"The reform of the middle school entrance examination has begun to be diverted, and the three types of junior high school students will face elimination, and parents should pay attention to it", Zhang Xia, a Guangzhou parent who has middle school entrance examinations, can't help but click on this title so as not to miss any important information.
However, the articles with such headlines could hardly provide substantive information, but instead the words "reform of the middle school entrance examination", "elimination" and "change of fate" made her panic.
"I feel that it is not the college entrance examination that is set for life, but the middle school entrance examination that is set for life." This, she said, is also a common anxiety of many families preparing for the exam.
Although as early as 2013, the junior high school promotion rate has exceeded 90%, and in 2019, it has reached 95.9%, but the anxiety of "middle school entrance examination for life" refers to the two roads divided into the promotion tracks of middle school candidates: ordinary high schools and secondary vocational schools. Parents whose children rank low in grades are particularly worried that their babies will not be able to attend ordinary high schools and will have to go to secondary vocational schools.
A Guangzhou parent who just sent his child to the middle school entrance examination last year told the South Wind Window reporter: "(If) taking the route of vocational education is a last resort. And he bought a school district house early, and sent his children to one-on-one cram classes from primary school, "I spend energy, that is, I am afraid that my children will go to vocational high school, and I want to ensure that my children will not be eliminated." ”
However, secondary vocational schools are still the final destination for many middle school students.
The number of secondary vocational students is rising year by year (Source: Ai Media Consulting)
According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, in 2019, the number of secondary vocational students exceeded 15.76 million, accounting for 39.4% of the number of students educated at the high school level. In the past three years (2017-2019), there are 14 million junior high school graduates nationwide every year, and about 4 out of every 10 middle school students are enrolled in secondary vocational schools.
However, this number varies from place to place, according to the province, taking 2019 as an example, the number of middle school candidates enrolled in the middle school is about 30% in Beijing, and the highest in Henan, nearly half. According to the urban area, in the three districts of Dongcheng, Xicheng and Haidian in Beijing in 2019, the proportion of secondary vocational students admitted is less than 10%, and Yanshan is close to half.
The "elimination rate" that parents call it varies.
But what kind of road is a secondary vocational school, so that parents are afraid to avoid it, what opportunities, resources and choices do they have for this group of students who are blocked out of ordinary high schools?
At the same time, secondary educators want to guide students to accept the idea that they are not inferior. What they need is not only self-identification, but also external recognition.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28" > meet mid-careers, not just because of scores</h1>
There are three runways for secondary vocational advancement for secondary school candidates: ordinary secondary school, vocational high school, and technical school.
In 2017, Yingying, a native of Jinan, Shandong Province, scored 420 points in the middle school entrance examination, exceeding the pugao admission score line by 30 points. This score can allow her to enter an ordinary high school, but the grades only belong to the middle level, can not enter the key high school, her parents told her, it is better to go to secondary school.
At the Nantong Secondary School Consultation Meeting, many people from the booths of secondary schools also came to consult. (Source: Figureworm Creative)
Although she also asked her parents at that time "what is good about secondary school", going to the middle school exam is equivalent to wasting her own middle school entrance examination scores, but under the advice of "you can learn a skill" and "graduate early, work early and earn money early", the 15-year-old obeyed her parents' arrangement.
When looking for a school near her home, she originally wanted to go to a public secondary school kindergarten teacher major, her score was ten points higher than the professional admission line in previous years, and she wanted to get ten to nine stable, but the competition for the preschool teacher major of the target college was fierce, she found that there were students who scored more than 500 points in the middle school examination also signed up, and some people held a stack of piano dance art certificates to apply, and the score line was pulled up that year, and she failed.
She and her mother followed the online brochure to find another private secondary school and field trip, but unfortunately just in time for the weekend, there were no students in the school, and the teacher of the admissions office received them. "Graduation packages are assigned, jobs don't have to worry, internships are paid, and there's nothing good about going to high school..." After a set of boasts, they chose the school that she quickly regretted.
