What impressed me the most was the third episode "Growing Up". In that episode, the film crew came to Lianshui Middle School in the deep mountains of Yunnan and filmed the story of children writing poems for the first time. Most of the students in Lushui Middle School are left-behind children, and their parents work outside for a living. The headmaster said that the children have long been sensible, too quiet to make noise. It was poetry that opened their hearts.
Under the guidance of the teacher, the children observed the sky, clouds, cattle, sheep, flowers and plants on the sunny hillside, and thought about their life ten years later around the bonfire under the starry night sky. The communication that goes deep into the heart again and again touches the children and makes them unlock their hearts little by little. So, they wrote poems for the first time.
A quiet child wrote, "When I close my eyes, I see the green wind. It touched the trees in the mountains, bronzed my calves, kissed the white wall at home and dyed my uncle's corn yellow, but I won't tell you the secret of wind discoloration. "
Why teach children to write poetry? Many teachers think that writing poems can't improve the test scores, let alone the enrollment rate. But the headmaster said, "Children who have studied poetry will not break the glass." Children who have studied poetry have learned how to treat the world gently.
After watching this episode, I was deeply touched. What is the purpose of education? Many times, in addition to acquiring knowledge, education is more important to help us have a broader vision and treat the ups and downs in life.
The book I want to share with you today is called When You Fly to Your Mountain Like a Bird, which tells a story about how education changed your life. This book has been on the bestseller list in The New York Times for more than 80 weeks, with over one million copies sold in the United States and more than 37 translations around the world.
The author of this book is Westford Tara. She is a doctor of history at Cambridge University. However, before 17 years old, she didn't go to school for a day. Instead, I followed my father to dismantle cars and cut iron sheets in the scrap yard every day, and followed my mother to make herbs and extract essential oils.
So, from a girl who knows nothing to a doctor of history, what has Tara experienced? After ten years of higher education, what does Tara think of her family and her life?
Next, I will share Tara's story with you.
Tara was born from 65438 to 0986 in a family in the mountains of Iowa, USA, but she was not sure about the exact month and date. Because she had no birth certificate before 15. So when she wanted to reissue her birth certificate, both her mother and grandmother forgot when she was born.
Her parents have seven children, all of whom were born at home, and four of them have no medical records. Mormon fathers believe that going to the hospital is harmful to health, and birth certificates will only make them the object of government control. In order to avoid being brainwashed by the school, the father also forbids the children to go to school. Among the seven children, the boss helped his father do rough work, went to the scrap yard to dismantle the car, and dealt with petrol cans, broken glass and iron sheets every day. Smaller ones, such as Tara, follow their mother to make essential oils and herbs. In midsummer, they must make enough canned peaches and store them.
All this is for an important day-the end of the world.
When Tara was young, she heard from her father that the end of the world was coming, when the sun would dim and the blood moon would appear. The herbs made by their mother can help them overcome their diseases, the saved gasoline can generate electricity, and the canned peaches are enough for them to escape to the mountains to live.
On the eve of the Millennium, the family is ready to end. That night, my father studied Isaiah for several hours, and then sat on the sofa watching TV with the children, quietly waiting for the last moment. Tara opened her eyes wide, trying to remember everything in front of her. Who knows if the next moment will be the end?
But until 1: 30, God's punishment didn't come, so Tara had to go back to her room to sleep. The next day, the dawn of the Millennium came as always. Tara was a little disappointed that the end of the world that her father had expected had not come. And such disappointment, with her growth, more and more.
On a snowstorm night, my father insisted on driving the whole family home from Arizona, but unfortunately, there was a car accident. My mother was hit by a raccoon eye, her brain was injured, and Tara hit her neck, but my father still stubbornly believed his idea that going to the hospital would harm her health. The medicine in the hospital was toxin, so she refused to go to the hospital.
This made Tara pray for a soldier to appear, help her overcome her father and help her become a complete person. The arrival of her brother Sean gave her a glimmer of hope. This brother is a grumpy man. /kloc-has been wandering outside since he fell out with his father at the age of 0/7. Everyone in town knows that Sean is a fighter and a tough guy. This bullying makes Sean the only character in this family who can compete with his father.
At first, Sean was also very kind to this little sister, taking her to the town theater for rehearsal, taking her to the movies and teaching her horse training and martial arts. But soon, Tara's beautiful fantasy was shattered. In Sean's eyes, no one can go against his will, otherwise it will be ridicule or even beating.
