Children who have been "eliminated" by the high school entrance examination

Author | Wu Dayu

Three years ago, in July, the year of the high school entrance examination, Li Zhiyan received the news of a thunderbolt on a sunny day - the sum of the nine subjects was only 583 points. This is a score far worse than expected, ranking 50,000 outside the city of Guangzhou.

In the same year, junior high school student Song Zhiqing received results, which were very poor and almost below the general high line. In the six months of online classes at home in the new crown, she has given up sprint learning. Every day, the teacher explained on the small screen of her mobile phone, and she held another mobile phone in the room to play games, and did not listen to any important points.

"It's been forgotten anyway." Song Zhiqing said.

This is a group of "bad children" and "bad children" in the eyes of the world. Not admitted to ordinary high school, in many people's stereotype, their future life will rub shoulders with all glamorous industries and dreams.

Li Zhiyan and Song Zhiqing both expressed the same feeling to me, losing the life test, in addition to feeling depressed, but also feeling inferiority - people with low self-esteem do not know how to accept themselves who fail. Or rather, they face the same life problem early on, how to live a life comfortably when a person realizes that his talent is ordinary.

Song Zhiqing

The anxiety of reality occurs under the "change" of big policy. In 2021, the National Vocational Education Conference reiterated that the mainland's "general job diversion" should be "generally balanced". This was misinterpreted by the outside world as "5:5 general job diversion in the future."

Under the anxiety and controversy, a new way of education is being practiced in more places - universal job integration. Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, proposed that the key to building vocational education into a type of education lies in promoting the integration of general vocational education and realizing the coordinated development of secondary vocational education and general high education. This helps to alleviate the involution of education.

It is also the question of how our high school education can maximize fairness and dignity for ordinary people. The ultimate goal is that even if everyone is born ordinary, they can still reach their maximum potential in a limited life.

01

Haze middle school exam

"I've become confident." Recalling the changes that her three years of high school gave her, Liu Yuqing, a 20th-grade student at Guangbao Media High School, said. (Editor's note: The "Guangbao Media High School" referred to in this article refers to the high school education project jointly organized by Guangdong Guangzhou Daily Media Co., Ltd. and Guangzhou High-tech Education Group)

She was a child who considered herself "flawed," with "flaws in her face and personality."

If asked, she believes that her facial defects are teeth that need to be corrected after surgery at the age of 18. His personality is also due to poor grades in junior high school, "like a transparent (person) in the class." She is too lazy to talk to people, and she has very few friends.

For a long time, Liu Yuqing tended to wear a mask when she went out, "because the mask can cover the lower half of her face."

She doesn't want others to notice her imperfect self.

"Want to See You" stills

In the junior high school stage where academic performance is high, people naturally substitute "three, six, nine, etc.". She told me that after the results of the high school entrance examination came out, it took her a few days to accept reality, and "it doesn't matter anymore."

Song Zhiqing had similar feelings. In the last year of junior high school, she was in a state of self-abandonment, colloquially speaking, "rotten". During the days of online classes at home, she keenly felt the difference - her parents preferred sons to daughters, set their eyes and attention on their younger brother, and only cared about and supervised his studies.

She has a sensitive personality, does not want to experience the heartbreak of being hurt, and rarely has contact with her classmates. "Teachers also focus almost exclusively on good students."

In 2020, because of the serious bias of physics and chemistry, Song Zhiqing took the exam with a score only a little higher than the Pu Gao line. This score does not make her a good high school, but she also refuses to go to technical vocational schools.

"Maybe in essence, I still feel that I shouldn't belong to the high school."

Also under the haze of poor exams, Liu Yuqing said that he wanted to think about it and wanted to repeat it for a year.

Is it good to reread the third day of the first year?

The reality is frustrating. At the secondary school entrance examination stage, few schools offer repeat classes. Unable to get into high school, they were "discouraged, thinking they couldn't even get into college."

02

They were seen

Are those who are "eliminated" by the middle school entrance examination have to be permanent poor students?

Since the 80s of last century, the mainland has implemented the separation of general education and vocational education. According to data released by the Ministry of Education, in 2022, 6.5 million people will be enrolled in secondary vocational schools, accounting for 40.71% of the enrollment in high school. The national ratio of general employment is about 6:4.

Li Bin, a professor of sociology at Central South University, pointed out that the general job diversion focuses on diversion, not elimination. Before the general job diversion, all the children ran for the college entrance examination "one-wood bridge". The reform of the general job diversion is to add another path in addition to the college entrance examination, so that those children who may not be very good at written knowledge can reflect their value on different tracks.

A still from "Quartet"

But vocational education has long been under a more vulnerable discourse in China. Many people think that coming out of vocational school means that the acquired skills are low-end and the future employment prospects are narrow.

Although, there is a big misunderstanding in this.

That is, at the end of secondary vocational schools, a major return place is further education, not direct employment. In 2020, the China Institute of Education and Fiscal Sciences of Peking University conducted a sample survey covering 24 provinces across the country, and found that only 35% of secondary vocational students were directly employed, and about 65% of students went on to higher education institutions to continue their studies.

Many educators, including Xiong Bingqi, believe that the reason why vocational education is inferior in the minds of the public is that vocational education has long been regarded as a "level education" lower than ordinary education. Education plays a "stratified" role.

"Youth School" stills

Xiong Bingqi therefore believes that in order to alleviate both educational involution and construction-type education, it is necessary to reform from the current "diversion model" to the "integration model". Specifically, all high schools will be built into comprehensive high schools with both general high (academic) courses and secondary vocational (technical) courses, and comprehensive high schools are diversified in running schools.

Similar upward pathways are accelerating. For example, Guangdong Province has a clear stipulation that the registration requirements for college entrance examination candidates are to have graduated from high school or have equivalent qualifications. High school schools here include both general high schools and secondary vocational schools (including technical schools and technician colleges).

