When my son was six years old, he went directly to the first grade. Because his grandfather was a teacher, most of the teachers who taught my son knew his grandfather. In addition, my son was cute, so the school teachers liked him very much. His grandfather takes his son to and from school. Although the school is not very far, his grandfather just doesn't feel at ease. I would deliver meals at noon. His grandfather said that the school food was not good and he was worried that he would not be full.
From grade one to grade six, his son’s grades were almost always in the top five in the class, which made his grandfather and father extremely happy. Every time his grandfather wrote to his father, he always said that Kunyazi (referring to my son) is very smart and a talented person. You must make money and train him to go to college in the future. Whenever he heard this, his father would send study materials home every once in a while, including extracurricular readings, copybooks, review materials, after-school exercises, three hundred Tang poems, etc. As long as they were useful for study, he would send them home.
During his six years of primary school, my son had never attended any cram school or interest class. At that time, rural schools did not have such things. I tutored him in all his homework. Every time his grandfather picks him up after school, I urge him to do his homework, then do exercises and read extracurricular books. I remember that my son had very little free time since he was a child and was allowed to watch TV for an hour every day. I was also very afraid of getting into trouble at that time, and I had to listen to my grandfather for everything.
I remember the year I was promoted to junior high school, it happened to be the second year that private schools outside were expanding their enrollment. There were three schools that were very famous in our Xiangtan County . Most of them recruited students from the city. It was generally difficult for rural students to get in, especially the county No. 1 Middle School. Each class in the countryside could only take one or two exams.
With the idea of giving it a try, I bought a private school's mock test questions and taught my son to practice the questions over and over again at home. I still remember some of the questions such as , chicken and rabbit in the same cage, , idioms, and brain teasers.
Hard work pays off. That year, my son took the exams in all three schools. Fortunately, he passed the exams in all three schools. This made us all very happy. Since we were admitted to all three schools, of course we chose the best school, County No. 1 Middle School - Jiangsheng Middle School. It was the best school in the county, and only the top students from each class in each school were admitted. My son was the only one admitted to that class.
I remember that at that time, it cost 8,000 yuan to attend that school. My family was not wealthy at that time, so I had to borrow the money, but my father was still very happy. When school started, his father happened to be home on vacation, and it was the two of us who sent my son to school. The moment he was sent to school, his grandfather and father were full of expectations and hopes.
Some things really backfired. My son’s entry into junior high school was not as smooth as expected. In the first semester of junior high school, their class teacher was an English teacher. My son's shortcoming is English. My son is from the countryside. In the rural school, he has never been exposed to English at all. He is a blank slate in English. But students who go to primary school in the city are different. They have a basic knowledge of English. According to my son's words at the time, other students could have simple conversations with the teacher in English, but my son was confused and couldn't understand anything. Teacher
saw that most of the students had a good foundation in English, so he taught the class quickly, which was a fatal blow to his son who had zero foundation. I can't remember words, and I can't keep up with grammar. Every time I don't finish my homework on time, I have to stay after school to clean up.
When my son came home at the weekend, he told me and his grandfather about learning English. He couldn't remember the words and couldn't understand them in class. It was very difficult to learn. Now his grandfather was anxious, what should he do? English is an important subject, and failing to learn it will have a great impact on the college entrance examination.
At this time, his grandfather made a surprise move. Every weekend, his grandfather would take him by car to pick him up. It took more than an hour by car from the county seat to my house, so his grandfather used the more than hours of car ride to let my son memorize English words in the car. When my son was a child, he got a little motion sick when riding in a car. How could he remember the words if he was asked to memorize them? But my son has been afraid of his grandfather since he was a child, and he didn't dare to resist, so he could only do as he was told. My son only told me these things later.
As time goes by, my son is afraid of going home, afraid of riding in the car, and even more afraid of taking English classes, so English will always be a hindrance in the class. The more this happened, the more the teacher stared at him. Almost every time his grandfather went to pick him up, he would stay and sweep the floor. His grandfather scolded him for being so stupid and other unpleasant words. This formed a vicious cycle, causing the son to gradually lose interest in learning and his grades plummeted.
What’s even more terrifying is that while my son is in school, he must call back every day to make sure he is safe. If he doesn’t call for a day, his grandfather will call me and ask me to go and see what’s going on.
failed several exams and happened to meet his father at home. His father may not be able to accept this reality. He went from being full of hope and expectations for his son to letting him down time and time again. There were times when I lost control of my emotions and became furious with my son. I even cursed him with the most unpleasant words: "Why are you so stupid? Why don't you die? If this continues, it will be meaningless for the whole family to live." etc. His behavior of hating iron but not steel cast a shadow over his son, and also had a great impact on his future life.
The lack of freedom in life and the double pressure from school and home made my son breathless. As a result, in the year of the high school entrance examination, my son did not get into the ideal high school and got into a second-rate school - Xiangtan County No. 2 Middle School. When
was in high school, his father had already returned home, and the distance between school and home was even further. If he went home by car, he would have to transfer several times. His grandfather and his father were still worried, so his father always drove him to and from school during the monthly holidays. Therefore, my son still doesn’t have any free space and time.
When he first entered high school, his son's studies were good. His class teacher was a physics teacher and he had a good relationship with him. He always called his class teacher "Digo", so his son was very good in physics and even ranked first in his age group. Unfortunately, his class teacher changed during his sophomore year of high school, and his interest in learning was not that high.
In the second half of my second year of high school, it was an era when mobile phones became popular. However, for my son's study, our family did not buy him a mobile phone. We would go home and play with ours every time during the holidays. Therefore, we felt that we did not have enough fun, and sometimes we would secretly borrow the ones from classmates in school to play with. In fact, at that time, he had already begun to enter the rebellious stage, and he began to resent the discipline at home, but it was not visible on the surface.
I remember one Wednesday, the school teacher called and asked, "Is your son feeling well? Can he come to school?" We were confused. Our son had been sent to school by his father as early as the weekend. How could he not go to school? The teacher said that his son asked for leave over the weekend. He said he was not feeling well and needed to take two days off. Now we are all panicking. My son is missing? (Continued in the next episode)
