It comes to an end for the 6th period of Zenker Dingshan Lake Summer Camp.The summer of 2017 is unforgettable and intoxicated.In the last two months,with lots of passion and sweating, batch after batch of lovely kids,flashed by,such as Feng Yuguo, Zhang Xiao He,Li Sai,Yang Junjie,Tian Jinguo, Wang Wanyi, Xi Zirui,Cheng Qian, Li Hanqi, Chen Yiou, Wang Pei Maoyu, Hu Lanxin etc., are distinctive，clever and aspirant.For skid’s growth,the teachers never regreted when their clothes are sweated and dried, and then sweated again.For kid’s growth,it is deserved no matter how much the teachers paid.
The children tried too much“ first time”in summer camp like the first respective sleep,the first washing, the first tree climbing，the first rope clipping，the first cooking，the first picnic，the first catching fish in the field，the first CS playing，the first attending English fair，the first toys auction，the first making bamboo handcrafts,the first finger print on the public welfare proposal,the first being captain,the first astronomical telescope and VR experience.They overcome the Acrophobia and lovesickness,fully integrated into their respective teams,and realize their promises made in their entrance camp ceremony which have honesty,friendly kindness and bravery all the time.
Holding this summer camp is unintentional,just originally convenient for my own two kids ,and is a suprise to gain the warm welcome from most of children,old and young.In the summer holiday of 2017，at the Zenker Dingshan lake summer camp base，we hold a total of six periods of activities with full participants each period from July 1st to August 29th. As lots of children know this information too late to sign up，they have to miss the camp and wait for the next one in the following year.
Zenker network has seven years of experience in organizing charity activities for children and adolescents, but this is the first time to have summer camp. Which we have exactly no experience and original version to follow makes such successful camp.Following our own understanding, we presented the best things to kids， delivered Zenkers’s values to them, took each kids as our own one,enlighten them about the respect and tolerance, thrift and humility,bravery and kindness,so that they have romantic feelings from childhood. In summer camp base,we are not only the educators but also preacher.we tried to teach the children the truth of life as a line goes in the camp poetry meeting goes,“life has the poetry and distance as well as examination ”. So we had the Scarborough Fair to let the children walk into forest to collect plants specimen, knitted wreaths in beautiful music, traded in English using money received from the exchange in toy auctions.they have not only a sense of success, but also romantic feelings. And all these only comes from the European classic song“Scarborough Fair”learned when i am student in 1980s and i make great efforts to realize such beautiful dream. Even the foreign teacher each period was infected by the the romantic and warm atmosphere in the scene and sincerely saluted to us.
We also organize them to watch micro film“Journal to the Stars”by Beijing University.I ask them not to give up your dreams easily,as the film says “the dream is the most true reality”.No matter what time, no matter what difficulties, do not easily give up their dreams, hold on your initiatives and achieve your goals.
I told them that these which decided how far away you go forward depends on your dream and idealistic and these also determined your life stage in your future.
Zenker camp has sowed a beautiful seed in the heart of each student which will take root and spread when the time is right.
Especially，we have a class for handcraft in which the old bamboo craftsman teach the kids to knit the bamboo ware.Meanwhile，we tell them what the craftsmanship is, and what the Lu Ban Award is，teach them to strive for excellence in a persistent way and never give up halfway. Although this is the first time for the old bamboo craftsman to stand in the platform, they teach the class extremely seriously.
It took an important place on conducting value except many activities suitable for the nature of the children. We stipulate that all the campers should do one kind thing each day including rescue the dragonflies and butterflies flied into dormitory.They all are a little responsible Zenker once they join this camp wearing zenker T-shirt on the first day.we believe that ten days of camp life led the mutual spirits “ one for all ,all for one” deep into the heart of each child.
Zenker environmental protection messengers, one period after another, walked along the Dingshan River upstream, farther and farther, in this summer camp. The little Children does not take the same road, and relay to travel nine dams and thirteen ditches over the Dingshan Dam of Xishui county. The enthusiasm of the children is much hotter than the summer . It’s not a show, but the actual action to practice the promised summer camp vows - " Help others ,now and then, here and there ." The banner of the Zenker is flying in the gauze bouquet, which is truly good-looking. They climbed on the hill, went into thousands of farmers houses scattering in Dingshan dam to promote environmental protection. The garbage picking infected with countless local residents which were continuously talked by the folks of Dingshan dam , and quietly changed their bad habits of littering garbage casually. Dingshan Lake, the mother lake in Dingshan Town, is the local drinking water. For a long time, it’s puzzling that sometimes the garbage upstream from the direction of Guizhou province drifts into the Lake. As a result , we initiate the proposal for the Dingshan Lake environmental protection and believe that we will let the Lake returned into cleanness one day to benefit thousands of residents downstream alongside the Dingshan Lake in Chongqing.
In the afternoon before the ending day of the 5th period, I tell the children a famous saying by Lu Xun, “When we have experienced many troubles,the relationship between us still exist.At the time of meeting again,we forget the past betrayal and revenge with a laugh.” “Would any quarreled classmates like to become reconciled，as the tolerance is the best virtue ”I said.we hardly thought that it got warm response.
