After graduating from graduate school, I gave up drifting to the north and went back to the countryside to run a kindergarten (Figure)

After going through all kinds of hardships, I jumped out of the "agricultural gate" and was admitted to graduate school, but I chose to go back to the countryside to be a "king of the children". Hu Jianqiang's behavior is admirable, but we have to admit that among the tens of millions of college students in China, Hu Jianqiang is a minority and an anomaly. As we all know, it is a key link for college graduates to go to the grassroots and rural areas to solve the employment problem of college students, solve the problem of "urban disease" and promote the construction of new countryside. All along, the government, education departments and public opinion have been calling for and introducing various encouragement policies, but the results are not great. Not to mention college students from cities, even rural college students born and raised in Sri Lanka would rather wander in crowded cities and be crowned as "ant tribe" than return to their homeland and relatives.

Hu Jianqiang, Dean of the Graduate School, and his students. At present, it is the most difficult time for this rural kindergarten.

Our reporter Zhang Peng photo

It was a cold autumn rain, but this small farmhouse in the west of China was very lively. More than 20 rural children rushed out of the classroom cheering, and laughter suddenly rippled in the small farmhouse.

On the low mud wall in the east kitchen, the blackheads of Mao Zedong, Lu Xun and Tao Xingzhi can be recognized at a glance. These lifelike portraits are the founders of this rural kindergarten.

He painted these heads because he thought they were "people who speak for the bottom".

Born in 198 1, this rural "post-80s" graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Northwest Normal University two years ago with his own talent and hard work. Later, I came to Beijing and worked as a curatorial assistant in a gallery in 798 Art District, with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan. Like many "drifting north", he has dreams and expects to make a difference in Beijing.

But he soon discovered that Beijing was too big and too small. "It is too difficult to make a living by art". At the crossroads of life, the homeland that nourished his growth became the source for him to continue to pursue his dreams. "Rural things attracted me." So, he resolutely returned to his hometown and founded this rural kindergarten, named "People's Kindergarten".

The 29-year-old boy began his ideal experiment. He tried to rebuild rural culture and find confidence and cultural roots for rural children. He collects animal and plant specimens and hangs insoles embroidered by rural women as works of art in children's dormitories. In the spring of March, he took his children to the mountains to sketch and learn about the rivers in his hometown, so that rural children could love the countryside and their hometown. He even had the idea of writing local textbooks. ...

His name is Hu Jianqiang, a teacher of more than 20 rural children and a young director of a rural kindergarten who is struggling to run a school. A few days ago, our reporter visited this western rural kindergarten in Bao Ye Village, Qin 'an County, Gansu Province, and listened to the voice of this rural college student. He said, "As a person at the bottom, if I still have ideals, I should speak for more people at the bottom"—

Move to Beijing to find better career opportunities.

In July 2008, I went to Beijing alone, with empty bags, but full of hope. After 798 hours, I was very excited. This "palace" of contemporary art, which has long been legendary in books and on the Internet, is actually close at hand. This year, for Chinese people, it was an unprecedented and carnival festival, but for me, it was an unspeakable pain.

After arriving in Beijing, I spent two months wandering, studying, adapting and doing nothing. The first is zero-distance contact with the so-called contemporary art. In the past two months, I have visited many galleries in the 798 Caochangdi Art District, watching exhibitions, browsing, or looking for a job. During the period, I also went to apply for a job and interview endlessly. Only then did I realize the prosperity and noise, diversity and complexity, nobility and poverty, freedom and strictness of Beijing. For a man who spends half his time in the countryside, wandering in the city and floating between urban and rural areas, the unique China color in Beijing makes me feel hopeless. Life in Beijing belongs to a few people, and more people are trying their luck. What's more, it's a pity that they lost themselves and gave their fate to opportunities.

My first job in Beijing was to help a family of four Americans do exhibitions. I worked for three days and didn't get a penny. I made money in Beijing for the first time, but now I think it's hopeless and beautiful. Once I drew a stick figure with a friend, and it took us half a night to finish drawing 10. Finally, people used four and earned 40 yuan. Until two months later, by chance, I entered the gallery of a famous curator in China as an assistant. But it also accelerated me to give up capital and choose the road of self.

Although the problem of personal life has been solved, I have been thinking about what I can do, what I want, what an intellectual should stand on and so on for a long time. Some trivial stories in Beijing have also been stinging me. Therefore, leaving Beijing is not an escape for me.

As a person at the bottom, if I still have ideals, I should speak for more people at the bottom. I feel uneasy that I am a so-called graduate student but I am useless. At the same time, I am glad that there are worse and more boring college students, returnees, graduate students and so on. I have no desire to turn over from the bottom, but I hope more people can always know themselves clearly. Education is within my power. It's natural to go wherever I need to. So I thought of my hometown-a place that is still poor and beautiful. The first step starts with children.

