For the senior high school graduates of Ruxu No. 2 Middle School, this parent-teacher meeting was just a short, fresh and wonderful experience in their not-so-long senior high school life.
Of course, this wonderful experience is probably only felt by the 120 students in the two classes taught by Zhou Yu.
As for the students in other classes, most of them sighed, complained or cursed after their parents came home, wondering if they had been too unrestrained during their three years of high school, if they had been too self-indulgent and neglected the most important things in their student life.
Is it too late to work hard now?
No one knows what they think or whether it will change in the future, and no one cares about this matter now.
Because the days after the parent-teacher conference are even more important to these students.
For the students of Ruxu No. 2 Middle School, the days after the parent-teacher conference are like the lake before a storm: seemingly calm, but actually undercurrents are surging.
In fact, after the parent-teacher meeting, the next holiday to greet these students is the National Day, which is said to be one of the longest legal holidays in China.
National Day and May Day are both golden holidays with seven days off, which is common knowledge for all Chinese people.
Of the seven-day National Day and May Day holidays, only three days are actually holidays for the people, and the remaining four days are adjusted holidays. This is common sense for most Chinese people.
It is difficult to judge whether the seven-day holiday is a good policy or a bad policy for the Chinese people, but one thing is certain: it is really nice to have a seven-day holiday, but the subsequent compensatory leave is also very frustrating.
Of course, one day after the China Holiday Office announced the holiday reform, the seven-day May Day holiday no longer existed and became a one-day holiday.
However, although the May Day holiday has been shortened, there are three more holidays: Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. No one can say whether this reform is good or bad for the Chinese people.
But, for students, no matter what, the statutory holiday is one more day, so this is also a good thing.
The National Day generally provides a complete seven-day holiday for primary and junior high school students.
In some universities, the National Day holiday will be arranged longer, usually about 8-9 days. Some universities may even give students more than 10 days of holiday.
However, questions like which universities have how many holidays for National Day are of no relevance to Zhou Yu's students who are already in their third year of high school.
"This year's National Day, including the adjusted holiday, freshmen and sophomores will normally have seven days off. But considering that you are already seniors, you have grown up! The vacation time will definitely not be longer than freshmen and sophomores."
As soon as Zhou Yu finished speaking, there was a burst of wailing from below the podium.
Although they have just entered the third year of high school and have become accustomed to the busy life there, they are naturally still not used to the more compact vacation arrangements, especially those on statutory holidays.
Although the country treats all students equally on statutory holidays, schools do not think so.
You know, the third year of high school is not like the first and second years of high school. The third year of high school is about to face the college entrance examination, which is the most critical stage in students' lives. Therefore, parents and school leaders will naturally be more strict with students in terms of time, even harsh.
Not only are students often required to attend classes in school during statutory holidays, but even half of the summer vacation has to be taken out to force students to return to school and attend classes.
This is not difficult to find out from the tacit understanding among the major high schools in Ruxu County. It is not just one school that thinks so, but everyone thinks so. No one wants to fall behind their peers by wasting precious vacation time for students to rest.
What? You said that the state stipulates that all high school students should be treated equally, regardless of whether they are freshmen, sophomores or seniors?
What if our school gives senior high school students a holiday, while other schools continue to go on as normal? Because of this progress, our school's enrollment rate lags behind others. Can you take responsibility for this? !
In a sense, in fact, during the high school stage, especially the senior year, the school's ecological environment is more in line with the dark forest law depicted in the second part of Liu Cixin's "The Three-Body Problem".
Every school is secretly tinkering with students' holidays, just to cherish every minute and every second so that their students can learn more, but at the same time they are worried that their actions will be discovered by others.
What the school and parents think is naturally very simple. I am doing this for your own good. I know that if I do this now, you will suffer for a long time, and I also know that you are suffering.
But if you don't endure this hardship now, if you don't want to endure this hardship, then you will fall behind others. Others can go to first-tier or second-tier universities, but you who lag behind others can only go to third-tier universities or a junior college.
If you make one wrong step at a time, and fall behind others step by step, when you work hard in society in the future and suffer a lot, you will suddenly remember that the hardships you did not suffer when you were a teenager are like a bullet that was fired unintentionally, hitting me in my twenties ten years later.
At that time, will you remember that afternoon 10 years ago, or even decades ago, when you were still a senior high school student, looking at the students in other classes or schools who were studying hard, you sneered with disdain, and then turned around and walked into the Internet cafe a few kilometers away with a sense of superiority.
Only then will you sigh and say that you were young and didn’t know that the gifts of fate all came with a price tag.
Naturally, most students will not understand the school’s painstaking efforts. They will only complain and curse in their hearts, and even try every possible way to cause trouble for the school.
Damn it, can I still be a human being in school? !
We are already very tired, can we have a good rest? !
However, although Zhou Yu's students are somewhat dissatisfied in their hearts, they will not do these things.
Because they know clearly that if they don't seize the time to increase their scores as soon as possible, even by one point, then in the near future, their probability of getting into a key university will increase by one point.
Ruxu County is just a small county town.
The small county town means that these children naturally have fewer paths to take from the moment they are born than those children born in Rome.
For these children born in small towns, the only way to make a class leap is to become a small town student, go to a good university, and then stay in the big city and become a part of it.
They know it in their hearts, but they still complain, which is just a protest from their bodies.
"Originally, the school only planned to give you one day off!"
Zhou Yu seemed not to notice the expressions of these students, and continued to speak to himself, "But I thought about it for a day and it was really inhumane! So, I discussed it with the principal and others!"
