"As long as I still have a breath, I will stand on the podium, do my best, dedicate everything, and die without regrets." On June 29, Zhang Guimei mentioned this when she gave a speech at the "July 1st Medal" award ceremony. The voice is raised when the sentence is over.
The national audience watching the live broadcast focused on her hands covered with plasters-it was these hands that brought nearly 2,000 rural girls who were studying in the mountains out of the mountains.
Zhang Guimei was assisted and walked into the Great Hall of the People. She hobbled as she climbed the stairs, and the joints of her wrists, backs of hands and fingers were covered with plasters.
In February this year, at the National Poverty Alleviation Summary and Commendation Conference held in the Great Hall of the People, she was also commended in a wheelchair.
The story of Zhang Guimei is almost a household name. She founded China's first free girls' high school-Huaping Girls High School in Lijiang, Yunnan Province.
Here, students get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and rest after 12 o’clock at night; they have to rush from the classroom to the cafeteria within 3 minutes and eat within 10 minutes; even in the summer of 40 degrees Celsius, they can only take a bath once a day... …
Zhang Guimei firmly believes that this set of management methods is enough to temper the students' will.
The "iron fist" mode is to grasp learning. For these children who are far behind the "starting line", this is the best accelerator she can find.
She has always been the "light-bearer" who wakes up first and sleeps last in school.
Zhang Guimei always hides the fragile side and presents the toughest side to the students.
Once, the student's Milan exam was not ideal, so she went to talk to Zhang Guimei.
Zhang Guimei stretched out her hand to Milan to see.
Her hands were tortured every morning so that she was unbearable and could not sleep well.
Only by putting on the plaster, her knuckles could barely move.
Although she is 64 years old, in the past 12 years, she has almost been a "ruthless person" who has not had a good rest.
In addition, she also has 23 diseases such as emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, and cerebellar atrophy.
In 12 years, she has traveled about 110,000 kilometers of home visits and enrolled nearly 2,000 rural girls in school.
"That mountain is so big and big, and some girls are the first high school students born out of their ancestors in generations." She persuaded those families with financial constraints or patriarchal views one by one, "We don't charge a cent for high school; go to college. We can also help; what she misses, we all help."
Zhang Guimei, whose ancestral home is in Liaoning, went to the Yunnan branch at the age of 17, and then taught with her husband at Xizhou No. 1 Middle School in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture.
In 1996, her husband was diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer. Zhang Guimei spent all her family savings to treat him, but in the end her husband gave up.
Later, Zhang Guimei moved to Huaping County Central Middle School to teach.
But in less than half a year, she was diagnosed with a uterine fibroids, weighing 5 kg.
Zhang Guimei was desperate at the time, and her colleagues encouraged her to "treat with confidence." The then magistrate of Huaping County also persuaded her: "Don't be afraid, no matter how poor we are, we will save you."
At that time, Huaping County issued an initiative to raise funds for Zhang Guimei.
A woman who lives in the mountains donated her only 5 yuan for the return journey.
Soon after, Zhang Guimei passed the critical juncture of life and death.
"They saved me, what am I going to do while I'm alive?" Since then, she has almost given the life she recovered to Huaping County.
Although she has no children, she has been the dean of the Huaping County Children's Welfare Institute voluntarily since 2001. The children there call her "mother."
She gradually discovered that there were fewer and fewer female students in the class, and some people simply did not come to school.
The limited educational opportunities of a family are generally reserved for boys.
The usual destiny of Dashan girl is to marry early and have children and do farm work.
The girls they gave birth are still ignored and even abandoned.
In Zhang Guimei's view, an educated woman can block the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
She decided to open a free high school for girls in the mountains.
Although she had no funds and only served as a class teacher, this idea seemed immature to people at the time, but she was determined to do it.
In 2002, Zhang Guimei did a “crazy” thing. She printed out all the certificates and certificates she had obtained and placed them on the streets of Kunming to “collect donations”.
She was simply looking forward to the fact that there are so many people in Yunnan, each of whom will donate 5 yuan or 10 yuan, so that they will have the money to build the school.
But some people thought she was a liar and even let a dog bit her.
Five years later, she only raised more than 10,000 yuan.
In 2007, because of going to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Huaping County specially allocated several thousand yuan for Zhang Guimei to purchase formal wear for the conference, but she changed hands and gave the money to the Children's Welfare Institute.
When she entered Beijing in old clothes, she didn't even notice that her trousers had been torn.
During the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the media paid attention to the party representative wearing ripped pants and began to pay attention to the story of her wanting to establish a girls' high school.
Although the school was established, it didn't take long for 9 of the 17 teachers to leave because of the difficult environment and poor students' background.
Careful Zhang Guimei found that 6 of the remaining teachers were members of the Communist Party of China.
She therefore stubbornly believed: "If in the war years, if there is one party member left, the position will not be lost, and we have 6 people."
Because of the shortage of funds, they drew a party flag on the second floor of the school and wrote the party membership oath on it. Before the oath was completed, several people were crying.
"I take the party's reputation very seriously, and the title of Communist Party member." Zhang Guimei said that she loves singing "Red Plum Praise" and watching "Red Rock" and the opera "Jiang Sister".
She took the party constitution and red song lyrics to Huaping Girls' High School and taught the girls.
"I must be a'Jiao Yulu' person." She still remembers that she wrote such a sentence in the party application form.
Even if he spends half of his life rewriting the destiny of Dashan Girl, Zhang Guimei still modestly calls herself "an ordinary teacher."
In the past 10 years, under the leadership of Zhang Guimei and the joint efforts of the teachers and students of the school, the teaching results of Huaping Girls’ High School have been fruitful: when the first graduates took the college entrance examination in 2011, 69 of the 96 students scored higher. Undergraduate line, the online rate of one book is 4.26%.
By 2020, 150 of the 159 college entrance examination candidates in the school have achieved the undergraduate level, and candidates above one level account for 44% of the total number of candidates.
"I was born as a mountain instead of a stream. I want to look down on mediocre ravines from the top of the peaks." This is the school motto set by Zhang Guimei for the school. She encourages girls to be confident and ambitious. See the wonderful world outside and see the bright future".
"The careers that most female high school students choose now are doctors, teachers, police, and army soldiers." Zhang Guimei said that this year, she was a little bit reluctant to learn that two girls had joined the army to Tibet.
"Why did you choose this place?" Zhang Guimei asked.
"Didn't you tell us?" The girls replied, "We will go wherever the motherland needs it."
China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter Zhang Yi Source: China Youth Daily