By the way, what happened in 1987? The reform of the economic system was launched, the Sino-Portuguese joint statement on Macau was signed, martial law was lifted in Taiwan, India faced off with China in the Chumpi Valley, and the Great Khingan Mountains burned for 27 days. In addition, the Dayaoshan Tunnel of the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway was completed (Note: 8 years later, I went south to Guangdong and passed through this tunnel. I was amazed at the length of the tunnel and the difficulty of construction). Four finger relics of Sakyamuni Buddha were discovered in Famen Temple in Shaanxi Province ( Note: 30 years later, I visited Famen Temple and saw one of them. It has a mysterious aura and attracts people to worship.) The most influential figure in the music scene is Fei Xiang. "Clouds in Hometown" and "A Fire in Winter" were sung across the country and became extremely popular.
For those of us who are freshmen, mostly from rural areas, national events seem to be relatively far away from us. After experiencing the test of the high school entrance examination, when I first entered high school, I was more excited and fresh after breathing a sigh of relief, mixed with a bit of anticipation for the college entrance examination three years later. After paying the registration fee and claiming the class and dormitory, you are considered a member of the first year of high school. Everything has just begun, and the seeds of hope are beginning to sprout.
The list of all freshmen, their high school entrance examination scores and their classes are posted on the large blackboard on the wall of the classroom. There are four classes in the first grade of high school. I was assigned to class 1 (1). Many of my classmates in this class later became my classmates in the liberal arts class, such as Cheng Weiguo, Xu Aimin, Zhang Jinsong, Hu Xiaolan, Wang Shuhua, Xia Xiaoqing, Kong Xiaoyan, etc. wait. Judging from the admission scores, high scores are not concentrated in any one class, which shows that the school's class classification is quite balanced, and there is no such thing as fast or slow classes. Chen Xin and Zhang Xiang, who had the highest admission scores, later became classmates in my liberal arts class. Pi Lixun, who was promoted from Tuanpi Junior High School to Tuanpi High School with me but was not in the same class, became the vice principal of this high school a few years later.
In the first few days of enrollment, I could still see the announcement of the admission status of the 1987 College Entrance Examination through the big blackboard. I have the impression that the total number of colleges and technical secondary schools admitted that year was quite large, estimated to be more than a hundred. Ranked first is Wang Qiuwang, who was admitted to Xi'an Jiaotong University. Wang Qiuwang was very outstanding. Later, he stayed at Xi'an Jiaotong University to teach after completing his PhD studies. In his early thirties, he became an exceptional professor. He is now a Yangtze River Scholar and was shortlisted for academician selection. There were quite a few people admitted to undergraduate and junior colleges that year. There were also some people who were admitted to technical secondary schools, but you must know that it was very rare to get into technical secondary schools at that time, and the difficulty was not as difficult as studying in ordinary secondary schools today. At that time, Tuanpi High School was famous among high schools, and its influence extended beyond the county. Three years later, I entered a certain university. During the conversation, classmate Xu from Hong'an Rural High School told me that Tuanpi High School was very famous and he had heard of the name of this high school. It is said that Tuanpi High School has performed brilliantly in previous college entrance examinations, especially the 1986 class. Unfortunately, the college entrance examination performance in the 1988 session and subsequent years fell sharply (especially in liberal arts). The setback was huge and the school lost its leading position in the county's general high school. Although the influence of the general environment does not change due to human will, and there is a cyclical pattern of ups and downs, as long as the school spirit remains, there will eventually be a time to regain strength. Later, Tuanpi High School excelled in the college entrance examination in some years. This can be used as an example, which is not mentioned later.
The school building of Tuanpi High School is built on the mountain. The main body is a single-story building with red walls and black tiles and a spire. On the left side of the entrance gate is the canteen, and on the right side is the canteen. This is where we each send the rice we brought from home to be weighed and exchanged for meal tickets. Opposite the gate is a long slope. At the end of the slope are four classrooms for the first grade of senior high school. Classes 1 to 4 are in order from west to east. Classrooms for other grades are at the back or to the side.