Seeing the expectant eyes of these students, Zhou Yu smiled and continued, "The final result is that we still have three days off for National Day! Three days of vacation may not seem like a lot, but it is indeed a lot! The seniors of Ruxu Middle School and Ruxu No. 1 Middle School next door only have two days..."
What Zhou Yu said was indeed true. The school had planned to give these senior high school students only one day off, and even wanted to let these students attend evening self-study on the night of October 1st. Rounding it off, it was actually equivalent to half a day off.
But Zhou Yu considered that if they kept things this tense, sooner or later problems would arise among the students, and this would be counterproductive to sustainable development. For the sake of sustainable development, it would be better to relax a little.
What's more, the students in his two classes now have a very solid foundation, and more of them have already begun to sprint towards the top group of students.
Moreover, Zhou Yu was confident that he had the support of the system, so as long as these students did not have any problems with their mentality, there would naturally be no major problems.
On the other hand, three days of vacation is indeed a lot for these senior high school students.
During the seven-day National Day Golden Week holiday, only three days are legal holidays, and the remaining four days are actually adjusted holidays.
As we all know, weekends do not exist at all for many high school students in key schools.
So in a sense, these senior high school students of Ruxu No. 2 Middle School actually had a full holiday during the National Day.
Zhou Yu was naturally not a riddle teller, and he explained the matter directly to the students. The students who had figured it out were naturally helpless. Although they still felt a little uncomfortable in their hearts, they had already accepted the result.
Oh, I'm tired, let's destroy it.
Zhou Yu realized that although the students had accepted it, they still felt uncomfortable in their hearts, so he didn't say much. It was normal to feel uncomfortable. It was human nature. No one wanted to suffer, let alone these students. Even he, Zhou Yu himself, didn't want to go back to senior high school and experience it again.
But in a sense, Zhou Yu was still a little envious of these students, because these students had the help of his system, but Zhou Yu had worked hard and tried his best to achieve these results.
In terms of ease and future, these students are definitely in a much better situation than Zhou Yu was back then.
You guys, it’s your blessing to meet me, so just be happy!
With a light snort, after notifying these students, Zhou Yu didn't say much, and hurriedly left the classroom and walked towards the dormitory.
After returning to the dormitory, Qiao Meng had already brought the food to the dining table. It was a simple meal of three dishes and a soup - of course, it was not made by Qiao Meng. Qiao Meng has not yet become a chef, so she bought all of it from outside.
Hearing the noise outside the door, Qiao Meng knew that Zhou Yu had returned, so without even raising her head, she told Zhou Yu to wash his hands and prepare for dinner.
After Zhou Yu washed his hands and sat down at the dining table, he received a bowl of rice and a pair of chopsticks from Qiao Meng.
After seeing Zhou Yu start eating, Qiao Meng picked up the bowl and chopsticks and started eating slowly.
"Have everyone been notified?" Qiao Meng asked.
Obviously, Zhou Yu knew what Qiao Meng was asking. After swallowing the food in his mouth, Zhou Yu nodded and replied, "Yes, I have notified everyone."
Qiao Meng smiled mischievously, "Your students must be quite dissatisfied, right? The holiday was supposed to be seven days, but now they have been notified that they can only have three days."
Zhou Yu seemed helpless. "Who said it wasn't true? Even though I had already told them that the school only planned to give them one day off! After I argued with the school, I managed to get them three days off, but they are still not happy!"
Qiao Meng was speechless. "Ah? You've read so many psychology books recently, and the first thing you thought of was to use them on your own students? You even used the skylight effect!"
The skylight effect refers to the situation in which, during the negotiation process, one party first makes a very large request that is difficult for the other party to accept, and then lowers the conditions to make a smaller request that the other party can accept.
Mr. Lu Xun once used an example to illustrate this phenomenon in his article "Silent China".
The Chinese are always willing to compromise. For example, if you say that the room is too dark and you want to open a skylight, they will definitely not allow it. But if you advocate removing the roof, they will compromise and be willing to open the skylight.
Zhou Yu has been very fond of reading psychology books recently, because he found that reading more psychology books is very helpful for him to communicate with students, and he can't stop reading them.
When it came to the issue of this holiday, Zhou Yu's response was based on the contents of a psychology book he had read not long ago.
Zhou Yu did not refute, but replied with a smile, "I read psychology books in order to use them on them. You have to know that it is very difficult to be a class teacher nowadays! Students nowadays are not as easy to communicate with as we were back then!"
In Zhou Yu's era, or even earlier, the education system was barbaric. If students had problems, there was only one word to describe them: beat them!
Not only does the teacher beat the students, but after the teacher finishes beating them, the students will tell their parents about it. In order to show their support for the teacher, the parents will even drag their children and beat them again.
But things are different now. There are so many rules and regulations that completely restrict people's hands and feet. Some teachers are restricted in education and cannot display their talents at all.
Thinking of this, Zhou Yu couldn't help but sigh, "Compared to their seniors, this batch of students is still far behind! You know, their seniors in the previous class, such as Xu Jiahao, wished they didn't have a holiday on National Day. They spent 25 hours out of 24 hours a day studying!"
"Alas, what's wrong with these kids nowadays? It must be the system... Sorry, I got off track..."
Looking at Zhou Yu's appearance, Qiao Meng smiled gently without saying anything, but silently picked up a piece of pork ribs for Zhou Yu.
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While Zhou Yu and Qiao Meng were discussing their plans for the National Day, Xu Jiahao and his group of seniors from the previous year were strolling around major prestigious universities all over the world, looking forward to the arrival of the holiday.
Even Xu Jiahao and his classmates were having a lively discussion in the still lively high school group, that is, the class group of Senior 3 (27), discussing the arrangements for the National Day holiday.
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