March 16 marked Professor Wu Hongqing’s 60th birthday and his retirement from the Open University of China (OUC), formerly known as China Central Radio and Television University, (CCRTVU). Choking back emotion as he spoke, Wu said, “When I was young, I didn’t feel the passage of time. Only now, as I look back upon the past, do I realize how short life is.

I have been thinking about how to live a meaningful life. After nearly 20 years of preparation, I finally had the chance to work on reforming basic education in primary schools, so I opened Fuxi Class in Gangu. This is a worthy undertaking. Only when I’ve done something useful to future generations, do I feel the value of my life”.

Wu Hongqing (middle), founder of Fuxi Education Model and an OUC professor, with the children        

Photo provided by interviewee

 “Old Confucius” during university days

Wu Hongqing’s classmate told the reporter he was nicknamed “Old Confucius” at university. One reason was that he hails from Shandong, Confucius’s home province, but the other more convincing reason was his preference for assiduous research. He is especially interested in ancient Chinese and Chinese paleography. Wu Hongqing has been fond of calligraphy since childhood and was regarded as a skilled calligrapher even as an undergraduate.

Because of his love for calligraphy, he performed extremely well in Chinese paleography. Likewise, he was also very popular with the Chinese paleography faculty. Professor Chen Weizhan is both a famous Chinese paleographer and a calligraphy giant, specializing in bronze inscriptions. His favorite seal “jian nan bu yi, rong shang di zi” (civilians south of the Yangtze River and the disciples of Shangdong merchants) was etched by Wu Hongqing while he was still in university. Mr. Chen has kept the seal as a memento to this day.

Wu Hongqing was assigned to work at CCRTVU in 1982 after graduating from university. As time went on, many of his classmates became government officials and successful businessmen, but he remained in his post at CCRTVU for 32 years. According to Wu’s introduction, he was mainly engaged in teaching the three compulsory and optional subjects of ancient Chinese, calligraphy and ancient Chinese cultural history.

Wu has devoted himself to calligraphy research for more than three decades and made significant achievements over that time. In 1986, he produced a 40-hour televised educational film series entitled, The Art of Calligraphy, which received third prize for excellence among the national education programmes that year. In 1999 and 2001, two inventions he designed, “qian kun ge shu xie zhi” (a writing paper with special squares customized for Chinese characters) and “zhi bi fu zheng qi” (an auxiliary writing device) won national patents. In 2000, he taught Lecture on Calligraphy for Seniors on China Education Television (CETV), again earning third prize for excellent national education programmes. Some years later, he returned to CETV to present Parent-Child Calligraphy Class. He has been very highly regarded by his audiences throughout his career, because his lectures are engaging and easy to understand.

It’s true that teaching benefits teachers as well as students. During the course of teaching, Wu Hongqing has also made substantial progress in his research and become renowned both at home and abroad. In January 2000, he was invited to hold exhibitions on calligraphy and seal cutting in Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan and gave lectures at Waseda University Research Institute of Stone Sculpture Culture and a number of book clubs. In 2005, he spent over two months giving calligraphy lectures at nearly 40 primary and middle schools in Hong Kong. About 10,000 teachers and students attended the lectures, and he was well received. In February 2006, he launched another large scale calligraphy activity entitled, “One Thousand Blessings ‘Descending’ upon Xiangjiang River” at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza, which played a positive role in publicizing and extending calligraphy education.

Dedication to Fuxi Education

As a teacher who has remained consistently focused on the mission of training talented students, Wu Hongqing has always been concerned about basic education. It’s his hope to train the most talented students from childhood to fully inherit Chinese culture. When his son attended primary school, he became increasingly aware of the problems in Chinese basic education. Upon seeing his child exhausted by constant studying and realizing that what his son and his peers learned one day would be forgotten the next, he became quite distressed. He swore that he would devote himself to reforming basic primary school education.

Since the early 1990s, when Wu Hongqing became an “otaku,” he has been delving into basic education planning and teaching. In May 2006, he was introduced to Gangu County, Tianshui City, Gansu Province. Tuqiao in Gangu County is a relatively large village with a population of over 10,000, and the village’s Tuqiao Primary School has existed for over 80 years. Wu Hongqing proposed conducting an experimental class lasting six years and involving 30 incoming first graders. He proposed changes in both teaching materials and methodology for the experimental programme.

Wu Hongqing’s plan won support from Tuqiao Primary School. Later, he made a special visit to the top officials of Gangu County, Tianshui City. With their consent, his plan was rapidly implemented. In the beginning, he feared that the parents would resist the changes, but in fact they eagerly embraced the new teaching programme when it was presented at the Parent-Teacher Conference on July 15. They rushed to enroll their children in the experimental class.

The experimental class was thus officially opened in September of the same year. Wu Hongqing said that the planned 30-student experimental class was joined by an additional two students recommended by the headmaster. There were also two other ordinary classes at the school that were taught simultaneously. The only difference between them was the teaching materials and methods.

Why was it called Fuxi Class? Wu Hongqing explained that it was so named because Gangu was Fuxi’s hometown, and one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. According to Wu, in ancient times, Gangu had produced a man who made history by the name of Shi Zuoshu. Shi travelled far from his home, to the State of Lu, to study with Confucius. Under the instruction and uplifting influence of the famous sage, he mastered the six classical arts and became one of Confucius’s 72 disciples.

