Lu Yongli, principal at Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School, wanted to be a teacher from the time she was a teenager. To achieve her goal, she studied at Beijing Normal University (BNU), for nine years, until she obtained her Ph.D., in psychology.
She joined the university's teaching staff when she was 25, but resigned when she was 39. Why? She wanted to focus her efforts on the development of basic education.
She has since devoted herself to exploring, and implementing, a love-based, scientific path that leads children to all-round development.
Given her excellent work, and especially her results, Lu was named a National March 8th Red-Banner Pacesetter, in 2020, and a National Exemplary Individual, earlier this year.
Original Aspiration
Lu was born into an ordinary factory worker's family in Taiyuan, capital of North China's Shanxi Province, in 1972. She was the youngest child, she excelled in her studies, and she got along well with the other children in the neighborhood.
During her third year of middle school, Lu — during free study time — often helped her classmates with their school work. "Actually, I have benefited from helping others," she says. During the high-school-entrance examinations, Lu obtained the highest total score in her school. This caused her to believe she could help people if she became a teacher.
Given her excellent academic performance throughout high school, Lu was able to gain admission to BNU's Psychology Department, at 16, without taking gaokao (the national college-entrance exams).
In 1998, after she obtained her Ph.D., in developmental and educational psychology, she attended a one-year course on humanistic therapy (a range of psychological approaches that focus on a person's potential and abilities rather than their problems). During the course, she pondered the type of life she wanted to live. She decided to engage in basic-education research and practices.
After she completed the course, Lu was recruited by BNU, and she joined the team of experts that supported basic-education-curricular reform, launched by China's Ministry of Education. As an expert with expertise in psychology, Lu participated in the reform of classroom teaching and students' examination and appraisal systems in many places across the country.
During that period, she was invited by several primary schools in Beijing to be their research advisor and project instructor. Feeling as though she wasn't doing enough, and wanting to work on the front line of basic education, Lu resigned from BNU, in 2011, so she could join the staff at Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School. She listened to her students and their families talk about their expectations of education, and she shared her thoughts about education with them.
In 2016, Lu was named the school's principal. During the past nine years, she has boldly promoted reform in the school, by putting into practice cutting-edge educational concepts and research results.
"As a college teacher, it is important to encourage students to be rational, and to think independently, while primary school teachers should be kind, and thoughtful," Lu says. She has promoted rational thinking and the creation of a loving environment in primary school education. Some insiders (in the education sector) have suggested Lu's efforts have made her school "look like a university."
The results of graduates from Lu's school in high-school- and college-entrance exams have always been among the best of all primary school graduates in Beijing's Xicheng District. Most of her school's graduates are good at sports, and they are patriotic, smart and strong-minded.
Lifelong Benefits
Lu believes primary schools should help students foster lofty ideals and build strong bodies and fine minds. To put Lu's idea of prioritizing students' mental and physical health into practice, the school in 2016 adopted many new approaches to improving students' health. For example, physical education classes have been arranged as the first class of each day, and monthly sports competitions and parent-child sports events have been organized.
Students' fitness improved substantially. In 2019, for example, 60 percent of the school's students reached "excellent level" under the national physical-fitness-monitoring and -testing system. Sports have since become a "fashion statement" the students and their parents pursue.
For Lu, psychological-health education is not simply a task for psychology teachers; instead, it is a task of all staff. She hopes each student will develop resilience, and a flexible approach to thinking. She often tells the students both success and loss are temporary, and they always have various options along life's path.
She also stresses to the students the importance of being able to adapt to diversity and changes. To ensure no student is left behind in his or her development, Lu has organized a team of teachers to serve students with special-education needs.
The school has social-emotions classes for first-grade students, and it organizes project-based learning for students in Grades 3-6. The school also prepares specific, tiered reading plans for the students, and designs topics and tasks for International Children's Day (June 1) celebrations, all based on the ages and characteristics of the students.
"We are clear on what abilities and knowledge children aged 6-12 should master. It is our duty to help them achieve the goals in learning during this key period," Lu says.
Whenever the school designs a teaching activity, the teachers include content they believe could actually become a problem the students will eventually encounter in life. For that reason, the activity involves various simulated scenarios. Such practices help cultivate students' cognitive and behavioral development, and also foster the qualities that will benefit the students throughout their lives.
"Scores are merely points in a child's growth. We cannot regard academic studies as everything in education. We should train children to discover, create and enjoy happiness. This requires us to understand and respect children," Lu says.
What does she tell parents? "You should not do everything for your children. Give them space, and the opportunities to explore the world. Exploration plays an important role in helping children become independent."
Promoting High-Quality Education
Building an open school that benefits all children, with advanced-educational concepts, is Lu's long-lasting pursuit. Under her leadership, an online teachers' community was established in 2019. The platform provides livestreamed and recorded courses in management, teaching research, moral education and various other topics. More than 50 partner schools, in 10 provinces or municipalities, have benefited from the courses.
Lu's school has paired with seven schools in six districts in Beijing's suburbs, to assist the schools in improving the quality of teaching.
Every Saturday afternoon, Lu has discussions with parents who are dealing with problems in their children's education. She tries to help the parents solve the problems at an early stage. The school works with neighboring communities and educational institutions to establish a high-quality atmosphere for education.
"Education is not a process to fill a bucket with water, but to light a fire in the children's hearts. I want to be a primary school principal in a mountainous area after retirement," Lu says. She hopes every child will obtain the education that suits him or her the best, and that each student will have the ability to achieve happiness.
Photos by Zhang Jiamin
(Women of China English Monthly September 2025)
Editor: Wang Shasha