The scene of eating after class is spectacular. Students from all classes rushed out of the classroom and ran towards the dining hall. It was a scramble. When eating in the canteen, you push me and squeeze into a group, especially during breakfast time. As a result, the school had to organize teachers or student leaders to maintain order during the breakfast period, so that students would line up one by one. There was no rush during lunch and dinner time, so no duty was arranged.
The principal of Tuanpi High School at the time was He Wangcun and the teaching director Xia Xuejue. The school has many senior teachers with profound knowledge and outstanding achievements in teaching and educating students. However, those who taught us in the first grade were mainly young teachers, many of whom had just graduated from normal colleges.
The head teacher of our Class 1 (1) is Teacher Gao Guoxi, who teaches us Chinese classes. Teacher Gao was more than 1.8 meters tall. He was probably in his twenties at that time. In today's terms, he was a handsome guy, in his prime. He recited the text in a rhythmic and crisp manner, and analyzed the article clearly and logically, with occasional moments of silence. When teaching us the "Three Kingdoms Zhuge Liang Biography", the article said that Zhuge Liang was "eight feet tall, and he always compared himself to Guan Zhong and Le Yi." Teacher Gao jokingly said, don't be scared by the eight feet here. Today, Bachi is no more than 1.8 meters, which is probably a little shorter than your teacher Gao. When reciting lyrical poems such as "Dayan River—My Nanny", Teacher Gao read it with tears in her eyes, which was sincere and moving. What is unexpected is that Teacher Gao graduated from a secondary school with a chemistry major in his early years, and later changed his profession to become a Chinese teacher, and later obtained a university degree. He once briefly described to his classmates the process of converting from theory to text, and how he studied so selflessly that he forgot his initial chemistry knowledge. He even asked others what H?O was, which made everyone laugh. Not long after they entered school, several classes in the first grade of high school organized an outing to Baiyun Mountain in Dandian Town, Tuanfeng County (still called Huanggang County back then) on almost the same Sunday. At that time, the school did not encourage students to play in the wild for safety reasons, but it did not forcibly stop it.
Teacher Gao was worried and went to Baiyun Mountain with us and stayed with us the whole time. I remember that his lunch was a few steamed buns skewered with chopsticks, which he bought from the teachers’ cafeteria that morning. He is simple and happy with his classmates. Teacher Gao Guoxi had already shown strong organizational leadership skills at that time. He was the secretary of the Youth League Committee of the school and guided the work of the school student union. Teacher Gao had outstanding literary talent. He wrote a very emotional poem "The River of Hometown, the River of Acacia" for the school's National Day poetry blackboard that year. Around the time I entered the second year of high school and studied liberal arts, Teacher Gao was transferred from Tuanpi High School, and I had no contact with him since then. Later, I heard that Teacher Gao Guoxi had worked in the County No. 1 Middle School, the County Education Bureau and other units, and his career was improving. But I have never seen Teacher Gao Guoxi again, and he may not remember me, because I was too inconspicuous in his class at that time, and he did not have the opportunity to see my successful performance in the liberal arts class.
The person who teaches mathematics in our class is Teacher Wang Yi (not sure if the word "Yi" is accurate). He is tall and thin and a good player on the basketball court. I still remember the scene when he taught us solid geometry with a huge triangle ruler under his arm. I don’t have a deep impression of Teacher Wang Yi, probably because Mathematics is a subject that I am weak in and afraid of. I can’t concentrate on listening to the class. Listening to the Mathematics teacher’s lectures always feels boring, low interest, and easy to make me sleepy. At that time, He did not have the awareness to later realize that mathematics is extremely important. But even back then, I thought this teacher's class was actually very good, because I almost completely understood the knowledge he taught during the limited few times when I wasn't distracted. It can be seen that failing to learn a course well is a false proposition, and the reason is probably due to yourself. I have no idea what happened to Teacher Wang Yi later. For me, who has not lived in Xishui for many years after graduating from high school, it is impossible and will not take the initiative to understand these situations. At that time, I was far from the age of nostalgia.