In 2015, Sun Mingyang, who lives in Shangqiuyong City, Henan Province, rubbed the edge and crossed the line, was admitted to the local non-key general high school, but learned more and more hard, especially in mathematics class, listening to drowsiness every day, he felt that he was not the material to learn, did not want to waste time, the first year of high school did not end, he quit school and came to the local public vocational high school.
The school has been retained, and the parents have asked, but they can't give any advice, seeing that he has a firm attitude and has not done anything out of the ordinary, so he has no objection and lets him choose for himself. Neither of his two older sisters finished high school. "In the countryside, a lot of us are such a choice." He said.
Stills from "Classmate Meñas"
Wen Yan was born in Datian County, Fujian Province, and is not yet an adult. In 2018, he took the middle school entrance examination, the score was dismal, did not reach the local high school admission line, and the score line of some better public secondary vocational schools was also reluctant, only private secondary vocational schools did not have score requirements. His father wanted him to go outside and learn at least a craft.
Under the introduction of his fellow villagers, he learned about a "Scud Advanced Technical School" founded by a listed company in Fuzhou, which set up a higher-grade hotel when enrolling students in Datian. Fumihiko remembers that when the admissions teacher put on a promotional video claiming to be taken by a student, he looked at it quite badly, did not think too much, they signed up.
On the way to school, looking back on the situation at that time, Fumihiko realized that something was wrong and felt that he had been fooled: "Capable schools generally advertise how much they have educational resources, but what they promote is the activities they carry out, the dormitory has a washing machine, free Wi-Fi." It sounds fancy, but it doesn't help to think about it. After going to school and confirming more details, he actually didn't want to read, "but think about the money paid, running away is a bit of a loss." ”
Entering the middle job, the score is a cutting knife, the path choice of teenagers, still misaligned with the score line, in addition to the score, it also contains the self-assessment, family factors, possible traps. Stepping into the school door of the middle school, several teenagers saw another look beyond expectation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="157" > lost place</h1>
Cai Hong is a passer-by at a public high school in Guangzhou. Her academic performance once ranked in the top 100 in the city, and later encountered cold violence on campus to be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome (high-functioning autism, also known as genius disease), had no choice but to suspend school, and finally missed the middle school entrance examination. In 2018, in order to study abroad after obtaining her academic status, Cai Hong enrolled in vocational high school.
She remembers that at the freshman assembly on the first day of school, the teacher repeatedly emphasized discipline for 5 hours before and after: don't dye your hair, smoke, drink, get a tattoo, and fall in love early. This set of words was unfamiliar to her. "In my previous school, the opening of the school was to say, come, let's look forward to the future and achieve better results."
On the first day that Yingying went to the secondary school to report, she was also stunned. Boy tights + bean shoes are standard, girls love to wear heavy makeup, the spirit girl and spirit boy in the short video, is her classmate.
Some boys talked to her, a set of "learning useless theory" rhetoric: junior high school graduation is still like a big boss, famous college students can not find a job after graduation, it is better to make more friends. She couldn't accept the idea of using day school and sitting in the front row to distance herself from them and keep her grades in the top three of her class.
Stills from "Hello, Old Time"
English culture courses, professional courses, and third-year internships are tasks that secondary vocational students need to complete in the 3-year time limit.
Sun Mingyang, who dropped out of Pugao And went to vocational high school, spent less than a semester in the high mechanical and electrical major. As soon as the midterm exams ended, he dropped out.
Less classes, end of evening self-study before 8 o'clock, lights off at 10 o'clock, when there is nothing to do, do not consciously play mobile phones, school does not restrict students from going out, he is not a particularly conscious person, he can not find the goal. The course content is also simple, unlike Pugao, which has several compulsory textbooks, and there is only one book in the English class here.
In one class, the English teacher started teaching from the phonetic transcription and the 26 letters, and he said, "I can't believe that this is a first-year high school class." "In order to take into account the students with zero foundation, students with a learning foundation have to accommodate.
