A journey to the light
Ma Jianguo, deputy to the National People's Congress and principal of Mohe Municipal People's School in Heilongjiang Province.
Ma Jianguo (second from left) tutors students in their homework.
Ma Jianguo (left) shows the school's wall of honor to Liu Zhaoda, chief prosecutor of the Daxinganling Branch of the Heilongjiang Provincial Procuratorate.
The latitude of 53 degrees north is the latitude of the Mohe River. As soon as the reporter got out of the car, a figure ran on the white snow: "I can see the Northern Lights tonight, stay and enjoy it together!."When I first met Ma Jianguo, a deputy to the National People's Congress and principal of Mohe Municipal School in Heilongjiang Province, the reporter deeply felt the enthusiasm of this Shandong man.
Ma Jianguo, 50 years old this year, his hometown is in Heze, Shandong, in 1997, after graduating from Keshan Normal College in Heilongjiang Province, he stayed alone in the northern Xinjiang of the motherland and became a teacher in the central school of Arctic Town. "When I was in college, a teacher told me that Mohe is the only place in our country where you can see the Northern Lights. After graduating from college, I went all the way north to embark on a journey to find light, and I had the opportunity to leave, but the children needed me, and I couldn't let them go. When the reporter asked Ma Jianguo why he had stuck to this small border town for so many years, he replied.
There is no road from the county seat to the village, and it takes three and a half hours to reach the distance of more than 80 kilometersThe village is powered by diesel engines for a limited time, and it is dark at night;Winter in Arctic Village comes early, with snow falling from the end of September for six or seven months, and the lowest temperature reaches minus 40 or 50 degrees Celsius, and the classroom is only an iron stove converted from a large oil drum, which is ......heated by firewood
What worries Ma Jianguo even more is that the student base here is weak and the academic performance is generally skewed. In this regard, Ma Jianguo often uses the time after school to "open a small stove" for students. During the busy farming season in the village, parents could not take care of their children, and Ma Jianguo had to give the children evening self-study.
One winter night in 2007, Ma Jianguo walked home from self-study at night, and the weather was cold and slippery, and he accidentally fell, resulting in a comminuted fracture of his right leg. The doctor told him to stay in bed, but after staying at home for more than a week, Ma Jianguo moved all the way to school on crutches. Because more than 30 students in the class were approaching the high school entrance examination, he was anxious.
As soon as I returned to the class, the children were very happy. Seeing that I insisted on attending classes, they also worked very hard. Ma Jianguo said that that year, six children in the class were admitted to key high schools, setting the best results in the township over the years. In the same year, he was awarded the "National Outstanding Teacher".
In 2013, Ma Jianguo served as the principal of Arctic Town Center School. At his insistence, the school allocated a part of the funds every semester to arrange for teachers to study in advanced schools in the province. Through learning exchanges, the teachers of the school learn from the advanced experience of running a school, and constantly improve the teaching mode in line with the actual development of the school, so as to stimulate the students' interest in learning. In 2021, Ma Jianguo won the honorary title of "The Most Beautiful Teacher" in the country.
After 25 years of working at the Arctic Town Central School, in September 2022, Ma Jianguo was transferred to Mohe Municipal School as the principal. After coming to Liren School, he adhered to the concept of "establishing education with temperature at 53 degrees north latitude", led his colleagues to create the party building brand of "being a red candle pioneer and educating red elites", put forward "colorful moral education" as the moral education section of "background education", and took the cultivation of teenagers with "seven qualities" (self-determination, determination, morality, talent, career, meritorious service, and speech) as the general goal of moral education. Under the leadership of Ma Jianguo, the school has successively won the honorary titles of "Advanced Collective of Teacher Ethics Construction in Heilongjiang Province" and "Advanced Grassroots Party Organization in Daxinganling Area".
Since being elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress, Ma Jianguo has always paid great attention to the issue of education. "Whether a country can be called a strong country in education and science and technology depends on whether the cultivation of independent talents can support the country to participate in the world's most cutting-edge and advanced scientific and technological competition and industrial competition. Ma Jianguo believes that on the basis of keeping the bottom line of educational fairness, we should pay more attention to the "two ends": one end is to open up and smooth the "green channel" from basic education to higher education for students with subject expertise and innovation potential to meet the urgent needs of scientific and technological innovation;On the other hand, it is necessary to face a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial revolution, promote the reform of graduate enrollment and training mechanism, and cultivate more "high-end" talents.
During the interview, Ma Jianguo told reporters that the border areas of Heilongjiang are remote and the natural conditions are difficult, and it is "difficult to introduce high-quality educational resources". "As the northernmost border area in China, the highest latitude and the coldest climate, Mohe City has difficult production and living conditions, poor basic conditions, relatively backward economy, decreasing population, and declining number of students, resulting in difficulties in the introduction of high-quality educational resources. ”
I hope that the state will give more preferential policies to candidates in border counties to help them receive better higher education. Being in the northernmost part of the world, sticking to the northernmost place!As a representative of grassroots education, I will also take it as my responsibility to help the development of education in the border areas, and strive to let the children in the border areas enjoy better education. Looking forward to the future, Ma Jianguo said with great expectations.
Procuratorate** Han Bing, Nie Ying, Zhao Weibin).