In the first phase of the intervention, I encountered with a middle school teacher in Wenzhou, who was also one of the archivists participating in the project. However, after she shared her own experiences as a teacher, we further discussed the status quo of the local culture education in Wenzhou and the potential practices in cultural exploration in middle school education.
Even though I have already mentioned the potential future cooperation that I appointed with her in my previous report and presentations, some important information has been recollected in my mind through the editorial work I did last week for the transcript of our conversation.
There is the excerpt providing some information worth reflecting on :
Q：其实我有点好奇，现在学校教育里面有没有倡导孩子们去了解温州的传统文化？
Q: I’m actually a bit curious. Is there any advocacy within middle school education now for kids to learn about the traditional culture of Wenzhou?
A：虚的。我们有地方课程，每所学校都是要求一个星期要有一节地方课程的。这个地方可以指温州，也可以指浙江，然后我们也有配套的像《话说温州》这种教材，关于浙江也是有一本教材，但是就闲置掉了，没有去上这个课。
A: It is superficial. We have a local culture course nominally, and every school is required to have one lesson every week. The local culture refers to both Wenzhou and Zhejiang Province. We also have a textbook named ‘Talking about Wenzhou’ and a textbook about Zhejiang Province, but they are left unused.
这个课就是被冠以地方课程的名，但是它会被分配到其他的主科去，其实还是主科的各个老师去上。其实地方课程也是有相应的一些科研活动跟比赛的，但是那个是孤立的，比如说今天有一个地方课程的比赛了，然后就会有一个老师去研究一下做一下。
Even though the lesson is named as a local culture course, but it is actually assigned to other main subjects like literature and maths. In fact, this course is sometimes required to engage in some teaching and research activities initiated by governmental organizations, but it doesn’t get enough attention. For example, if there is a competition for the local culture course today, one of the teachers will go be asked do some research temporarily .
如果我们现在真的要看一下，《话说温州》这门课我们学校里没有一个老师可以教，其实也不容易。因为这门课肯定不能依托教材，谁能真正地了解温州的历史，还可以结合一些个人经历，把对温州的理解不偏颇地，系统地传达给学生，能做到这样也很困难。如果要有这样的课程的话，就必须要有相关的训练。
If we really want to look at whether there is a teacher in our school being able to teach the course, it is not an easy thing, because this course cannot merely rely on the textbook. There is a call for a teacher who can really understand the history of Wenzhou, be able to combine the history with personal experiences, and systematically convey these knowledge to students without biases. It is hard to achieve this goal. Teachers must be well trained.
如果让我去上这个课，我觉得我可能讲个两节课，就没有东西可以讲了，因为我不是很了解温州的一些深度的文化背景。
If I were to take this course, I think I might not have anything to say after two lessons, because I don’t really understand Wenzhou’s culture in depth.
其实你跟你聊天，我觉得我也是有很多启发的。
I think I have also been inspired through talking with you.
我突然想起来上个学期我们学校有个老师有一节课去参加比赛，课的主题叫“一树一城一群人”。树就是榕树，城就是温州，一群人就指温州人。你看他这个课很有文化，但是其实做的是思政课。当然是有很多温州元素在里面，但不是说大家都会去做当地本地的，只恰巧他选了这样子的一个课题。
It reminds me that a teacher in our school had a lesson for a competition last term, and the theme of the lesson was ‘A Tree, a City and a Group of People’. The tree refers to a banyan tree, the city is Wenzhou, and a group of people means Wenzhou citizens. You might feel that this class is very cultural-based, but in fact, it is a lesson for politics and ideology. It seemed to have a lot of Wenzhou elements, but it was just a coincidence that he chose this as a topic.
比如说像你刚给我看的九山湖老榕树的照片，我就想到我们可以选一个暑假，让学生去做一个课题，去了解温州的一些大的，老的榕树背后的故事。你去采访，比如说走到哪里的古村，有哪一棵老树，你去采访当地的老人，其实也很有意思对不对？
When you showed me a picture of the old banyan tree at Jiushan Lake just now, it popped up in my mind that we could assign students a project during the summer holiday to learn about the stories behind some of the big, old banyan trees in Wenzhou. You, for example, as a student, are required to go to the ancient village where there are some old trees and interview with the local elderly people. It sounds very interesting, right?
把内容做成海报，或者做成一些采访，视频记录，就很有意思。我觉得你这样做真的很好，也给了我很多想法，让我们直接或间接地去回忆自己的事情。
It would be fun to make the content into a poster, or make some video recordings of the interviews. I think it’s really nice of you to do this project. It also gives me a lot of ideas and helps us recall our own experiences directly or indirectly.
其实很多温州的老景点都可以去了解，只是我们现在都没有耐心去做这些事情。
There are actually a lot of old spots in Wenzhou worth visiting, but we just don’t even have the patience to do it right now.
This shows that there is considerable missing part for local culture education in Wenzhou.
I still remember when I was a primary school student in 2000s, there has already been a course set for Wenzhou local culture, and our maths teacher at that time was responsible for teaching it. Even though I hoped to hear more from the teacher about the stories behind the most bustling street or an small island which is full of ancient buildings in Wenzhou, he just repeated the content in the textbook or simply showed some relevant videos rather than sharing extra information or encouraging discussions among the class. It seems that there is no changes at all compared with 20 years ago.
However, it is actually not difficult to initiate something regarding the city cultural exploration in the educational environment. The teacher who had the conversation with me quickly came up with a brilliant idea to encourage students’ active exploration of city history simply through a look at some pictures I took in an old block in Wenzhou.
I feel it must be really powerful in laying emphasis on the training of exploratory practices in educational organizations, and the thoughts of teacher will definitely influence students a lot.