English teacher Yao Bin is also a young teacher. He is used to taking classes entirely in English, speaking slowly and easily. I heard that Mr. Yao Bin only graduated from a secondary school with an English major. Teaching English to the first year of high school should be a challenge for him, but he always taught the course with all his heart. The basic English I learned in junior high school was relatively good, but in my first year of high school it was tepid, so there wasn’t much interaction in class. Teacher Yao Bin is loyal and approachable. Once he accidentally locked the key in the dormitory room and could not enter the door. When he was at a loss what to do, he saw me, who was short in stature at that time, and asked me to get in through the hole in his door and open it for him. The white shirt I had just put on after taking a shower was dirty, but I I was happy to help and had no complaints about it. Later, I heard that Teacher Yao Bin went to a normal college to study English. After completing the course, his level will definitely improve a lot. I have never seen Teacher Yao Bin again, and I believe he must be as kind as before.
I often tell people that after studying for so many years, I have never been a class cadre. At most, I have been a class representative or group leader once or twice. In Class 1, Grade 1, I became the class representative of the political class. This was probably because my political score in the high school entrance examination was relatively high. But I, the political class representative, don’t even remember who the teacher was who taught our politics class most of the time in my freshman year of high school. I only remember the teacher who had just graduated from college, Wang Jinhua, who briefly taught for us in the early days of high school. Teacher Wang Jinhua said that he studied history in college, but was assigned to take political classes by the school (the main subjects taught at that time were political economics), which can be regarded as being used in related fields. Teacher Wang is obviously a very talented teacher, worthy of being a graduate of Central China Normal University. He wrote a poem on the teacher's blackboard to welcome the National Day. I remember the beginning of it is "The festival is back, I look at it with joy, and my heart is overflowing with joy." What's even better is that the general background of the economic system reform at that time was also reflected in his poems. The sentence "reform shines brightly on bullfights" grasped the pulse of the times. It's a pity that I didn't wait until my sophomore year of high school to listen to Mr. Wang Jinhua's famous history class because he was soon transferred out of Tuanpi High School. Many years later, with the help of the Internet, I learned that Teacher Wang Jinhua had been transferred to the County Cultural Bureau and had been the director of the Wen Yiduo Memorial Hall for many years. He is now the chairman of the labor union of the County Cultural Bureau and a member of the Standing Committee of the County CPPCC. History can play tricks on people in this way, and people miss some potentially valuable learning opportunities.
Chemistry teacher Hao Chunming seems to have just graduated, and his family seems to live on Tuanbei Street. Teacher Hao is the quiet type. He speaks softly but is meticulous in his lectures. I always remember that there was a catchphrase "molecule" in his lectures (here the first sound of "zi" is pronounced). The "molecule" that Teacher Hao mentioned here does not refer to the common term in chemistry, but to the test score. Because when he teaches chemistry classes, he often links the content to future exams, to the effect that you learn this part of the content well just to win points in the exam. From a practical and utilitarian perspective, I quite agree with Teacher Hao’s philosophy, because lofty and abstract goals are often difficult to achieve, while simple and concrete goals are more practical and motivating, and more likely to be achieved. It is said that Teacher Hao Chunming was later transferred to the County No. 1 Middle School and teaches there ever since.
The physics teacher Gao Gao Wei should be a new teacher who had just graduated from Huanggang Teachers College that year. The nervousness and uneasiness of becoming a teacher for the first time can be seen at a glance. I remember that when he gave us our first physics class, he walked in a few steps amidst the applause of his classmates. His face turned a little pale, and it took him a while to let go. At that time, our high school teacher Wei, who was very young and only a few years older than us, liked to chat with his classmates during breaks. He would occasionally tell us something about his time in college, which interested us very much.
