Nostalgic Prose: I miss my primary school teacher.
Figure: From the network
My hometown is a remote rural area, because remoteness has become a relegation place for many "problem" teachers. When I was in primary school, I happened to meet these "problematic" excellent teachers. Their education has had a profound impact on me, which is a precious treasure in my life and a beautiful memory. I still miss them deeply.
At that time, there were no kindergartens in the countryside, and everything for children started from scratch. I remember in the first class, the teacher asked everyone's name. Many students thought they were asking about the zodiac (the pronunciation of "surname" in Chaoshan dialect is very similar to that of "little what" in the zodiac), and some said it was a pig, while others said it was a dog, which made the teacher laugh and cry.
Many teachers in senior one can't remember clearly, but Mr. Fang will always be in my heart. After all these years, I still remember her vividly, as if she were right in front of my eyes.
Teacher Fang is very kind, always smiling and speaking softly. She is like an amiable big sister in my young mind. Teacher Fang is the Fang family of Puning Hongyang. I heard that he is a famous local family. He has had a tutor since he was a child. He has a solid foundation in Chinese studies and is quite elegant. She is our head teacher. She taught us Chinese. She wrote neatly on the blackboard, beautifully and correctly. She also told us stories with words and phrases in the text, which made us listen with relish. After listening, we seemed to understand and remember.
I remember once in class, she was talking about Pinyin and I was playing, so she asked me by name. I didn't know what she was asking, so I read all the words in that class. The word that impressed me the most was "Listen carefully". Teacher Fang didn't interrupt me, but just looked at me with a smile, as if I could see clearly because of my "concentration", which surprised him a little. After that, she was very concerned about me and made me monitor. However, I was naughty and didn't set a good example. Instead, they often take the lead in falling from the sky, making other teachers complain. Teacher Fang reminds me sometimes, but never scolds me.
In that era of "composition", although Ms. Fang was excellent in character and teaching, she could only be a substitute teacher, and some people sometimes ridiculed her as a "landlord". However, Ms. Fang's mentality is very peaceful, and there seems to be no grievance or dissatisfaction. Perhaps our rural children have become her greatest sustenance.
Teacher Fang's lover is Miss Lin, the director of our school. Teacher Lin is usually unsmiling and serious, and we are all a little afraid of him. He is good at managing the school. With him, the school will be stable.
Teacher Lin teaches us math in the fifth grade. His math lecture inspired me a lot. The most profound thing is that he said that hundreds of years before BC, western mathematicians and philosophers (Pythagoras, whose name can't be remembered at that time) said: "The world is made up of numbers" and "Mathematics is the noblest". How can the world be made up of numbers? Are there numbers and aristocratic sayings? I was puzzled, but I trusted the teacher at that time and dared not categorically deny it. I just find it incredible, and wonder if houses and meals are also made up of numbers. This is incredible. This proposition has brought me long-term in-depth thinking, influenced my life and made me have different views on many issues. It is not until the arrival of the digital age today that we are amazed at the greatness of ancient philosophers and impressed by teacher Lin's forward-looking guidance.
Teacher Lin is not only good at math, but also a generalist, who knows almost everything. Other teachers have something to do, and he often substitutes for them. Once he changed to an art class and drew several geometric sketches, which were lifelike and had a strong three-dimensional sense. We are so envious that we pick up the brush and are eager to try, but we don't know how to start. Seeing our embarrassment, Mr. Lin took the opportunity to teach us to observe objects with perspective and express objects with light and shade, which helped us find the "doorway" so that everyone could draw decent pictures. I also like art better.
According to adults, Mr. Lin is high flyers from Teachers College. He was originally assigned to a key middle school in the county. Because I fell in love with Mr. Fang, whose composition was poor, I was demoted to our village together. Children don't understand love, but because they think Mr. Fang is very good, they also pay more respect to Mr. Lin in their hearts.
The music teacher is also surnamed Lin. At that time, primary schools only tested Chinese and mathematics, and other subjects were minor subjects, and music and art were more symbolic. Mr. Kling teaches music, but he teaches this dispensable subject perfectly.
