Parents in the cold wind, students and teachers who are "in captivity", this action of the township school is laughing and crying

Said the retrospective

2024-04-23 13:00Published in Hubei

Spinning?

Zheng Li, who was lying on the bed, suddenly opened her eyes, lit up her mobile phone and glanced at the time, it was already 8:20 in the evening.

Zheng Li got up with difficulty, the door was already soaked in night, the moon loomed in the clouds, Zheng Li rode into the car to pick up her son after school at nine o'clock.

As a standard "accompanying mother", Zheng Li mentioned that she was still very happy when she was young, when she and her husband were engaged in basic manual labor in the big city, and they could "go out for a walk" every day after work. When a country man comes to the city, she feels that "everything is very new", a world that she has never seen before.

But the world was quickly reset. Her son Xiaoyu is going to junior high school, and the report card of primary school is not outstanding, and seeing the struggle of urban families in education, she has deep anxiety, she thinks twice and decides to return to the countryside and be a mother to accompany the school. In order to supplement the family and improve the family's material accumulation, Zheng Li worked in a garment processing factory in the town during the day. After sending my son to school in the morning, I went directly to the factory, and I took my son home after work in the afternoon.

But since my son was in his third year of junior high school, the school began to have evening self-study. After a day of factory discipline that treats people as machines, Zheng Li originally expected to relax in the evening, but now she has to pick up her son from school at night, and after her son comes back, she has to cook for him and accompany her child to do homework.

In fact, Zheng Li is just a microcosm of the many parents waiting outside the school gate at night. For them, they were pulled into the wave of educational involution by the "innocent". The family role completely crowds out the personal role, and I am forced to be stuffed into and cater to the child's learning and life trajectory, which is a bit of a "colony" by the child.

Figure | Before school ended in the evening self-study, parents were already lined up at the school gate to pick up their children

For these parents, the greatest support for giving them a sense of meaning and waiting in the cold wind and rain comes from their children's academic performance. Five-year-old Zhang Wen, who is Chinese New Year's Eve today, is a little distressed, her child's grades have not been improved, and she feels that her child is not "learning material", but she has to be "tortured" here every night, and she feels very uncomfortable. "But I can't tell my child, he's already under a lot of pressure. "The physical burden imposed on the child's weak academic performance and family role is jointly eroding the inner world of these mothers, the sense of meaninglessness is magnified, and the inner depression has no place to vent, it can only accumulate more and more, and even gradually produce maternal burnout.

Zhang Wen has been comforting himself, reminding himself not to fall into the whirlpool of burnout. She occasionally talked to another young mother who was also waiting outside the school, and felt that the other party also had a strong anxiety about motherhood, and suddenly hated to see each other a little late. So every night the two would pour out their bitterness to each other by waiting for their children to get out of school, and slowly, some parents joined their conversations, and a "mother group" matched by educational anxiety was born, they added WeChat to each other, and even set up a group. In the group, they share their educational experiences with each other and vent their dissatisfaction in life, "If you have a group of people who can empathize with you, you will feel that you are not alone, and the children are equally uneasy." Zhang Wen laughed, and his tightly knit brows finally stretched.

Of course, there are still many parents who agree with and support the school's practice of opening evening self-study. Xia Hong is one of them. Because of the constraints of family conditions, Xia Hong did not sign up for tutoring classes for her children, but at the same time, she was deeply affected by the anxiety of the Internet conveying to her the fierce competition in education, which made her feel very guilty and felt that she had failed her child's future. The arrival of evening self-study undoubtedly brought a ray of light to Xia Hong, who was in a negative mood.

Figure | After the evening self-study, parents picked up their children one after another

In her opinion, having school management and teachers teaching knowledge in the evenings may make up for the lack of cram schools, and can also "touch" with the increasing competition in education. However, Xia Hong can't figure out how much the evening self-study has on improving children's academic performance. "It's better than nothing. Xia Hong is still very optimistic.