When Tara first put on lipstick, he said she was a prostitute; When she painted her eyelashes, he called her "fisheye", which was his derogatory term for frivolous women.
Finally, once after Tara went against Sean's wishes, Sean cursed "prostitute", kicked Tara wildly, even pulled her hair, dragged her to the bathroom and poked her head into the toilet until she admitted her mistake.
And such beatings, Sean regardless of the occasion, regardless of others. But the cowardly mother couldn't stop such atrocities, and her father just looked on coldly, which made Tara very helpless.
Until one day, Tara's third brother Taylor appeared to save Tara from a violence.
Taylor is Tara's third brother. Taylor never left home before Tara was five years old. The quiet brother likes to hide in the room and read books, while Tara will sit at his feet and listen to his classical music records.
When Dentelle was fifteen, he left home to study. He is a man called Dr. Westerfer. This time, Taylor wants to help his brother and sister. He told Tara, "You should leave here and go to school. The longer you stay here, the less likely you are to leave. "
With the encouragement of her brother, when 16 years old, Tara made a life-changing decision-she wanted to go to college. But my father flew into a rage when he learned about it, and changed his way to let Tara work in the scrap yard, and even let her do the most dangerous work as punishment. He bought a huge machine like scissors and asked the thin Tara to cut the iron sheet. That machine hurt many people and even cut off a finger. Tara has also been injured several times under this pair of scissors.
Such punishment made Tara more determined to leave home and go to school. She gets up early every day to study secretly in her room, and sometimes she hides in her menstrual home to study. But the strangeness of various disciplines, especially the ignorance of mathematics, made Tara collapse. But what else can I do? She can only crustily skin of head to study.
Finally, after repeated failures, Tara was admitted to Brigham Young University at the age of 17. However, after entering the school, it was not smooth. Someone always reminds her that she is different-she doesn't know what the textbook is, she hasn't heard of the "massacre", she can't take the bus, she doesn't wash her hands in the toilet, and she puts rotten fruit in the refrigerator. ...
These unusual performances left Tara isolated for a long time. Backwardness in study and economic isolation exhausted her.
However, God finally began to care for this tenacious and hard-working girl. The classmates and teachers around us began to know Tara. With everyone's help, Tara went to see a psychiatrist for the first time, applied for government tuition aid for the first time, and got full marks in the first course.
Later, Tara gradually opened her own world. She applied for an exchange opportunity at Cambridge University, won a Gates Scholarship, was recommended to Cambridge University for postgraduate study, and then went on to study for a doctorate in history.
However, for a long time, Tara was still deeply immersed in the pain brought by her family-she studied bipolar disorder and tried to understand her father; She studied the shooting incident 20 years ago and tried to dispel her childhood fears. She studied Mormonism and tried to find the source of her father's belief ... She tried to change this family through her own efforts, but in exchange, her family betrayed her again and again: she helped her sister who was threatened by Sean, but her sister sold her out because she was afraid of Sean; She confided her inner pain to her mother, hoping that her mother could help her father with bipolar disorder, but she was cheated by her mother. She sought refuge from her father, hoping that he could stop Sean's violence and intimidation, but his father only helped Sean. ...
Finally, Tara finally found that no matter how hard she tried, in the eyes of her parents, she was always a sinner who betrayed her faith, and in the eyes of her brother Sean, she was still a "fisheye" who could be insulted at will.
In the last year of studying for a doctorate at Cambridge University, Tara finally realized that she loved her father and family, but she could no longer feel guilty about it. Now, she needs to think about her life.
In the Cambridge class, students discussed isaiah berlin's two concepts of freedom: negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is freedom that is not restricted by the outside world. And positive freedom is to liberate one's mind from irrational fears and superstitions, which is like a kind of self-liberation.
It is this positive freedom that Tara is looking for. Tara wrote in the book: "All my struggles and years of study have always been to give myself the privilege to witness and experience more truths than my father gave me, and to use these truths to build my own thoughts."
What can education bring us? After reading Tara's story, I found that in this girl, education has brought her self-realization, reflection on past experiences and hope for the future.
In an interview with Forbes, she said: "Education means gaining different perspectives and understanding different people, experiences and history. Education should make people broaden their minds, deepen their empathy and broaden their minds, and should not make prejudice more stubborn. If people are educated, they should become less sure. They should listen more and talk less, be passionate about differences and love ideas different from them. "
Well, this issue of reading "You want to fly to your mountain like a bird" ends here. See you next time.