On the eve of Teacher's Day last year, the general secretary sent a letter to the representatives of outstanding teachers across the country, clearly putting forward China's unique educator spirit. On the new journey of building a strong country in education, how to take the spirit of educators as the guide, continuously improve the attractiveness of teachers, and let more outstanding talents teach? How to let the majority of teachers show their talents and more good teachers continue to emerge?
On March 5, Mei Bing, deputy to the National People's Congress and secretary of the Party Committee of East China Normal University, and Shao Zhihao, deputy to the National People's Congress and principal of the High School Affiliated to Northeast Normal University, were guests in the studio of "Interview Record of the Two Sessions" of China Education Newspaper and Periodicals to discuss related issues.
Mei Bing, deputy to the National People's Congress and secretary of the Party Committee of East China Normal University.
Shao Zhihao, deputy to the National People's Congress and principal of the High School Affiliated to Northeast Normal University.
Integrate the spirit of educatorship into daily teaching
Reporter:As deputies to the National People's Congress, what bills or suggestions did the two of you bring this year?
Mei Bing:This year, I have two suggestions, both of which are related to the construction of the teaching team, one of which is "Suggestions on Vigorously Cultivating and Promoting the Spirit of Educators", including strengthening the in-depth and systematic study of the spirit of educators, which is a major topic not only in the field of education, but also for other disciplines to be involved, so as to study the profound connotation of the spirit of educators more deeply and systematically; Establish a mechanism for integrating the spirit of educators into the construction of the teaching team, and incorporate the training of normal students, post-service training of teachers, and the professional development of teachers, so as to better stimulate the motivation of teachers' development.
Shao Zhihao:The suggestions I brought are all closely related to the development of basic education, focusing on promoting the spirit of educators and striving to build a high-quality team of basic education teachers. Now everyone is discussing the spirit of educators, how to integrate the spirit of educators into the daily teaching of front-line teachers, so that teachers can practice in the front line of teaching and educating people, which is a top priority.
Reporter:The two delegates invariably focused on the theme of promoting the spirit of educators and teacher training. Secretary Mei, how do you think we should be guided by the spirit of educators to better train future teachers in basic education?
Mei Bing:We should cultivate and promote the spirit of educators in two stages.
The first stage is pre-vocational training, which mainly refers to the cultivation of students in school, and we must integrate the cultivation and promotion of the spirit of educators into the whole process of training students, especially normal students. For example, entrance education, linkage between the first classroom and the second classroom, internship practice, career education, graduation education, etc.
The second stage is post-service training. Every once in a while, teachers need to "return" to relevant institutions, especially pedagogical universities, for retraining. We can use the base platform of the school to integrate the cultivation of educator spirit into the post-service training of teachers.
In addition, in all aspects of teachers' "selection and utilization", it is necessary to integrate the cultivation and promotion of the spirit of educators into it, and create an atmosphere in the school where the spirit of educators continues to shine, so that teachers can work towards the goal of educators.
Reporter:Teacher training is a systematic project, how can the High School Affiliated to Northeast Normal University continue to promote the construction of the teaching team, so that more teachers can consciously move forward in the direction of educators?
Shao Zhihao:Mr. Chen Yuanhui, the first principal of the High School Affiliated to Northeast Normal University, once advocated that "teachers should be educators, not teachers", which has become a concept that the school has followed for more than 70 years. The school mainly helps teachers to move towards educator-type teachers from three aspects.
First, cultivate excellent teacher role models around you. For example, special teachers, senior teachers, and excellent educators, let these excellent teachers tell their growth stories to young teachers.
Second, build a platform for the growth of teachers. Every year on the eve of Teachers' Day, we will hold a special "Yuanhui Forum" to give teachers a stage for growth, a stage for display, and a stage for mutual encouragement and sharing.
Third, support for teachers at different stages of development. From new teachers, learning teachers, to reflective teachers, research teachers, and educator teacher training, we have formulated different development plans and goals to provide detailed help and support for teachers' growth.
Promote the high-quality implementation of the "National Excellence Plan".
Reporter:In order to strengthen the construction of the teaching team and allow more outstanding talents to teach, the Ministry of Education launched the "National Excellence Plan" in 2023.
Mei Bing:From the beginning of its establishment, East China Normal University has had a concept - the unity of normalcy and academicity. The production of a high-level teacher is not only the result of high-level teacher education, but also the result of high-level professional education.
In the first step, we recruited the first batch of "national excellent students" among the exempted non-normal science undergraduate graduates and junior non-normal science master's students. We have weakened the paper-and-pencil examination and set up an interview team composed of three types of teachers - one is a professional course teacher, the other is a teacher majoring in teacher education, and the other is an experienced middle school teacher in the practice base of East China Normal University, and the selection focus is on the interview process.
In the second step, we pay special attention to integration in the training process. The first is curriculum integration, which closely integrates professional courses with teacher education courses, learning and practice; The second is the integration of teachers, and each "national excellent student" has a mentor team composed of three teachers to train them.