For rural families with weak material accumulation, although evening self-study also has to pay a certain fee to the school, compared with market-oriented training courses, this cost is insignificant. Coupled with the introduction of the "double reduction" policy, the training course is even more "survival in the cracks", and it is difficult to find a trace. Moreover, children's evening self-study is in the closed field of education specialization in the school, which can not only ensure external safety, but also accept internal knowledge, the best of both worlds, why not?

As soon as nine o'clock arrived, the closed school gate slowly opened, and the students rushed out, Zheng Li looked nervously at the crowd, and finally received Xiaoyu, she said that she had to go home to cook for the child, and disappeared into the night in a hurry.

Tired?

Ding Wei pushed open the door, slammed the schoolbag full of books on the table, and collapsed on the sofa.

For him, who had just been promoted from the second year of junior high school to the third year of junior high school, the sudden addition of evening self-study almost "killed". Originally, I could get out of school at five o'clock, and then go home to finish my homework, and I could have more time to play games and go out for a walk, but now I am "imprisoned" in the classroom, and I can only look out the window at the street full of lights and "sigh".

Figure | Visual China

Entering the graduating class, the results of the policy of diversion of general jobs are stimulating the nerves of parents, students and schools all the time. On top of this red line, the involution of education has intensified, and rural schools, as the weak party at the end of the educational resources and educational strength, can only increase the degree of discipline of students' behavior - that is, strictly require students to only do things related to learning, and extend the length of time that students receive knowledge indoctrination in school - that is, evening self-study is also used to give lectures, "two-pronged" to resist the anxiety caused by the downward transmission of educational pressure, and improve the possibility of township schools "out of the circle" in the county education competition.

However, the addition of evening self-study in schools and the "trapping" of students in school also means that students' regular habits of life and learning in the home field during that time period - for example, at this point in time, they should be playing or resting at home, but they should be overturned and reset, and the acquisition and internalization of new habits takes a certain amount of time, so at the beginning, most students feel uncomfortable when they are forced to contact evening self-study.

 For Wen Li, the evening self-study every night squeezed out the weekend she had been looking forward to. When there is no evening self-study, Wen Li's after-school time is allocated and planned by herself and her parents, and her family enrolls Wen Li in remedial classes in mathematics and physics, and attends classes twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. As a result, the school has now increased evening self-study, and after the issuance of this mandatory order, Wen Li's extracurricular training can only be moved to weekends, "I used to look forward to the weekend every day, but now I have no hope." When Wen Li said this, there was some complaint and helplessness in her tone.

Zhiqiang was also unhappy when he mentioned the evening self-study. He said that at this point every day, he and his brothers had already ridden an electric motorcycle through the streets and alleys, but now they could only stay in a corner of the classroom to survive this long evening self-study. Zhiqiang didn't have much hope of being admitted to high school, so he felt that this evening self-study was completely unnecessary for him. However, the school requires that there must be a handwritten letter of voluntary self-study by the parents, and a letter of commitment that has nothing to do with the school during this period before agreeing to "let go", Zhiqiang conveyed the school's requirements to his family, but the family did not agree to issue a letter of commitment, the reason is that he is afraid that Zhiqiang will run away at night and have an accident, so it is better to stay in the school honestly. Without a written guarantee from his parents, Zhiqiang could only be forced to accept the physical discipline of the school evening self-study.

However, the school's evening self-study has the purpose of improving academic performance, which is contrary to Zhiqiang's pursuit of academic goals. In addition, in order to stabilize classroom discipline as much as possible, the hierarchical monitoring system composed of the principal, grade director, and class teacher will form a high-intensity physical discipline for students. The incompatibility between Zhiqiang and the school's goal of improving grades, coupled with the tension between the body that is "locked" by surveillance and the mind that cannot be "locked", causes Zhiqiang to always "escape emotionally" in self-study at night, and even become a deviant of the class learning order.

