition. "For a full three months from April to July, in addition to teaching during the day, I coached students participating in the national competition. I practiced with them until 9 o'clock every night." Dong Jie recalled. Hard work pays off. The students coached by Dong Jie won the first prize in the art modeling competition, and Dong Jie was also awarded the title of National Outstanding Tutor.

What is not well known is that the processing of this jewelry was also completed at Qingdao Vocational School of Economics. Jewelry processing requires multiple processes such as electro-drawing, 3D printing, casting, mold making, inlaying, polishing and quality inspection, and each process requires professional equipment and operators.

In 2023, Qingdao Economic Vocational School and Qingdao Freya Culture Communication Co., Ltd. jointly built the Qingdao Jewelry Industry-Education Integration Practice Center. The school provided the venue, and the enterprise provided the equipment and personnel. The center established a full-chain jewelry industry from jewelry design, production, and manufacturing to marketing and live broadcasting, realizing the integration of the enterprise's real production and operation projects with jewelry professional courses. Here, after learning theoretical knowledge, jewelry students can immediately practice technical skills such as gem identification and testing, jewelry design, jewelry processing and production, and live broadcast sales in a real production and operation environment, so that the "theory-practice integration" teaching model can be truly implemented.

It is reported that Qingdao Economic Vocational School and Qingdao Freya Culture Communication Co., Ltd. have a long history of school-enterprise cooperation. The two parties have carried out a modern apprenticeship pilot and jointly formulated job skill standards and apprenticeship courses; in 2021, the two parties established the Qingdao Jewelry Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubation Base to provide jewelry students with entrepreneurship and sales and other skills training; in 2023, the two parties jointly built the Qingdao Jewelry Industry-Education Integration Practice Center.

Wang Jianpeng, Party Secretary of Qingdao Economic Vocational School, told reporters that in recent years, the school has taken the lead in establishing the Qingdao Jewelry Vocational Education Group and compiled the "Teaching Guidance Program for Jewelry and Jade Processing and Marketing Majors in Secondary Vocational Education in Shandong Province", and presided over the construction of the national teaching resource library "Jewelry Accessories Art" course resources. Jewelry students have won the first place in the national vocational college diamond grading competition for three consecutive years, and won the first and second prizes in the Qingdao 16th Vocational Skills Competition Jewelry and Jade Appraisal Competition. (China Education Daily-China Education News Network reporter Sun Jun correspondent Yu Tao)

Author: Sun Jun and Yu Tao