Emphasis on the Formation of Comprehensive Qualities

Based on Wu Hongqing’s educational concept, the following six subjects are offered: Chinese, mathematics, music, physical education, arts and English. English education begins in Grade Six, and all the subjects are taught in accordance with the  autonomously formulated teaching programme and are free from the restriction of the existing syllabus. Fuxi Class focuses on the reform of courses and teaching materials. Calligraphy and martial arts are compulsory daily lessons; and the main textbooks for Chinese teaching are ancient classics, such as Di Zi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child), San Zi Jing (Three-Character Scripture), the Analects of Confucius, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean as well as a selection of excellent national and international prose. Recitation is required to develop the excellence of the students’ memories; and reading and writing are separated. The first and second graders are required to master frequently used words so as to improve early reading ability.

Why are calligraphy and martial arts lessons required daily? Wu Hongqing said his purpose in these requirements was not to train calligraphers or martial artists but to cultivate the students’ “comprehensive qualities.” The calligraphy class develops the “five strengths” of perseverance, dedication, meticulousness, dialectical thinking and accurate writing. The martial arts class not only builds up the students’ bodies but also helps them establish morality and discipline through their training. 

The most prominent principle of the Fuxi teaching experiment is to reduce the learning burden substantially. To achieve it, Wu made the following regulations: zero written assignment for Grade One and Grade Two students; and a maximum assignments length of 20 minutes per subject for all grades after Grade Three. The students learn in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Wu has underlined in particular that it was better to have the student remain idle than hurt them through learning. The students’ temporary loss of preparedness, he believes, does not deprive them of the opportunity to learn in the future. Once the students begin to understand, they will; in contrast, if they are hurt by learning, they will burn out and such an effect may permanently destroy their opportunity to learn..

The 6-year experiment of Fuxi Class has already come to an end, and Wu sees the results as obvious. First of all, the children obtained basic moral integrity. They honor their parents, respect the old and cherish the young, and are polite to people. They also met the requirements of the teaching programme as a whole. The second graders could read independently with the help of dictionaries; by the second term of Grade Three, the students had a vocabulary of nearly 2,000 frequently used words; were able to read and recite Di Zi Gui (Standards for Being a Good Student and Child), San Zi Jing (Three-Character Scripture), Thousand Character Text, Learn to Chant, the Analects of Confucius and other classics, as well as over 300 passages of Common Chinese Characters Songs, more than 200 poems and 30 ancient and modern short essays.

In terms of their comprehensive qualities, the students acquired basic knowledge and skills in calligraphy, fine arts, and martial arts. In the 2008 “Wu Zhong Cup” national children’s calligraphy competition held by the Chinese Calligraphers Association, five calligraphy works by the students in Fuxi Class were selected for special recognition and one was exhibited. In 2009, Zhang Yahui from Fuxi Class won first prize in the primary students group of the Tianshui City “Shen Peng Cup” Painting and Calligraphy Competition. In 2011, Zhang Yahui and other two students were awarded second and third prizes by the Ministry of Education in the National Students’ Competition for Standard Chinese Character Writing.

Blossoms of Fuxi Class Fly Throughout the Country

In October 2011, at the invitation of the Zhongshan University Alumni Association in Macau and Hong Kong, Wu Hongqing took 20 sixth graders from Fuxi Class to Macau and Hong Kong to participate in the centenary celebration of the 1911 Revolution and create exchanges with four local schools. Wu said that the students from Fuxi Class were highly acclaimed wherever they went, on the train, throughout the various stages of commemorative activities, and at the exchange sites of the schools themselves. These children from China’s rural Northwest were well-behaved, natural and graceful, endowed with civil and martial virtues and gifted in many ways, which impressed the people they met and aroused their intense interest. Though these children are now already in junior high school, Wu Hongqing is still closely monitoring each step of their progress.

The teaching of Fuxi Class in Tuqiao Primary School of Gangu County has drawn great attention from both parents and the national education community. Since March 2013, Wu has been repeatedly invited to introduce the experience of the Fuxi education experiment. He reported that there were over 60 experimental classes of Fuxi education throughout the country, distributed in more than 20 provinces, including Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Shangdong, Jiangshu, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Hainan. Tuqiao Primary School of Gangu County was recently renamed Yongan Fuxi School, and will be merged with the local junior high school to facilitate further teaching reform.

Wu Hongqing believes that Fuxi Class education is generally replicable. The experimental teaching conditions for Fuxi education are quite common: the students all hail from the same village without any pre-selection criteria; the teachers are all from local schools and are also not screened; and the teaching tools are just blackboards and pieces of chalk. What’s different from the ordinary classes is that DVDs and extra-curricular books are added in the classrooms. The exceptional conditions can be accommodated in almost all the schools throughout the country. Even DVDs are now available in most remote villages. Only if we change our minds, Wu offers, can we implement the truly people-centred quality education that Fuxi Class represents.

According to Wu, Fuxi education has won the support of a host of people engaged in the same pursuit and has attracted a number of active volunteers. 2014 has already marked two breakthroughs in achieving his long term goals: the first is the establishment of the Fuxi Education Foundation; and second is the establishment of the Fuxi Education Alliance. Any school, whether public or private, can join in the alliance, but only if they acknowledge the Fuxi education concept and teach in strict accordance with its principles.

An old steed in the stable still has great aspirations. Fuxi education represents a fresh start in Wu Hongqing’s career and in his life.

By Xia Heshun