The study of professional courses also did not give him a sense of gain. "I thought I could learn a basic professional skill, or find a job in the future, but I found that most of the teaching here is theory... It's not fun to learn, so it's better to come out and learn a livelihood skill. He left school and, after 3 years as a cook, followed his classmates into the electromechanical industry.
Yingying chose marketing, which she felt was slightly useful, one was a business etiquette class, the other was a computer basic course, both of which came in handy during her internship.
But more often than not, she couldn't use what she had learned in writing. At this school, she found that the most popular students are not good grades: "If you are more talkative and can do things, those are much more important than grades." But she felt that she was not such a person. However, learning the skills of dealing with people here has become her windfall.
In her school, most of the teachers are part-time, taking a class to pay for a class, through a friend who has a good relationship with the teacher, she learned that some of their monthly salaries are only two or three thousand, and some teachers have left after teaching for two or three months. Usually, the teacher is only responsible for the class, not willing to manage the students, "our school implements the student management of the student, the student council has a particularly large power." Yingying said.
Cai Hong studied at the vocational high school for a year, and she chose to major in English. After passing the language proficiency test required for studying abroad and staying in the United States for 2 years, she remembered several teachers who had taught herself in the past, and she felt: "You shouldn't teach like them, nor should you learn according to what they say 'rote memorization', you don't need how to learn?" ”
She also took a video class, and when she took a break from school, she was surprised to be a B-station video blogger for 3 years, and the teacher who spoke on the stage was confused by her question "What format should I use for video".
Outside of the curriculum, internships are the only way for secondary vocational students to graduate.
Secondary vocational students are training in welding
In a year, Yingying changed 8 units, the first few positions were assigned by the school, but she was assigned to a community as a customer service, every day there were endless owners to complain about the phone and quarrels, after doing 2 weeks, she applied to the school for a change of guard, and was sent to a pantry in the building as a waiter, the most outrageous one was called to wipe the toilet and trash cans.
In her opinion, these jobs have nothing to do with marketing, and they are hard to recruit, and she believes that she can do more valuable work than selling her labor.
In 2018, Fumihiko chose to major in electrical automation when he enrolled in the technical school, and last year, he was assigned to work on the assembly line of the factory directly under the school, and he was responsible for using a magnifying glass to see if the battery terminals were damaged.
For two months, he worked from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., continued to work until 5 p.m. at 12:30 p.m., and worked more than two hours a day at 6 p.m., working more than 10 hours a day. In his eyes, this job is just a "hand on the line" job.
It was hard to touch the physical equipment, no longer the teacher was demonstrating on the computer, but in this kind of practical training, no one explained to him what the whole assembly line was doing and what it had to do with the electrical automation he learned.
The practical training of the preschool education class next door also did the same work as them. He listened to the master on the assembly line talk about the local kindergarten saying: "The students taught by the Scud Technical School (preschool education) are not accepted, except for cutting the battery. ”
Passed the exam, took the college entrance examination, and also passed the mechanic certificate, but The newly graduated Fumihiko said: "I still don't understand what electrical automation is all about." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="158" > middle school students also want to have spring</h1>
From the moment he knew that he was going to stay in the technical school for three years, Fumihiko became more and more trapped in a playful mentality. Employment and the future, he did not want to think much, he said: "I have thought about it, but I find it useless to think about it." ”
This sense of powerlessness was reinforced in the mouth of his class teacher: "After you leave this school, you can't find a job, and it has been very good for you to work for you." And he seemed to compromise: "I want to rely on my level, only the assembly line can do it for me, and I don't know what else I will do..." This is the decadence of a teenager under 18 years old.
