In 2011, Zhou Hao gave up the dazzling aura of "Peking University students" and transferred to Beijing Industry to learn CNC assembly and maintenance. In 2014, Zhou Hao was followed and reported by the media after he won the championship of the 6th National Numerical Control Skills Competition.
In 2018, Zhou Hao participated in the first National Professional Competence Competition for Teachers of Technical Colleges and gave lectures on the spot. (Video capture/picture)
Zhou Hao saw his story again on the short video platform.
Ten years ago, he dropped out of Peking University and transferred to Beijing Institute of Industrial Technicians (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Industry"), a comprehensive vocational education and training school with the main task of cultivating senior technicians and technicians. An accidental news report labeled him as "abandoning Peking University to study in a technical school", and his experience has been widely known since then.
Zhou Hao declined all follow-up interviews. However, during these years, the information he was first remembered by the public is still spread on the Internet in various forms. Once encountering a suitable topic, his experience will be picked up and repackaged for the public to chew again and again.
"Witnessing the departure of a 'Peking University traitor'" "Forcing the 'prodigal son' to turn back with social cruelty" "The son of heaven falls into the world"... Netizens commented on Zhou Hao's choice 10 years ago wantonly, but few people knew his current situation.
In fact, after graduating from Beijing Industry, he stayed in school for five years and then left to join the education consulting company founded by Tong Huaqiang, the former president of Beijing Industry, to become a vocational education consultant.
"I hope that more children from technical colleges can be seen by everyone." Recently, Zhou Hao said in an interview with Southern Weekend that he made this decision not only to tear off the old label, but also to improve the society's understanding of vocational education.
"I seldom think about that year, right?"
In a reading room, the bookshelf is full of journals such as Vocational Education Research, Chinese Handicraft, Art and Design, and nine "students" sit in the center. They are teachers of cloisonne and carved lacquer in the Advanced Technical School of Arts and Crafts (hereinafter referred to as "Gongmei"), including master graduates and doctoral graduates.
Standing on the stage is Zhou Hao, a vocational education consultant who graduated from a technical college majoring in numerical control. On July 8, 2021, he came to conduct the last centralized training for "students" in the summer.
Guiding the course system and talent training mode of the construction of industrial arts is a project that Zhou Hao took over after becoming a vocational education consultant in 2019. During the training, teachers took turns to show the planning of teaching activities, and Zhou Hao made comments.
When commenting, Zhou Hao paid special attention to pointing out what needs to be taken into consideration when the course is really implemented. The experience of studying in technical schools for 3 years and teaching for 5 years enabled him to foresee the possible problems in the implementation of vocational education courses.
Zhou Hao, born in numerical control, is good at machining metal parts through programmed machine tools. At the training site, he was also familiar with 108 processes of cloisonne production. This is the result that he consulted a lot of information on the Internet and watched the production of cloisonne in the training site for this project.
In fact, since he left Beijing Industry and joined Tong Huaqiang's vocational education consulting company two years ago, Zhou Hao's vision is no longer limited to a specific vocational education major. Now, he focuses on vocational education itself.
"It doesn't mean that (leaving Beijing Industrial) is not a teacher," Tong Huaqiang explained Zhou Hao's work in this way. "He is now a teacher of (vocational education) teachers."
"The most important thing for consulting is communication." Gongmei's campus is located outside the sixth ring road of Beijing. Since taking over this project, Zhou Hao has driven to the campus two or three times a week to communicate with teachers face to face and provide suggestions for curriculum improvement.
Zhou Hao called himself "the beneficiary of vocational education", and his feelings became deeper as he went along this road. He believes that the consulting services he provides for technical colleges can make vocational education better.
In June 2021, Zhou Hao (first from the right) consulted with teachers in the Arts and Crafts Senior Technical School. (Southern Weekend reporter Tan Chang/photo)
If Zhou Hao's current job is to try to change vocational education, he was the party changed by vocational education ten years ago. In 2011, Zhou Hao gave up the dazzling aura of "Peking University students" and transferred to Beijing Industry to learn CNC assembly and maintenance. In 2014, Zhou Hao was followed and reported by the media after he won the championship of the 6th National Numerical Control Skills Competition.
Zhou Hao believes that the reason why he is concerned is that he chose vocational education after dropping out of school - a road that should go hand in hand with general education, but is generally regarded as inferior. In the secular perspective, Zhou Hao is off the "right track" of general education and on the "wrong path" of vocational education.
"This decision has been made, and I will never deny it. I seldom think about whether it was right or wrong." In June 2021, Zhou Hao told Nanfang Weekend that he had received some strange phone calls these years. A confused young man asked whether he should follow his example and quit college and transfer to technical school.
