Chengwu County, Heze City, Shandong Province: Introduction of Ceramic Flute Culture into Classroom

Standing in front of the comprehensive building of Wenting Experimental School in Chengwu County, Heze City, Shandong Province, the sometimes loud and clear, sometimes deep and soft flute sound wafts into my ears. Searching for the sound, it turned out that the children of the school’s pottery flute club were practicing playing the pottery flute. I saw twenty or thirty children playing a small pottery flute in their hands. The sound of the flute echoed, and beautiful notes flowed slowly, with a clear and gentle melody.

In recent years, Chengwu County has organically integrated the inheritance of traditional culture with the construction of campus culture, offering characteristic courses to deepen students’ understanding of the infinite charm and unique cultural value of traditional Chinese culture. At the same time, it has further stimulated students’ deep feelings of safeguarding national culture and loving the motherland, allowing cultural confidence to be rooted in the hearts of young people from a young age.

In 2014, Chengwu Wenting Experimental School established a pottery flute club with the concept of walking into the pottery flute, experiencing ethnic music culture, and sharing happiness. In order to enable children to learn pottery flute knowledge more systematically, the school independently created pottery flute school-based textbooks and included pottery flute as one of the characteristic school-based courses. Classes are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with the help of the school’s “colorful classroom”. As an intangible cultural heritage, the pottery flute not only helps students better understand Chinese ethnic musical instruments through learning, but also stimulates their interest in learning music. It also exercises their body coordination and cooperation abilities, and more importantly, improves their teamwork and collective performance.

“Since learning the pottery flute, I feel like I have become more sunny. In every practice and performance, I have gained joy and growth.” Bu Yilin, a student of Class 4, Grade 5 at Chengwu Wenting Experimental School, held the pottery flute in her hand with joy.

“It has been three years since I taught these children to play the pottery flute, and now each child can play it independently and play it with a unique style.” Liu Cui, a teacher at Chengwu Wenting Experimental School, introduced that the pottery flute is an ancient and distinctive pottery instrument, which originated in China but is widely used in various parts of the world as a national instrument. The small ceramic flute, handcrafted and then baked, can produce a crystal clear and heavenly sound. Its easy to play and easy to learn characteristics have made more and more children fall in love with the pottery flute.

The culture of Ocarina has cultivated students’ sentiment, enhanced their stage performance and promoted the improvement of their comprehensive quality. Today, the pure and beautiful flute sound is like a clear spring, injected into the hearts of children, floating in the campus corner.