In the third step, we also tried to "order-based training". For example, some secondary schools have special needs for new teachers, and we combine them with the needs of the school. We hope that this group of "national excellent students" can truly achieve the purpose of the Ministry of Education's establishment of the "National Excellence Program".
Select the "good seedlings" who are suitable for music education
Reporter:How to select the "good seedlings" who are suitable for teaching is a difficult problem in front of the pilot colleges and universities of the "National Excellence Plan". How can the pilot universities of the "National Excellence Plan" recruit "good seedlings"?
Mei Bing:In general, admissions must first go through examinations, especially written examinations. Sometimes the written test can not see whether the student is suitable, happy to be a teacher, whether there is the potential to become a good teacher, but the "National Excellence Program" gives us a very good opportunity, in addition to professional results, but also through the student's other performance in school, through the school's "interview team" for all-round consideration, if the student has the potential to teach music, then we can select the student, I believe that the pilot schools in this area are similar.
Reporter:Does Principal Shao have any good suggestions for selecting more "good seedlings"?
Shao Zhihao:I have two suggestions. First of all, to select a "good seedling" who is suitable for music education, it is necessary to put him in the real scene to temper. Northeast Normal University has built a "U-G-S" model, that is, a tripartite cooperation model of "normal university-local **-primary and secondary schools", which puts college students in a primary and secondary school for internship within the specified time, integrates into the real education scene, and "tests" whether he is suitable for teaching, whether he likes to teach, and whether he can firmly teach. Secondly, from the perspective of employers, I hope to promote the professional teacher training of "4+2" continuous bachelor's and master's degrees. If students can take the teaching profession as a lifelong passion, it must be a very good "seedling".
Reporter:We found that in the past, there were also many high-level university graduates who were not teachers to teach in primary and secondary schools. How does President Shao view the phenomenon of non-normal professionals teaching? Do they have any advantages over teacher training graduates?
Shao Zhihao:From a school point of view, we are very welcome. We should have such a consensus: let more outstanding people join the ranks of primary and secondary school teachers, and cultivate more outstanding people. Normal students and non-normal students have their own advantages. From the perspective of teacher team construction and teaching quality improvement, the gathering of outstanding talents from different types of majors actually gives us the opportunity to collide with diverse ideas, which is very beneficial to the professional development of teachers.
Reporter:For a school like the High School Affiliated to Northeast Normal University, it is natural to attract many outstanding talents, but for most ordinary primary and secondary schools, how can we retain and make good use of talents?
Shao Zhihao:As a special talent group, teachers especially need schools to retain and use good people. From the perspective of the school, it is necessary to continuously build a platform for the professional growth of teachers, and the greatest pursuit of the teaching profession is to realize the value, and this value is to cultivate excellent people. Therefore, we should give teachers the opportunity to teach according to their aptitude, and encourage teachers to guide characteristic clubs in addition to completing their normal teaching work, so that teachers can realize their basic values while training students individually.
Cultivating people who will not be replaced by machines
Reporter:At present, while we are getting more outstanding talents from teaching topics, we should also pay attention to the fact that with the advent of the era of artificial intelligence, teachers are facing huge challenges. How should educators respond in this state?
Mei Bing:The development of artificial intelligence models has posed great challenges to educators, and of course, it has also brought great opportunities, which we must grasp well. First, we must take a positive and rational attitude towards the big "variable" of artificial intelligence. In the process of teacher training and training, we should analyze this situation clearly, so that everyone has the awareness to deal with challenges and seize opportunities. Second, it is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of digital and intellectual literacy of teachers and normal students. ECNU has done a lot of work recently, including opening some courses and workshops, and developing our own large models of education and scientific research. Third, it is necessary to cultivate the ability of teachers and normal students to solve problems comprehensively across disciplines, including the ability to ask questions, so as to better apply artificial intelligence and promote the more comprehensive growth of students. Fourth, attention should be paid to cultivating the social and emotional abilities of teachers, normal students, and young people.
Shao Zhihao:This year, we had a short school promotional video generated with artificial intelligence at the All-School Teachers' Conference, which brought a great shock to everyone. From informatization, digitalization to digital intelligence, first of all, teachers should be more determined to do a good job of cultivating morality, cultivate students' awareness of self-discipline, and integrate the cultivation of basic character and values into subject teaching. Second, we need to train people who will not be replaced by machines. People's thinking, friendly character, and teamwork spirit are the basic qualities to cope with future challenges. We should focus on interdisciplinary thinking and promote STEAM education, so that students have a stronger ability to solve practical problems, rather than cultivating students' problem-solving ability. Secondly, we should make great changes in our education and teaching methods, especially in the way of educating people, and we should highlight student-centered education, and we should pay more attention to how to let students master various methods, thinking and ideas to cope with future challenges. I hope that teachers will focus more on the growth of their students when facing new educational challenges.
This article** China Education Daily 2024-03-06 05 edition 2024 National Two Sessions Special Issue This article is written by |China Teacher Daily reporter Han Shiwen Cui Binbin photography |Reporter Shan Yiwei Photo by Editor-in-charge Li Zi.