Facing them, Zhou Hao always avoids giving specific suggestions. Although as a vocational education consultant, they are convinced that vocational education can also cultivate talents, Zhou Hao said that such a major decision can only be made by themselves. Because once they make a choice, no one else can take the consequences for them.
Leave the ivory tower
"You call Peking University to check whether the child has any problems." In April 2021, when Tong Huaqiang was seen in an office building in the prosperous area of the East Third Ring Road in Beijing on the Southern Weekend, he clearly remembered the first sentence he blurted out 10 years ago when he heard that a student who had dropped out of Peking University wanted to enroll in the NC major of Beijing Industry. At that time, he was the president of Beijing Industry.
The teacher told Tong Huaqiang after calling that the child named Zhou Hao had no psychological problems and probably didn't like his major at Peking University.
In 2008, Zhou Hao ranked among the top five in Qinghai Province in terms of college entrance examination results. In order not to waste his marks, he gave up the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which could realize his "mechanical dream", followed his parents' advice and filled in Peking University, and was enrolled in the College of Life Sciences.
In the first year of Peking University, my academic performance was poor. "I can barely get 70% or 80% of the class I like, and it's really difficult to pass the class I don't like because I don't want to listen to it at all"; The whole person is in a negative state, "I don't like my major and I don't like myself studying in this major"; The relationship with classmates is also normal, "no special good friends". One year later, Zhou Hao decided to suspend school.
During his suspension from school, Zhou Hao worked in a factory that made inductive coils for more than two months. The workshop director liked him at a glance, and arranged him to each position on the assembly line in turn: assembly, dispensing, baking, product packaging. Zhou Hao worked every time. The director found that Zhou Hao started very quickly and proposed to train him as his successor.
Zhou Hao realized that leaving the ivory tower would not dim the future. "As long as I am willing to do it, I can do it well".
In 2011, Zhou Hao decided to drop out of Peking University to learn NC. He has learned about the content and employment path of CNC on the Internet and determined that CNC can arouse his interest. And vocational education has also become his "outlet".
"He is running for numerical control." Numerical control is the trump specialty of Beijing Industry. After understanding Zhou Hao's ideas, Tong Huaqiang opened the door to Beijing Industry for him.
In April 2021, Zhou Hao (first from left) and Tong Huaqiang, former president of Beijing Institute of Industrial Technicians, were in the company's conference room. (Southern Weekend reporter Tan Chang/photo)
Standing on the steps at the entrance of the North Industrial CNC Building, looking around, there will be an illusion of entering the industrial park by mistake. Just opposite lies a flat rectangular "factory building". Audi's four silver rings are hung in the upper left corner, and Volvo's logo is embedded in the three storey building on the glass wall on the right. The CNC building behind us is wide and two stories high. The door opening of the training site is open, and the plaque of "CNC Maintenance Center" is across it.
Zhou Hao came here from Peking University, where the lake light reflects the shadow of the tower, and felt a huge gap.
For the students of Beijing Industry, Zhou Hao also comes from a world they do not know. Roommate Liu Gao recalled that they loved to hear Zhou Hao tell stories about Peking University. The basketball game at Peking University, the way the teachers of Peking University teach, the animal experiments Zhou Hao has done, and the genetic knowledge he has learned... These things that Zhou Hao thought were ordinary, but they strongly attracted his new classmates.
Xintiandi
The vocational education, which is regarded as a lower level by the secular world, provides Zhou Hao with a world where he can breathe freely.
Technical school students who are easy to be labeled as "social youth" are pure peers in Zhou Hao's eyes who say "you help them once, and they will help you twice". When you are with them, you don't need to exchange "deep questions", and you can talk about whatever you are interested in. Zhou Hao has made many friends.
"For the first time in my life, Brother Hao took me to do it." He ate western food, went to Erhuan to eat a roast lamb leg, listened to Maxim's piano concert... Liu Gao said that he thought Zhou Hao was omnipotent and knew how to chase girls.
Zhou Hao is also interested in the factory like campus environment and the learning mode of integration of work and learning. The classroom of Beijing Industrial is much longer than that of the university classroom. The first half is the layout of the ordinary classroom - blackboard, tables and chairs, and the second half is equipped with several maintenance demonstration training platforms. After learning the theory in the front, the students went to the back to try to write the program of the control system. If they found that the program could not be executed, they returned to the front to discuss the solution.
The numerical control major, which is "much more difficult" than imagined, really awakened Zhou Hao's willingness to learn, and he spent a lot of energy on it. During the day, he learned the mechanical transmission parts of the "ball screw" in class. In the evening, he went to the office to tell the teacher that he found another kind of "planetary ball screw" is also very powerful, and shared many information found on the Internet. Later, he added sophisticated CNC technology at home and abroad to the "story" he told the students.