When entering high school for the first time, who doesn’t look forward to going to college and hoping that their dreams will come true as soon as possible? Teacher Wei in high school taught very seriously. Even though I am a very poor student in physics, I still remember him telling us about Descartes’ theory in class many years later. Later, when I was in college and there was a banquet at home, Teacher Wei from high school was invited by Teacher Wang Youqin to come to my house for a dinner to thank the teacher. Unfortunately, I am not good at physics and did not choose science, so I lack the same language in physics as my high school dimension teacher. I heard that Teacher Wei from the high school was later transferred to the County No. 1 Middle School to teach, and I had not seen him for decades.
The person I remember looking like but not the name is the biology teacher. She was a female teacher with slightly darker skin, wearing glasses, and seemed to have a more introverted personality. She got married when she was a freshman in high school. Wu Aiming, the biology class representative in her class, organized a group of classmates to join in and give the teacher a bouquet of flowers - plastic flowers. This female teacher taught rigorously, but she was soon transferred out of Tuanpi High School.
For me, who chose liberal arts after my freshman year of high school, studying physics and chemistry courses was really like a passerby. Later, I recalled that our teachers at that time were all very dedicated. If I didn’t learn my lessons well, I really couldn’t blame the teachers for not teaching well. I could only blame myself for not focusing enough and not working hard enough. I often use examples of my own failures in this area to warn the next generation to study hard and seize precious time to study hard and overcome difficulties. Learn mathematics, physics and chemistry well and you will have more and broader choices in the future.
There are seventy or eighty students in Class 1 of Senior High School, the vast majority of whom are students from the county, and there are also a small number of students from other places. At that time, Tuanpi High School attracted students from other places to study with the afterglow of previous college entrance examinations. Among the classmates, there are some who are studious, some who are naughty, some who have good grades, some who have poor grades, and most of whom have average grades. Some of them impressed me deeply.
Qin Guangming, the squad leader, is from Zhuwa. Qin Guangming belongs to the category with relatively good academic performance, with high admission scores and strong ambition. However, he was not very lucky. He contracted an eye disease not long after the first semester. He was forced to take a break from school for several months for treatment. He returned to school after he recovered, but his studies were obviously adversely affected. I once had a relatively good personal relationship with Qin Guangming. When he had an eye disease, I and several other classmates rode bicycles for dozens of kilometers to visit him at his house. Later, in my second year of high school, I studied liberal arts and he studied science, and we have no contact with each other since then. There were some other class cadres, but I don’t quite remember who they were.
There was a classmate of Wang Gang, Pan Xiaojiang, who used to be named Pan Jinzhong. He had a pair of deep dimples on his rosy face, which was particularly endearing. Xiao Jiang and I used to be very familiar with each other. His mother died early and his life experience was relatively unfortunate. But Pan Xiaojiang is optimistic, very righteous, caring, and has a true nature, which makes him popular among female classmates. Because he went to the science class in his sophomore year of high school, I lost contact with him later.
Zhang Hongfeng, a classmate from Xishui County, is tall and was nicknamed "Giraffe" by his classmates because of his extremely long neck. This was obviously a person who didn't like to study but only wanted to have fun. He later often hung out with a classmate Cheng Zhong from Huanggang County (today's Tuanfeng County) next door who also didn't like to study. Cheng Zhong is a "dancing master", and his spacewalk dance is unique to the entire class or even the entire grade. "Giraffe" later also learned space dance, and joined hands with Cheng Zhong to dance in style, which became the highlight of the class party. "Giraffe" is still the pistachio of his classmates, and he is not annoyed no matter how much he is teased in public. He probably started working before finishing high school. One year, he heard a classmate who lived in Xishui County say that he was a "giraffe" and later became a truck driver.