Figure | Originated from the Internet

"Really, it's hard for you to imagine how boring I am, the teacher told me to study and sleep at night, but this time of night is the time to play, how can I sleep. The school wouldn't let me go, and my family wouldn't sign it, so I had to stay at school. (So) I just thought about giving the teacher a headache so that I should be able to go back" Therefore, Zhiqiang wanted to dissipate the school's patience by deliberately speaking loudly and making noise from the desks and benches, so that he could be expelled from the time and space discipline of evening self-study and gain both physical and mental freedom.

The school had dinner at half past five in the evening, and after dinner, it was the time when the first and second years of junior high school were dismissed. But compared with the postponement of the end of school, the dinner in the school cafeteria is a heavy stone blocking He Feng's heart. Most of the dinner in the canteen every day is steamed buns, noodles, with shredded potatoes and pickles, and when it is good, there will be egg fried rice, of course, the school charges 5 yuan for dinner, and the price is only half of the lunch. But He Feng was still very depressed, because he felt that the things that "pigs don't eat" were used to fool students, and he had to charge five yuan, and the school was very "black-hearted". Therefore, many times, He Feng does not go to the cafeteria for dinner, but waits next to hunger until he comes home from self-study in the evening to have dinner. "No matter how bad the food at home is, it tastes better than the school food. This is He Feng's evaluation of the school dinner.

Although Huang Xin, whose grades have always been in the middle and upper reaches, can understand the school's practice of adding evening self-study, he also bluntly said that his body can't stand it. When he first entered the third year of junior high school, he had to go to class at 6:20 in the morning and leave school at 9 o'clock in the evening, and he was immersed in school for nearly 15 hours a day, becoming a proper "school-like creature".

Township schools are strict about the rules and regulations that bind students, as well as the creation of surveillance systems. The subjectivity of students in this situation has been suppressed and eliminated to a great extent. The establishment of evening self-study has increased the length of time and space that students are controlled.

"The evening self-study teacher usually asks us to do questions and then talk about them, which is very boring. The first class was okay, but the more I went on, the more sleepy I became, especially the class before school, and everyone's hearts were not very calm. Huang Xin's narration was unusually calm, he said, "If you stand at the school gate at night when school is out, you will find that there is no light in everyone's eyes." ”

As the sinking of educational involution and the early product of educational competition, is evening self-study a "magic weapon" to serve students' growth and success, or an "assembly workshop" to shape a "problem-making machine", or just an invalid involution of time?

Figure | Visual China

Of course, Li Ke, who has always been at the top of his grade, is more of a recognition and support when talking about evening self-study. According to her, she doesn't have a mobile phone, and even if she doesn't study at night, she just finishes her homework when she gets home, then reads a book and goes to sleep. A regular life can lead to boredom and emptiness. No one spoke, and sometimes she didn't know what to do after finishing her homework, which became something that made her feel distressed. In her opinion, why not do it if she stays at school for evening self-study, so that she can complete her homework, have someone to talk to, and acquire knowledge? Li Ke said that the teachers often tell them that all schools in the city have evening self-study, and they leave school even later, so that they can better understand the school's practices. "The school is also good for us, and I hope we can get higher and then go to a good high school. Li Ke smiled and spat out this sentence.

It can be said that a night self-study is a few joys and a few sorrows for students.

There is no way out?

"The Education Bureau above asked us to do evening self-study, and we couldn't do it. Director Chen was a little anxious.

The county where the school is located is at the bottom of the previous overall ranking of all counties in the city, and the school is not very good in the ranking of middle schools in the county, so it has received "special care" from the county education bureau. The county education bureau told Director Chen that they were the only schools in the entire county that did not study at night.