For Zhou Hao's arrival, the teachers were extremely grateful. There are many schools and few students in Beijing. Many of the students recruited by Beijing Industry every year are junior high school graduates, and even junior high school students have not completed their studies. For teachers, high school graduates are already an ideal source of students.
"The college entrance examination has shown that his brain is absolutely good. Now that I have been chosen, we must train him to be a talent." Tong Huaqiang said that Zhou Hao's arrival has also brought pressure on him: if such a good seedling is not cultivated, the school running level of Beijing Industry will be questioned.
Tong Huaqiang has "tailored" the learning plan for Zhou Hao: which class to enter and which teacher to lead, all have been carefully designed. Because of his good foundation in culture courses, Zhou Hao skipped the intermediate and senior worker stages where students in ordinary technical schools had to study for two years respectively, and was directly assigned to the technician class as soon as they entered.
The biennial National Numerical Control Skills Competition is the highest level competition of numerical control specialty. In 2014, Zhou Hao entered the competition as a student who "received the fastest technical skills in the class". "He was determined to let him win the championship," Tong Huaqiang said.
In November of the same year, when Zhou Hao won the championship, Tong Huaqiang finally breathed a sigh of relief. Later, a report on the winners of the contest titled "Leaving Peking University for Technical School, Deciding on a Different Life" disclosed Zhou Hao's experience for the first time. Zhou Haohuo is on fire.
Excerpts from media reports after Zhou Hao won the 6th National Numerical Control Skills Competition. (Screenshot/picture of Zhongqing Online website)
Media reporters swarmed in. In order to "protect Zhou Hao", the school refused all interviews and receptions. The teachers of the CNC Department "unanimously went out". Anyone who came to inquire about Zhou Hao said they didn't know him. The guard also received instructions to prevent strangers from entering.
Even the officials of Qinghai Provincial Employment Bureau who came from Zhou Hao's hometown were stopped outside the school. Call the Human Resources and Social Security Department in charge of the technical college for help. When Tong Huaqiang got the news, he invited the employment bureau officials to the school.
"If he (Zhou Hao) doesn't feel comfortable, he will return to Qinghai. We will arrange talents," said an official of the employment bureau.
Tong Huaqiang analyzed several ways out for Zhou Hao after he graduated from Beijing Industry: he can go abroad, but there is also a lack of highly skilled talents abroad; The enterprises that can cooperate with Beijing Industrial for a long time are all top manufacturing units in China; He can also stay in school to teach, and the school will help him to solve the Beijing hukou problem.
Career crisis
In 2014, 24 year old Zhou Hao graduated from Beijing Industrial and stayed in school as a teacher.
Most students become industrial workers or engineering technicians. Zhou Hao also got many similar jobs, but his first wish at that time was to stay in the CNC industry and achieve something. On the other hand, he strongly hopes to continue learning. Several familiar teachers in the school also advised him to learn more before he graduated from the general master's degree. As long as the technology is excellent, the enterprise can go anytime.
Zhou Hao stayed in the familiar environment of Beijing Industrial and became a front-line teacher. There are only two people in the numerical control major who will stay in school. In addition to Zhou Hao, the other person is Liu Gao.
According to the settlement policy of Beijing at that time, it was much more difficult for students who graduated from technical schools to obtain Beijing hukou than those who graduated from master's degree or doctoral degree. But Zhou Hao is lucky. After winning the championship of the National Numerical Control Skills Competition, he met the conditions for introducing special talents in Beijing, and the school also actively applied to the Beijing Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.
In 2016, Zhou Hao obtained a Beijing hukou. Liu Gaoze finally left Beijing Industry and returned to his hometown in Hebei because he could not change the situation of "drifting north".
According to the convention, the new teacher should start from the auxiliary teaching. But in the second semester, Zhou Hao became the lecturer. He found that besides numerical control, he also liked and was good at teaching.
"Numerical control indirectly affects people through the production of products, while being a teacher can directly affect people." Gradually, he loved the latter even more than the former.
Colleague Cheng Feng (not his real name) commented that Zhou Hao is "willing to take on things". In addition to the teaching tasks of 18-22 class hours per week and a large number of enterprise staff training, Zhou Hao has also undertaken many school projects.
2018 is the fourth year for Zhou Hao to stay in the school and teach. He participated in the first National Professional Competence Competition for Teachers of Technical Colleges and won the first prize. Zhou Hao, a young teacher who was supposed to be high spirited, began to feel the career crisis.
In the "13th Five Year Plan" period, Beijing has relieved its non capital functions, and the machinery manufacturing industry has gradually moved away from Beijing. The cultivation of professional and technical talents serves the regional development. With the withdrawal of machinery manufacturing enterprises, the once promising NC specialty is shrinking, and is no longer a major supported by Beijing. Zhou Hao is facing professional transformation - investing a lot of time and energy in learning new professional technologies and accumulating resources from scratch.