In February 2009, on the eve of the Spring Festival, I left Beijing. The winter wind in Beijing is like a knife.

obstacle

Back home, during the Spring Festival, I announced the idea of running a kindergarten to my family. At first, the family disagreed. My parents and family want me to find a stable job. I want to find an ideal job, just like everyone else, but I found that my repeated attempts to find a job failed not entirely because of my own reasons. It is not easy for rural college students like me who have no social resources and family background to find a platform for fair competition.

From this, I think: instead of letting me muddle along within the system, it is better to go my own way. After the job search ran aground, my friends and I were going to cooperate to run a kindergarten in Qin 'an County, and the contradiction with our family escalated rapidly. During this period, I made a survey on rural education, including preschool education. Later, when I couldn't live at home, I moved to the county to live with my friends. Depression, after all, is my native place, but it is difficult and far to do my own thing well.

At the end of April 2009, my friends and I were forced to separate temporarily because of different educational concepts and starting points. Of course, he will be one of the most powerful witnesses to the establishment of my kindergarten in the future. I am wandering in Lanzhou, helping people to do exhibitions, make albums, make sculptures and solve their own survival problems.

June 5438+10, ready to go back to my hometown to run a kindergarten. My parents' doubts about me are clear and realistic: first, I lack funds to run a kindergarten, and even my personal life problems are difficult to solve. Secondly, graduate students should be a symbol of our family status. If I do this, this identity will become a burden. Third, my personal life, marriage and other problems can't be solved.

People in the village talk too much: I have no skill. I have been wandering for many years and can't get along. I came back to run a kindergarten in the village to coax my children to make a living.

Seriously, I can't answer everyone's suspicions and doubts, just like some problems can't be solved by just talking. I am too lazy to pay attention to those who despise me and will only solve all the problems I encounter. The first step is to investigate the rural preschool education. In order to make the future kindergarten have a scale, I spent tens of thousands of yuan to buy an empty yard that my neighbor has been idle for 30 years. Of course, the fund-raising process was full of hardships and twists and turns, during which I also got a little support from my father. Later, my second brother, who supported me, cleaned up the yard and classroom used in kindergarten, and set up kindergarten teaching AIDS such as tables, benches and blackboards. I don't know how to convince my family, and there is no need to convince other people in the village. I really started a kindergarten with practical actions. I appeared in a place where everyone thought I should not appear, and in a professional field where everyone thought I was incompetent.

I never thought it was anything to be a graduate student. I can't do this without putting down the aura of graduate students. Perhaps, if you put down your identity first, your state will be better.

At a media debate, someone asked me: Is it too idealistic for you to go back to the countryside to run a kindergarten? This question is too stupid for me to answer. Everyone has an ideal, some people's ideals are luxury houses, cars and beautiful women, some people's ideals are power and money, and some people's ideals are just to eat. And some people's ideal is not to say, but to do.

emphasize

I didn't expect to be able to recruit six children when I first arrived in the village to run a kindergarten, but later it increased to nine. In fact, I am already very happy, which shows that some villagers have tried to trust me, which has doubled my confidence. The hardest part is actually that at the beginning, the pressure of reality once made me almost unable to hold on. But I firmly believe that "as long as you persist, you will achieve something."

The days with these children have made me very happy, and I have persisted to this day. Now kindergarten has begun to take shape, with more than 20 children.

As for the original intention of running this rural kindergarten, as the name "People's Kindergarten" reveals, I want to fairly popularize "People's Quality Education" in the rural areas of China today, mainly including the personality, living habits, language habits, creative thinking and physical health of rural children. In this process, we will offer courses in rural culture, geography, science and art, interspersed with the advantages of urban preschool education, so as to grow.

Of course, this is just my ideal. I am faced with many difficulties, just like those encountered by almost all rural kindergartens in China. In terms of funds, neither myself nor the kindergarten itself can maintain it. Trying to engage in for-profit preschool education at the lowest level of farmers sounds unreliable. I'm not stupid enough to run back from Beijing to do such business in the countryside.

In my mind, all children in kindergarten are equal. Whether parents are village cadres or part-time. "People's Kindergarten" should not be my own kindergarten, rural education should have its own characteristics, and this place should be the experimental base of rural education.

People's Kindergarten continues my idea of speaking for more people at the bottom when I left Beijing, and it is being further improved. The gap between urban and rural areas in China has worsened the situation in rural areas. Under the existing conditions in rural areas, it is difficult for rural kindergartens to form a professional and stable team of teachers, which will affect the survival of rural kindergartens, let alone their ideals.