"I can use it." This is his understanding of learning, "If it is arranged to the assembly line, I think it does not matter whether to learn or not." ”
Yang Yang is the deputy director of the Department of Commerce and Trade of Guangdong Chinese Aviation Art Vocational School, who also serves as a teaching, class teacher and teacher training, and has 5 years of secondary vocational education work experience, and wants her students to realize: "You are no different from the students who are admitted to ordinary high schools, not because of your low IQ, to a large extent, it is a problem with a weak foundation, which can be made up for and solved." "It takes more patience and responsibility.
In her opinion, most students are willing to learn, even if those children who seem to have given up on themselves, a small opportunity may activate their enthusiasm for learning.
Stills from Quartet
Yang Yang teaches the school's flight attendant major, there are two classes that give teachers headaches, the class is divided into several small gangs, one person does not learn, with everyone do not learn, do things. One of the boys slept in class for a long time, but one class was awake, and when he was about to leave the class, Yang Yang praised him from the bottom of his heart: "XX classmates performed very well today, and they did not sleep. ”
Like a catalyst, the boy never lay on the table again, and after the class, Yang Yang did not require him to be able to recite the English dialogue, and after he stumbled and read the dialogue, he gave him a high score of 90. After the midterm exams, 5 or 6 boys in that class were actively expressing themselves in her class.
Learning is defined not only by grades. Yang Yang organized a debate on "whether the advantages of early love outweigh the disadvantages or the disadvantages outweigh the benefits", and the students' active performance and openness and maturity of their views surprised her. "Love is two people to make progress together" "Whether they finally come together or not, campus love itself is a beautiful thing", she can say such a point, she feels that this group of children is not simple and ignorant.
Stills from "Youth Faction"
Inspiration and guidance, not always successful, Yang Yang's business English major, the major is the choice made by his parents for him, and he himself does not like, the foundation is also weak, although the class is serious, after the class also actively ask, but the results do not improve, which aggravates his distress. At an age that is still blind, there is a high risk of dislocation for minors to choose their career direction early.
This group of "special students" who are on the verge of deviance in stereotypes is a special kind of special in Yang Yang's view: "High emotional intelligence, quick thinking, not very fond of stereotyped things, but strong hands-on ability, good adaptability." ”
Behind those relatively concentrated and regarded as "misdemeanors", in addition to habits, sometimes complex family conflicts are buried, mixed with more distinct urban-rural disparities and social contradictions of school bullying.
Cai Hong, who has a well-off family, was shocked to hear that in her vocational high school class, plus her, the family with only 3 students is not a low-income household; the mother of a classmate has a minor unmarried child and eloped to Guangzhou; some students have dropped out of high school because of excessive pressure from high school study, and they have withdrawn from vocational high school; Cai Hong has also been a victim of cold violence on campus, and her vocational high school classmates, as well as her classmates in key junior high schools, have cut their wrists... "It can be felt that they are smarter than many so-called school bullies, and they deserve a better education and more opportunities." But only a few people like her can study abroad, she said.
Yang Yang's major, every year, 60% or 70% of graduates choose employment, and in Guangdong, in 2019, the employment rate of secondary vocational students reached 98.12%, which is a good data, but their career choice space and competitiveness are limited, and may not be proportional to students' employment satisfaction.
Yingying is a member of the continuing education, and now she is a sophomore in college, and then she wants to change lanes and overtake through the college entrance examination. But further education was not her first choice.
Through the independent internship she had previously won, another undergraduate student was admitted to the work unit she had negotiated. "Even if you are a relatively good student in secondary school, because your graduation certificate is there, people will not look up to you." This is the reality of her encounter.
When secondary vocational students have a greater sense of gain, are not trapped in academic qualifications, and are more smoothly accepted by society, the value of secondary vocational students and secondary vocational education will not be obscured, and the diversion of the middle school entrance examination may jump out of the trap of elimination and class folding.
(In the text, Zhang Xia, Wen Yan and Cai Hong are pseudonyms)
Author | South Wind Window reporter Shi Jingjing
Edit | Zhao Yi
New Media Editor | Lu Ming
Typography | Xiwen