The impending transformation prompted Zhou Hao to consider his future positioning. At this time, the problem of academic qualifications exposed: Zhou Hao, who graduated from a technical school, was not qualified to enter the teaching management position of the school.
Although Beijing Industrial is a technical college, most of its teachers have bachelor's and master's degrees. Chou Hao said, "The leaders are embarrassed to hand in my resume."
It is a common experience for graduates of technical colleges and universities to be treated differently in the evaluation and selection process because of their educational disadvantages. Zhou Hao, who took the initiative to choose the path of vocational education, was not spared.
"Teacher's teacher"
Seeing that Zhou Hao is facing transformation difficulties, Tong Huaqiang, who has left school to start his own business, invites him to join his own education consulting company.
"We (in age) are almost a generation different, but he (Zhou Hao) is very similar to me in many places." Tong Huaqiang graduated from Beijing Normal University in 1988 with a bachelor's degree. Most of his classmates went to university to teach, but he went to Beijing Industrial by accident. At that time, the national technical colleges were basically run by enterprises, and teachers also came from enterprises, so the quality of running schools was not ideal. "It is impossible to train high-level skilled workers."
Over the past twenty years, the overall appearance of technical colleges and universities across the country has changed greatly. Northern industry also prospered. However, by 2016, Tong Huaqiang felt that the reform of Beijing Industry itself was increasingly entering the deepwater area. He hoped to help more technical colleges promote reforms in teacher training, curriculum construction and other aspects, so he resigned and founded a company. "At that time, there was a small earthquake in this circle."
Tong Huaqiang believes that Zhou Hao's dilemma is a "typical case". The graduates of technical schools do not have the "diploma" issued by the education department, which is generally recognized today. In the mainstream society, this "degree" is the hard currency.
"His ability and level have far exceeded those of some graduates from 800 decent schools, even more than some doctoral students. But under the school system, his promotion channels are much less than those of college graduates." Tong Huaqiang said that the development opportunities of students trained by general education and vocational education are not equal, not only burying technical talents like Zhou Hao, It is also the core reason why vocational education has low social recognition.
Zhou Hao is not willing to be an ordinary teacher all the time. "What can affect is more than a dozen students a year, two or three courses, and a small professional direction". Therefore, he was invited to join Tong Huaqiang's company in 2019. He felt that the job of vocational education consultant magnified his own value: by influencing teachers in technical colleges, it indirectly affected more students, and could also radiate to more professional directions outside of numerical control, "just like nuclear fission".
In the year when Zhou Hao became a vocational education consultant, the Notice of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the Implementation Plan of the National Vocational Education Reform was released. The first sentence of the opening sentence encouraged the vocational education community: "Vocational education and general education are two different types of education, which have the same important status."
However, the social concept has not changed, and the reform of vocational education is still "hot at the top and cold at the bottom". Teachers in technical colleges have a deep understanding of this. In the summer enrollment season, when parents asked about the "degree", Lu Lu, the director of the Gongmei Teaching and Research Office, was still embarrassed. Gongmei and Beijing Industrial are both senior technical schools, and the trained senior workers and technicians enjoy the same treatment as those with college degree or above in policy, but this is "recognized by the state, not by parents".
The social concept of "vocational education is inferior" has also infected students. Zhou Hao found that students in technical colleges generally lack recognition of the jobs that their majors are benchmarking. One of Zhou Hao's efforts is to find ways to convey the sense of value to students.
He suggested that "design" should be integrated into the curriculum system of Gongmei, so that students can explore what is "beauty" and learn how to express their understanding of beauty in tangible works.
Zhou Hao found that Gongmei's previous courses only taught students to "work", that is, only to teach the skills of making products against drawings. In the new curriculum system, he added courses of design, operation and marketing, aiming to teach students to "work" and enable them to complete the whole work process (from negotiating with customers to designing drawings to making products), rather than become a "screw" that can only fill a specific job vacancy.
As for Zhou Hao's curriculum reform proposal, Lu Lu believes that although it is difficult to implement, it is more in line with the market's talent demand and will help solve the employment problem of art students after graduation.
In order to be a good "teacher of teachers", Zhou Hao began to learn pedagogy systematically. Tong Huaqiang introduced him to attend several courses at Beijing Normal University. Next, he plans to find a suitable school to study part-time master's degree, and then study for a doctoral degree in education at Beijing Normal University.
Ten years after abandoning Peking University to attend a technical school, Zhou Hao is about to return to the general education system that he had voluntarily withdrawn from. For him, this choice is helpful to realize the ambition of developing vocational education, but to some extent, it is also a reconciliation with reality. As Tong Huaqiang said, considering "to adapt to this big social environment, a title on the facade is still needed".
Special writer of Southern Weekend Huang Zhemin