"At first, the Education Bureau wanted all grades to have evening self-study, but we decided to only allow evening self-study in the third year of junior high school, considering that rural roads are not easy to walk at night and the safety of students. "As the government department in charge of county education, the county education bureau has discretion over many decisions, and can even promote non-institutional or even unregulated decisions. For example, in the local area, the county education bureau has put pressure on junior high schools to implement weekend make-up classes, so as to improve the educational strength of the entire county and stand out from the competition between cities and counties. As the party under jurisdiction, the school "dares not speak out" about many decisions of the Education Bureau with the nature of "gray area", and can only find a way to do a good job of a "buffer zone", so as not to offend the Education Bureau and parents.

However, the pressure on schools and teachers to add evening self-study is enormous. School ends at 9 p.m., and the rural infrastructure and monitoring system are not perfect, causing the school to worry about the safety of students. "We issued a letter of commitment that every child must be picked up by a parent before they are allowed to leave. We will put a sign-in book at the school gate, and the first thing every parent will do when they arrive at the school gate is to sign in first, and then pick up their children when they sign in. If there is an accident on the road, the consequences are also borne by the parents. If you don't agree, don't let your children come to study at night. ”

Figure | Originated from the Internet

How to ensure the safety of children from the door of class to the door of the house to the greatest extent, and if there is a real accident, how to minimize the implication is a "knife" hanging over the head of the school. To this end, the class teacher should assemble a good team, count the number of people, ensure that all the children walk to the school gate together, and then check the names of the parents on the sign-in book, and then allow them to leave. If any parents do not sign in time, the child will go to the duty room to wait for the parents to arrive, and the class teacher will also contact the parents in the WeChat group or even directly by phone. At the end of the school day, there will also be a Year Head at the school gate to ensure the safety of the school gate.

The school not only wants to maximize the removal of these latent unstable factors and strive to ensure the safety of every student, but also wants to be able to "perfectly" get out of the accident after an accident, it must ensure "procedural justice" and be cautious in every link. Be cautious inside the school, and when the school cannot reach outside the school, you need to sign a written commitment document similar to the letter of commitment between home and school to remove the impact of uncontrollable factors on yourself. "In this way, if something really happens, the school still can't escape, and it will definitely be affected. Director Chen shook his head helplessly.

As a young teacher who led the graduating class for the first time, Ms. Xiao Wang, the evening self-study really gave her "strength". Students arrive at school at 6:20 a.m., and the class teacher has to accompany them until 9 a.m. in the evening. The school advocates that the class teacher should stay in the classroom to watch the students during recess, and this kind of "captive" intensive class teacher responsibilities not only deprives Xiao Wang of the opportunity to arrange his own life, but also is always coerced by the pressure of the ranking goals set by the school for the class.

Before taking the graduating class, after each school, Ms. Wang could go out to dinner with other young teachers and friends, and then go back to the office to chat for a while before going back to the dormitory, which was the biggest reward for herself after a tiring day. But now, she can only go to the cafeteria by herself, and she often has to go outside the class at night, and the grade group has to take the roll call of the teacher from time to time in the evening self-study, including the overall results of each exam class must be magnified and enlarged by the grade director for evaluation, etc., all of which remind Teacher Xiao Wang that it is not easy to be a good class teacher of the graduating class.

Ms. Wan, who was the head of the third grade last year, said that she had taken on too much pressure last year. Because the grade director of each grade is generally fixed and follows the grade, but it happened that last year's college entrance examination for his own children, when the management graduating class met his own children's college entrance examination, the double pressure and anxiety sometimes overwhelmed Director Wan. The addition of evening self-study in the third year of junior high school makes Director Wan's educational role and family role-playing compete with each other in time and space.

"I have to stay at school for three hours every night, the children at home go to school in the city, and it is very late to drive back after school after self-study, and the children have already gone to bed and have to come back early the next morning, so I usually rest directly at home here. It's almost always his dad who is watching over him, and I feel guilty, but I can't ignore it here. Director Wan couldn't hide his sadness.

