Call Me Daddy

On the day of the comprehensive examination, the county dispatched five teachers from several middle schools to oversee the final exams for five grade levels respectively.

Chinese was examined in the morning, and mathematics in the afternoon.

These five invigilating teachers carried sealed test papers in their shoulder bags, never letting them out of sight. When the Principal greeted them along with other teachers, their attitude seemed amiable, yet still carried an irrepressible sense of pride.

Indeed, at this time, urbanites looked down on rural folks, middle school teachers scorned elementary school teachers, those with stable positions looked down upon those without, and before them stood these five individuals, middle school teachers from the city, with stable positions, slightly more arrogant, as expected.

Fang Aishan was Wang Yuemin’s wife’s older sister, his sister-in-law. This time, she was assigned to invigilate at Hongqi Elementary School, a placement specially arranged by Wang Yuemin, with the purpose of inspecting the school and obtaining authentic and reliable scores.

During the pre-departure conversation, Wang Yuemin highly praised Su Aobai, arousing Fang Aishan’s curiosity about the person deserving of such commendation.

So she casually asked about the grade level he primarily taught and then chose to invigilate that class.

The examination quickly commenced. Fang Aishan removed the seal from the test papers and distributed them to each student.

To be honest, the students she saw were somewhat different from what she had imagined. Aside from their somewhat worn-out attire, their eyes were bright and bold, unaffected by the unfamiliarity of the exam, nor were they constrained by her presence. They looked at her with confidence, waiting for her to announce the start of the exam.

After announcing that the students could begin writing, Fang Aishan stood at the platform observing. She noticed another advantage of these children; after receiving the test papers, most of them would quickly skim through before looking at the essay question, then they would begin answering from the beginning.

Once the students began writing, there were no whispers or glances exchanged. Satisfied, she nodded approvingly.

Halfway through the exam, she started patrolling the classroom, occasionally stopping by a student to check their progress.

Initially, she anticipated encountering many mistakes or blank answers since she had also reviewed the test paper; this time, the difficulty level was relatively high, even featuring a poem filling question not within the scope of second grade curriculum. To her surprise, however, almost half of the class answered correctly, and the rest managed to answer, albeit with a few errors in individual characters, proving their familiarity with and memorization of the poem beyond the textbook.

Suppressing her astonishment, Fang Aishan continued to observe the students’ progress. As some students began writing their essays, she stood beside those who had already completed most of their writing, observing.

To be honest, if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she would find it hard to imagine such writing skills, such vocabulary, coming from a group of second graders. If she were a grading teacher, she might have mistaken these essays for the work of fourth or fifth graders.

Particularly impressive was one slender, dark-haired girl.

Despite her plain appearance, her handwriting was exceptionally beautiful, resembling printed text. Faced with such exquisite handwriting, many grading teachers would be inclined to award her extra marks for penmanship alone, not to mention her exceptionally fluent writing, punctuated with a couple of quotes from famous figures, adding considerable depth to her essay.

Fang Aishan took note of this child named Chu Ni and paid extra attention to her during the afternoon math exam.

This time, the math test introduced some innovations, adding two additional big questions to the basic test items. These additional questions were worth a total of 20 points and didn’t count towards the class average, but would factor into individual grade rankings.

The last two additional questions were beyond the syllabus, requiring flexible application of existing formulas, almost reaching the difficulty level of Olympiad math. However, at present, only a small fraction of students in the country were exposed to Olympiad math.

Fang Aishan had some expertise in mathematics herself, being a math teacher.

Sure enough, as the students tackled the final two additional questions, their writing speed slowed down.

After all, everyone’s aptitude was limited, and Su Aobai couldn’t turn every student into a genius. He merely employed special educational methods to elevate students who could score 70 points to the capability of scoring 80 in exams.

However, many students still managed to devise solution strategies, thanks to the two enhancement classes every week. During these sessions, Su Aobai would purposefully expose them to some advanced content, particularly fundamental Olympiad math questions. This greatly enhanced their flexibility in thinking. Thus, when faced with more challenging problems, they quickly applied the knowledge they had mastered to solve them.

While collecting the papers, Fang Aishan thought to herself that this ordinary commune elementary school might just bring a surprise, or a shock, to all the schools in Fengyang County this time.

******

The days waiting for the results were the most agonizing.

Because after the exams, the school would begin winter vacation, and the children who used to spend every day in school suddenly turned into playful monkeys, hopping around the village. Every time they appeared in front of the villagers, it reminded them of the possibility of facing embarrassment in front of the entire county due to the comprehensive exam.

“Hey Hei Zi, how did you do in the exam?”

“Xiao Guo, are you guys going to be at the bottom again this time?”

“Xiao Fang, your commune elementary school can’t teach you anything. Why don’t you just stop going to school after the New Year and stay home to help your mom take care of your little brother?”

…

…

Almost all similar remarks. Anyone attending the commune elementary school would be asked similar questions by people during that period.

The children didn’t understand the adults’ concerns, especially Su Aobai’s students. They had their own worries because after the vacation, they wouldn’t be able to listen to Teacher Su’s stories anymore. Moreover, not only was Teacher Su’s stories captivating, but the content of his classes was also exceptionally rich and interesting.

However, they quickly found new joys, like telling stories to other kids who hadn’t attended school or hadn’t been taught by Teacher Su. Their storytelling skills might not match Su Aobai’s, but the stories they told were novel and interesting enough. Occasionally making mistakes didn’t matter because, besides the listeners, no one else knew the stories anyway.

While telling stories, they often accompanied them with exaggerated gestures and occasional whimsical ideas that emerged on the spot, and the children listening to the stories were thoroughly captivated.

During that period, they were the stars among the children. Every morning, as soon as they opened their eyes, there would be friends waiting outside their doors. Whenever they went out, they were greeted enthusiastically, truly enjoying the feeling of being adored by everyone.

So, this was Teacher Su’s happiness?

Eventually, their storytelling even attracted some adults who had nothing much to do at the year-end.

Thus, amidst the relaxed atmosphere of the children and the indifferent attitude of the adults, the day of the results drawing nearer and nearer.

***

Early in the morning, the Principal and Wu Zhiyong arrived at the Education Bureau to collect the results.

Originally, they intended to have Su Aobai come along because they believed that if good results were achieved this time, most of the credit would belong to him. However, Su Aobai declined. He firmly stated that at the inception of Hongqi Elementary School, both of them had put in a lot of effort. If today brought any glory, it should be handed to them.

The Principal was a sentimental person and became teary-eyed at that.

In reality, Su Aobai simply didn’t want to leave the warm kang bed because of the cold weather. Of course, he didn’t need to tell these respected seniors such a truth that might tarnish his reputation.

By this time, there were already representatives from several schools waiting outside the Education Bureau. Upon seeing the Principal and Wu Zhiyong, many began whispering among themselves.

They were curious about what kind of results these students from the commune elementary schools, who had disrupted the tacit understanding of not participating in the comprehensive exams for many years, would achieve in the end.

“It’s out! It’s out!”

An official from the Education Bureau appeared with thick stacks of documents and several red placards.

The documents contained the scores of each school’s students, while the red placards would be posted on the Education Bureau’s bulletin board to display the rankings.

“Who’s first in each grade? Last year, it seems like seven grade levels were dominated by the county schools.”

“This year, the teachers from the textile factory school have been very strict. Maybe they’ll surpass the county schools.”

The crowd chattered as they crowded around the official to approach the bulletin board.