Li Zhiyan, who chose to enroll in Guangbao Media High School, also holds this belief. In 2020, the reason why she enrolled in this school of general vocational integration is very clear: she wants to take the art college entrance examination, study for undergraduates, and in the future, she will be admitted to graduate school.

She needs a chance to restart her life.

Li Zhiyan

Song Zhiqing also held such hopes and applied for this school that focuses on general vocational integration.

To the surprise of others, after entering school, she focused on her studies as if she had suddenly opened her mind.

She recalls that change came from the atmosphere of the class. In the first year of high school, the "low-scored" students who did not get into ordinary high schools gathered. Everyone didn't have the rambling she imagined. On the contrary, many people want to catch up on the starting point of high school and bury their heads in make-up classes and start over.

With the idea that she can't be left behind, Song Zhiqing also has the motivation to learn.

But continuing to talk to her deeply, changing her deep motivation, may come from the energy given when she is noticed by others. In the days when she was a "little transparent", she always felt that no one knew her every move, so she was not enthusiastic about everything.

"Hello, Old Times" stills

But in her freshman year of high school, a trifle melted her sensitively. Once, she had an argument with a male classmate. "The head teacher did not directly accuse me, but said both of us and enlightened us very gently."

This little thing has an unexpected and unique perspective in Song Zhiqing's eyes.

"It makes me feel that the teacher is not biased." She said, "If I didn't say that it was a boy on the other side, the teacher would treat me very badly." ”

03

Attack on high school students

The feeling of being affirmed and seen makes high school students grow tenaciously in the next three years.

Li Zhiyan, who has attended vocal interest classes since she was a child, found that the curriculum arrangement of vocational education integration is a more suitable model for her. Different from the junior high school who blindly immersed herself in study, in addition to the high-Chinese classes, several art classes a week allow her to always come out to "move", and her life has a lot of "heart pounding" moments.

One of the most impressive was the drama performance competition held by the school. Today, Li Zhiyan recalls that the first reaction was not the content and role of the performance, but the autonomy of the people in it. The whole program is rehearsed and performed by the students themselves. "At that time, from the script lines, to the costumes, the stage background, and the performance clips, we all handled it ourselves."

Stills from "The Best of Us"

"The moment I went on stage, I found myself so happy, really happy on stage. My heart was still pounding after the performance," Li said, "At that time, for the first time, I realized that I seemed to like acting. ”

She told me that when she was in her second year of high school and her third year of high school, she decided to take both the acting department and the musical theater department. During the art school exam in her third year of high school, she belonged to the most desperate ranks of her peers - she signed up for "all the schools that could be registered, a total of more than 20".

Song Zhiqing, who has regained her motivation to learn, has similar feelings. When I was in high school, I encountered the environment and learning content I liked, and the whole person became more and more outgoing.

Progress is clearly happening: in her freshman year of high school, the class teacher saw her as an introvert and suggested that she study film and television behind-the-scenes majors.

But after studying for a while, Song Zhiqing took the initiative to propose that she hoped to go to the front of the stage and be a host. She knows what she wants, and she knows what she needs to overcome. "I started talking to people on campus, taking the initiative to greet strangers, and practicing my ability not to have stage fright."

"Hello, Old Times" stills

The active training allowed Song Zhiqing to regain her confidence. Sensitive, she once again found that "after systematic training, my temperament has changed, and it is the kind of confidence that stands on the stage and exudes from the inside out." ”

Self-confident people have better self-control over their lives. During the sprint of her senior year of high school, she reviewed until 12 o'clock at night every day like a full battery, and got up at 6 o'clock in the morning to run and review.

Day after day, it didn't tire her. "The atmosphere of the class is good, and I won't feel too hard," Song Zhiqing recalled of her changes.

As for Liu Yuqing, who once felt that he was "flawed", the biggest gain in the three years of Guangbao Media High School was "knowing myself".

Know your face.

Recognize your potential and strength.

Liu Yuqing recalled that when she was in junior high school, she was often huddled in a ball and did not know what she could do. With anxious appearance, she thought that she was not suitable for the stage and not suitable for showing herself. But gradually, I took acting classes in high school, "I found that I was not so bad at front of the stage, and I still had a lot of potential, and I was not a particularly restrained person I thought I was before." ”

She also began to face her flaws again. Although she has a pair of teeth that are not neat and somewhat different from others, this is only a small part of her. "It doesn't matter if you wear a mask or not. Because I found that a big minus in my eyes is not that important at all. ”

Liu Yuqing (right)

After three years of high school, after bidding farewell to low self-esteem, slackness, and an inconspicuous life, positive actions gave this group of former "poor students" fruitful returns. In the 2023 Guangdong Provincial Summer College Entrance Examination, the undergraduate double online rate of the first senior students of Guangbao Media High School was 70.8% (cultural points/cultural points + professional points), and the promotion rate (entering colleges and universities) reached 100%, achieving "low intake, high out, high in, and excellent out".

Among them, Li Zhiyan went from 50,137 in the Guangzhou Middle School Entrance Examination three years ago to 545 in the college entrance examination this year, achieving a score of 21st in the province and was admitted to Jinan University. Song Zhiqing and Liu Yuqing, like most of the other students in the class, were admitted to undergraduate colleges in different regions.

Everything is very similar to the poem recited by the high school students of Guangbao Media in a student assignment - the famous writer Wang Meng's "Long Live Youth":

As long as my youth remains, I will not be sad. Even if the night devours everything, the sun will return;

As long as life remains, I will not be sad. In the thick clouds, you will still catch the golden sun.

Edit | Xiangyu

Typesetting | Eight pounds

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