For Director Wan, the two identities of "director" and "mother" are pulling her all the time. The increase in evening self-study in schools has weakened Director Wan's motherhood practice, and there is even a trend of "semi-withdrawal" in the family field. The inability to serve the reproduction of his family's cultural capital wholeheartedly made Director Wan fall into deep self-blame. At the same time, responsible for the advancement of the graduating class, the school will also set goals for Director Wan, so that Director Wan will not be able to gain ease in the school field. The two are intertwined, which makes Director Wan's year extremely painful.

Figure | Originated from the Internet

Therefore, for township schools, whether it is a helpless response to the involution of education, or a semi-mandatory order requirement after being pulled into the ranking competition by the county education bureau, there is too much pressure and helplessness buried behind the school and teachers.

An economic outlet?

The end of the evening self-study was the most longed-for moment of the day.

Fang Ning is a mobile vendor who sells snacks, and for her, evening self-study is her financial outlet. At the end of self-study every night, the front of her booth was full of people.

"The children must be hungry after class, and it is so late, and the parents generally don't want to cook anymore when they go back, so they will definitely buy something directly for their children, which is so convenient." Fang Ning, who has not yet graduated from junior high school, is in business, but he is not ambiguous at all.

Low-cost, high-efficiency, and low-entry food stalls have always been popular in towns and villages. There are many food stalls in the streets and alleys. Of course, the main reason why food stalls can be integrated into the rural fabric is the low consumption characteristics of the stall economy. "It's only six or seven yuan to buy a bowl of cold skin, which is much cheaper than in the city. Fang Ning said.

Figure | Food stalls near the school gate

And school and snacks seem to be a "match made in heaven". For students, snacks are different from "school canteens" and "home tables", which are only to meet basic survival needs, but are an entertaining and even spiritual pursuit. As a result, snacks gain a spatial advantage. The addition of evening self-study has raised the dominant position of the food stall to a higher level. The timing fit makes it possible for both "hungry" students and parents who "don't want to cook" to have solutions to their problems, and the diversity of snacks provides children and parents with a wealth of choices.

For Xiao Han, there are a few skewers of fried skewers every night. She said that this means the end of the day, finally out of the "claws" of evening self-study, and it also means that the happiest time of the day is coming. Eating fried skewers while playing with her mobile phone when she gets home is her most unique but also the most rustic way to release and decompress. At this time, the food stall was given by the students a symbolic meaning of ending the day's school discipline life and regaining individuality - what they want to do, and it is also the simplest but most practical means of entertainment in the student era.

For Sun Qing, who is also a mobile vendor, she is now in a "dilemma". His son is now in his third year of junior high school, and it was originally a "win-win" thing to sell roasted sweet potatoes while waiting for his son to get out of school, but roasted sweet potatoes caused distress to his children. According to Sister Qing, some classmates in the class would often laugh at their son with words like "selling roasted potatoes", so much so that her son told her not to sell roasted sweet potatoes or sell them near the school in the future, but Sister Qing found it difficult to give up this economic outlet. She went to the child's homeroom teacher, hoping that the homeroom teacher would stop the classmates from teasing her son, but it had little effect, and even more excessive children would learn to shout "sell roasted potatoes" from the loudspeaker when passing by her vendor, which also gave her a headache.

In the concept of children in rural areas, there is a distinction between high and low occupations, and they have their own evaluation criteria. The subjectivity of the evaluation criteria and the low literacy of some rural children will stigmatize some professions, and this stigma of parents' occupations will extend to the school field, thus forming a kind of mental bullying of children, and even deriving from a kind of physical violence.

Sister Qing is still confused and hesitant, and she still can't figure out how selling roasted sweet potatoes "offended" those children. If it is said that the previous dark night brought her joy, the satisfaction of sweet potatoes in exchange for a little progress in family conditions, but now, Sister Qing looked at the night in front of her, and gently lowered her head, without saying a word, only the shouting of "selling roasted sweet potatoes" in the loudspeaker broke through the silent night and echoed for a long time.

Figure | A food stall waiting for students to study at night

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