He used local materials to create songs about local customs, such as "Shuinanpu, 300 mu, three days without rain burning the port, three days after sunset with rain turning into a lake ..." (Chaoshan dialect) and so on. Easy to understand and catchy. So far, I can hum a few poems casually, which feels as good as Bai Juyi's poems.
In class, he often accompanied us with a broken organ. Sometimes when the organ was broken, he used the harmonica to lead us to sing, so as to prevent us from being out of tune. This kind of overbearing accompaniment, which is anti-customer-oriented, is also a good way to deal with our music blindness.
In addition to giving us lessons, Mr. Lin often organizes young men and women in the village to sing in chorus, perform sketches and arrange music, and perform on the stage of the brigade every major festival or revolutionary activity, which brings a lot of songs and joy to the backward countryside. Now that I think about it, how talented and amazing Mr. Lin is!
Teacher Wu, who teaches history, is a decent and outspoken "Rightist". His eyes are intense and aggressive, and that kind of eyes seems to be a historical examination. He often said that history is a judge, and time will test all twists and turns, teaching us to "create healthy atmosphere and guide our conscience." He has relatives of overseas Chinese, and often wears some foreign products. He is meticulously dressed and his hair is neatly combed, so someone nicknamed him "Xi", which means western-style fashion.
Teacher Xi never reads the textbook in class, as if the description in the textbook is too boring. He often tells us allusions: "Don't poke Qing Ji", "A bear's paw is unfamiliar", "Please enter the urn" and "The change of the civil fort" ... Every story is vivid. Sometimes it is interspersed with some western myths. The most interesting thing is Cupid: the naughty Cupid shot Apollo with a golden arrow, which made him fall in love with Daphne, but shot Daphne with a lead arrow, which made her hate love. Finally, Daphne became a laurel tree to escape Apollo's pursuit. This is the origin of laurel. After listening to this story, we made our own bows and arrows, dressed as Cupid, and shot them around. Sometimes when we see a pig coming, we shoot a "golden arrow" at our classmate, and then say with a smile that that classmate is in love with a pig. It's really pleasant.
It is Miss Huang who teaches second-grade mathematics. His feet are very long, and some naughty students call him "long-legged yellow". Teacher Huang was exiled from the county seat to our village because he sneezed in the middle of shouting "Long live Chairman Mao".
Miss Huang is the most formidable of all teachers. He is strict and almost "cool". Every time he takes a stick in class, whoever "makes trouble" will be slapped on the palm or calf. Although it won't hurt, it hurts. We are all afraid of him.
I remember once when he was on the math multiplication table, I was secretly playing with several people at the next table, and he was writing on the blackboard. At that time, the classmate at the next table said a sentence: "Hua Guofeng used olives to check the soldiers" (I don't know what that sentence was) and patted the classmate in front of me on the shoulder. That classmate didn't resist, so did I. I didn't expect him to cry. This cry alarmed Mr. Huang. Teacher Huang asked the "culprit" and hit me with a stick. I dodged for an instant, but I angered him. Seeing him coming towards me, I immediately started running out. I ran away, and Miss Huang closed the door, as if she wouldn't give me a reply. I walked around outside the classroom and didn't know what to do. Just then Mr. Fang saw it, and she came to ask me. I told her the situation and thought she would scold me, but she didn't criticize me. Instead, she went into the classroom and told Miss Huang what to do. After one party communicated, the teacher told me to go back to the classroom, but Mr. Huang had a premise: I had to memorize the multiplication formula before I could sit down. Afraid of being hit by a stick, I crustily skin of head and watched it with rapt attention several times, but I didn't expect to finish it soon.
Teacher Huang's strictness can cure our wildness and give us snacks to learn, for our hairy children's class, which often turns the classroom into a "battlefield". Many people are afraid to learn math well with his stick. That year, our class did well in the county competition. I even got full marks, and another student got the sixth place. This is the retribution of teacher Huang's "harshness" and the result of that little stick's "intimidation". Compared with the present teacher's laissez-faire, I miss Mr. Huang's "strictness" more.