There were a dozen pairs of contradictory students actively standing up and shaking hands for friendship, and all the people stood up for their bravery and kindness with their enthusiastic applause.
We found that many pupils can cite the classic sessions of Three Characters Classic,but can’t actually understand those historical stories.So we organize them to play series of costume drama-- the Glory of the Ancestor of hree Characters Classic and let them to understand those historical figures through the role-play to know what the benevolence, righteousness, rites, intelligence, and fidelity are.
If Dou Yanshan, the character of“Wish the kids a promising future”played by us,can forgive the servant who steals his 20,000 yuan, what kind of the contradiction can’t be solved?
There is no bad kids,but bad teachers. Encouragement and applause are the best tools for the education. The children, the miniature of parents, can be enormously affected by their parents who are reluctant to let them go. Some kids,about ten years old, still sleep with their parents which causes the children cowardice and severe psychological dependence. These kids can be milked physically about one year old,but not mentally.There are about 280 campers totally joined. Most of the cried children for missing home don’t sleep alone. A 9-years-old girl, in Tiger Group during the fifth period of the tree-climbing activities,can hardly climb up.The tutor had no ideal and ask for my help.I steadily encouraged her,shorten the distance between top-point and the ground on purpose,and call on the teem to cheer for her.She has climbed to the top of the tree while cried and my voice is also dumb at last.The child’s potential is huge,as long as the parents are willing to let them go and the child must give them surprises in return.
The children for this summer camp come from Chongqing,Sichuan,Zhejiang,Guizhou, Hulan,Shenzheng etc..It’s the first time for most of them far away from parents,and some of them are independent,but some shows serious psychological imbalance,which caused by the excessive asylum from their parents.The child isn’t a commodity, and not also the personal assets, but is the best gift to the parents who will leave away from us one day. It’s parents’responsibility to foster the children’s independence as early as possible. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change.The birds in the cage is worse competitive than the free ones.As for the saying from the poetry“Bird”by Tagore “Family birds live in the cage but wild birds in the forest.”,family birds will never know the happiness of wild bird flying freely.
Nowadays the economy are well- developed and the material life is largely abundant, but our spiritual life are poor on the contrary for excessive material gain.I havedefinitely missed “the spring of the art “in the 1980s when the Chongqing library was overcrowded and the journals about pure literature and art like “Shi Kan” “Harvest” and“Fiction Monthly” were very popular.Reading poetry can let one elegant,improve imagination of nationality,and increase one’s patterns and feelings. As It’s pitiful that there is hardly modern classic poetry in the textbook of elementary school, We judiciously select the modern poetry from poet home and abroad like Tagore, Shakespeare, Xu Zhimo, Bei Dao,Hai Zi etc., and had the topic poetry meeting “Paper Boat”to wish the children a beautiful world with sincere heart.
The fact certified that the course and the program for this camp is successful from lots of children resisted to join at the beginning to reluctant to depart in the end, and even to book the winter camp and the next summer camp in advance.the children have obvious change and make great progress.It’s surprised that,one day after super, two girls cried hardly at the beginning in the Wolf group ask me :Principle, aren’t there just for five days left to play? We believe that the ten-day camp life has left an unforgettable memory for their childhood, which will infiltrate them in the long process of growth and influence them imperceptibly.
Zenker try best to build this summer camp as a thoughtful, responsible,idealistic and funny school which can be the supplement for the examination-Oriental education and family education, executes the teaching concept “ Combination of knowing and doing”,and introduces the boy scouts in Europe and America which be reformed to suit China's national conditions.in the zenker’s summer camp base, we treat every kids as the same. No matter what kind of background from city or countryside you are just have one identity--camper and they have to obey the regulations of the camp.We have prepared colorful culture and sports activities such as outdoor development,sports skills,performing arts, Sinology and calligraphy, farming culture, military training, astronomy, science and technology, handcraft, scene English, natural experience and so on. We try our best to foster the children to be a self-esteem,self-confidence, self-reliance, self-improvement person which is the responsibility of Zenker.
The day before yesterday, I invited my third sister, retired already from Nanping middle school,to have an interesting math class in the summer camp base. She is very glad to tell me that you have already inherit mother’s business in the education industry.I was born in the teachers’s family where my mother is a student teacher in 1840s and my two sisters are both teachers.and i enjoy the new title “Principal”which means more responsibility.Education is a pure industry,where the relationship is simple, and an occupation to do until you retired.
Hope the campers,many years later, can remember that them have an unforgettable period of times in the summer of 2017 in zenker’s camp base. Wish them the same with the poet who runs with dream not to forget their initiatives, restrain theirs action and enjoy the beautiful things.As it is, i am definitely satisfied.
It’s time to depart for each child again,and then the children’s songs sound along my ears: “Beyond the distant pavilion, Along the side of ancient way,igh grass stretches into the sky ”, and “It’s hard for us to gather together in a life,only easy to depart.”