Xia Xinsheng, a classmate from Songshan, speaks well and can even play the flute a few times. He and "Giraffe" were particularly at odds with each other. When they got into trouble, they would pick up a flute and hit each other hard. He also said that he was not used to hitting people with his hands. Sometimes I think he is really cruel to his classmates. How painful would it be to hit them with a flute? Xia Xinsheng seemed to have dropped out of high school not long after he was in his first year of high school. The main reason I was impressed by him was because he said he could read palms, and he also read my palms for me. It is undeniable that some of Master Xia's statements sound reasonable and surprising.
Cheng Weiguo and Xu Aimin were my classmates since high school until they graduated from high school in liberal arts. We were once brothers in distress, the shortest boys in the class, always standing at the front of the line. Both of them later chose high school English teachers as careers and trained many outstanding students.
The student with the best academic performance in Class 1 of Senior High School at that time was undoubtedly Xu Jianjun. He ranked first in the class many times. Jianjun is from Huagui. Although he later chose science, because we were closely associated with classmate Xing Haopeng, Xu Jianjun and I later had some contact. I went to visit him at his school when he was studying in college in Wuhan. Jianjun is now a senior executive of a large company.
Among the male students who can recall their names and later studied science, there are Chen Xiaoqiang and Chen Dongyun from Wanggang. I met Chen Xiaoqiang at Huanggang Normal College many years ago. He studied physical education and had a strong physique. Chen Dongyun went to the military academy and served in the Guangzhou Military Region for many years. We had a phone call more than ten years ago but have never met in person. I heard that he later transferred to Guangzhou as a regiment-level cadre. In addition, there was Chen Huolin from Lisi, who later became a teacher at China University of Geosciences. Zeng Aisong from Yang Temple had good grades and beautiful handwriting. Later, he also performed well in education.
I cannot fail to mention the female classmates. I remember the names of female classmates who later studied science: Wang Hongmei, Wang Xiaoling, and He Xiaoni. These are all female classmates from the Wanggang area of ??Songshan.
Wang Hongmei later studied medicine and met her more than 20 years ago. She now works in a university hospital in Wuhan. I remember that He Xiaoni's grades were quite good at that time. After visiting Baiyun Mountain that year, I wrote a poem. She read it and said it was well written, and copied it into her notebook. I don’t know what happened to her afterwards, but I hope she is doing well. There is also Wen Yingzi, a very dignified female classmate whose father passed away and was forced to drop out of school due to family difficulties. A few years later, when I was in college in Wuhan, my classmate Xia Junle and I saw Wen Yingzi working in Han and felt quite sad. I often lament that the times have brought a lot of hardships to our generation. The channels for further education are narrow, the admission rate is low, and some people are even more ill-fated. We should have more people getting the chance to go to higher education.
All gone, the people and things in my freshman year of high school are like meteors streaking across the sky, and the memories left behind are short-lived. Unlike the second to third year of high school, the teachers and students are relatively stable. After two years of study, the impression will be more profound. However, after all, the first year of high school is relatively far away from the college entrance examination. The overall intense review situation has not yet come, and the freshness of just entering high school has not completely faded. Most of the various class meetings, sports activities, and talent shows appear during this time period. This is still a relatively innocent and carefree year in high school that is worth remembering.
Due to my severe lameness in mathematics, physics and chemistry during my entire freshman year of high school, my overall grades were low and there was nothing to commend me about. I failed in both mathematics and physics in the final exam, and in physics I only got an embarrassing 40 points. However, if things turn out well, once I enter the second year of high school and choose liberal arts, I will have the opportunity to make use of my strengths and avoid my weaknesses. Perhaps this will change my destiny?
In this way, I ended my freshman year of high school with mediocre performance. In the autumn of 1988, I stepped into the door of the liberal arts class, a door of hope. Thank you to the liberal arts and science subject system of the College Entrance Examination and Tuanpi High School for this platform! After entering this school, I was able to transform myself into a brave person, and successfully entered university two years later. We will report the follow-up situation when we have time.