The most melancholy is the "glasses teacher", known as the "eye teacher". He was transferred after teaching in our school for only one semester. I really can't remember his name except that he is wearing a pair of glasses.
The glasses teacher is Chaoyang. It is said that there are two Kuomintang generals at home. When the revolution came, most of them went overseas, and some of them stayed in the mainland and were shot. The glasses teacher's father is a very honest doctor, so he didn't go to jail.
Glasses teacher graduated from the Physics Department of Sun Yat-sen University. He teaches us math and nature in the fourth grade. I remember that he taught many strange problem-solving methods in mathematics, which are quite useful for difficult problems, similar to the current Olympic Mathematics. Sometimes he will come up with some special problems that you can't solve in the usual way, and then he will prompt you to turn it upside down, turn a corner, or combine and divide it, and the problem will be solved. These strange methods open another door to our thinking and let us know that there are many ways to solve problems. When he taught nature, he said, "Nature is the world of electricity." I felt specious and didn't think much. We like watching him generate electricity best. He got some old batteries and so on, set up some wires, and really lit up small light bulbs, which made us feel amazing.
What impressed me most was his melancholy expression. He wears a pair of nearsighted glasses, his eyes are confused, and a wry smile often appears on his mouth. Many times he seems to know better than others, but it's actually very awkward. In addition to being a little energetic when generating electricity, I am always absent-minded and have no intimacy. The whole person seems to be separated from the surrounding by a thin layer of cloud. He wanted to escape in the clouds, hesitating with a little helplessness and frustration. Now he remembered how helpless and sad his heart was!
Compared with the melancholy of the glasses teacher, Mr. Su is the saddest. Teacher Su didn't teach me because he was already dead when I went to school. The reason why I want to talk about him is because people in the village often mention him, saying that he is a great genius in our school. What is more regrettable and sad is that he fell down before dawn.
I remember that Teacher Su often came to our house for tea and sometimes brought some rice paper and pigments to teach my eldest brother to draw Chinese paintings. According to my eldest brother, Mr. Su was born in a capitalist family and received a good education. He can write many kinds of articles, and he writes very well. My eldest brother copied several articles, but unfortunately he didn't keep them well and couldn't find them. He can also write litigation, which is a professional legal document that few people can understand; What is even more amazing is that he can speak a fluent foreign language, which was a first-class talent in the whole country at that time, not to mention a remote rural school.
Teacher Su's death was a night in the midsummer of 1976. I remember there was a movie in the village and everyone was watching it in the square. After the movie, Mr. Su was found hanging himself under a nearby tree. At that time, I was young and didn't know anything. Strangely, I saw many women in the village who were not related to Mr. Su crying and crying. Some of them said that Mr. Su had written letters and invitations to them, some said that Mr. Su had named their children, and some said that Mr. Su had written complaints to them ... It seems that Mr. Su has helped many people to do many good things, so they are deeply saddened by Mr. Su's departure. A few months later, the revolution was over. It's a pity that Miss Su didn't make it through the last night. In that absurd era, how many people died in despair like Mr. Su!
My eldest brother keeps a black-and-white photo of Mr. Su Zhang. He takes it out every day with tears in his eyes and says something "whispering" to the photo. Every time I see this, I can't help choking. I hope that Teacher Su will be God's teacher in heaven, so that there will be less tragedies in our society.
In that extraordinary period, many talented people lived in the hinterland, and they suffered misfortune, but for our rural children, they were particularly lucky. These excellent teachers aroused my extensive interest in learning, laid a solid knowledge foundation, inserted wings into my thinking and taught me to uphold my conscience and think independently. Compared with the children in the countryside now, how can I be so blessed! So for that era, I have to keep a cautious thinking, maybe this is a different ray of sunshine in the night.
I wish teachers happiness and hope that children in rural areas can get a good education, but this-we didn't do it yesterday and we still haven't done it well today! Will tomorrow be better?