Colorful years

This unwavering belief, like a blazing flame, always beats intensely in Congcong's chest, never to be extinguished.

No matter how winding and thorny the road ahead may be, he will hold on tightly to this persistence and perseverance, and bravely strive towards his goal.

When he returned to his alma mater in the countryside to continue his high school studies, he discovered that things were not as easy as he had imagined, and the challenges he faced were still enormous.

Compared to the top-tier high schools in the county town, the tuition and living expenses here are indeed significantly lower, greatly easing the family's financial burden. However, the pressure he faces regarding his studies is as heavy as a mountain.

It must be admitted that the teaching staff of my alma mater is indeed somewhat weak and unable to undertake such heavy and complex teaching tasks at the high school level.

Most of the teachers here only have a high school or vocational school diploma. They have been with Congcong and his classmates since elementary school, and continue to teach in junior and senior high school.

After entering high school, the school assigned three worker-peasant-soldier college graduates, but due to well-known reasons, although these teachers met the academic requirements, their knowledge base and university-level learning were not solid, and their teaching experience was quite lacking. Therefore, it was really a stretch to ask them to take on the teaching task of preparing students for the college entrance examination.

Taking humanities as an example, if these humanities teachers can still barely hold on, it's only because most of the knowledge points in humanities can be mastered through rote memorization.

For this type of subject, one does not need extraordinary intelligence or exceptional comprehension. Therefore, even if the teachers' teaching level is slightly lacking, the problem is not too serious.

As long as students are diligent and hardworking enough, and can memorize the key points and difficult points in the texts, it is not difficult to get high scores in the exam.

However, the situation is quite different when it comes to science subjects. Courses like mathematics, physics, and chemistry place extremely high demands on the professional knowledge and teaching skills of the instructors.

They must not only be able to explain various abstract concepts and profound principles to students in a simple and easy-to-understand way, so that everyone can easily accept them;

Furthermore, they must be able to derive and prove the relevant formulas proficiently, and explain in detail the problem-solving approach, steps, and specific methods for each question.

Only in this way can students truly understand and master this knowledge, thus enabling them to handle various test questions with ease and confidence.

However, Congcong was deeply influenced by the slogan "Master math, physics, and chemistry, and you'll be able to go anywhere in the world without fear," and resolutely chose the path of science and engineering.

However, given the learning conditions at the time, the difficulty of overcoming numerous obstacles and preparing for the college entrance examination on one's own was beyond imagination!

Moreover, during Congcong's school years, primary and secondary schools implemented a nine-year education system. However, when the college entrance examination was reinstated in 1977, the decision was made hastily and the enrollment was temporarily scheduled to begin in the autumn of that year, which completely disrupted the original academic year order.

As a result, students who were enrolled under the old school system had to extend their studies by an extra semester in 1978 in order to align with the university's enrollment and start dates.

After that, the school system underwent several changes, first to a ten-year system, and then to a twelve-year system. Congcong actually completed his primary and secondary school education in nine and a half years.

However, for Congcong, the length of the school term was not the most crucial issue. What severely negatively impacted his studies was the school's extremely left-wing educational model.

Students like him, born between 1961 and 1963, happened to be in the special period of "learning from the Communist Party and catching up with the Communist Party" when they entered junior high school.

During that period, they had to spend a lot of precious time on work-study and agricultural activities.

Principal Luo of the commune middle school was an extreme leftist. He promoted a food self-sufficiency movement in the school and even used the enthusiasm and willingness to reclaim wasteland and farm as a criterion for graduation.

I remember it was a sunny day when the school organized a work-study program. However, the night before, Congcong suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach, went to the toilet frequently, and felt weak and powerless.

When Congcong woke up in the morning, his diarrhea was still not going away. Seeing this, his mother had no choice but to run to the health center to buy him medicine and told him to rest at home.

Principal Luo was very displeased when he learned that Congcong was absent.

That morning, during the break between classes, all the teachers and students gathered on the spacious playground as usual.

Instead of broadcasting calisthenics, the loudspeakers on the playground played a temporary arrangement.

Principal Luo stood solemnly on the platform, his sharp gaze sweeping over the crowd below.

He said loudly, "Classmates, please be quiet! Today I am going to publicly criticize and educate a student here, and that student is Zhang Cong!"

When he heard his name called, Congcong's heart sank. He lowered his head and slowly walked to the front of the line.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Principal Luo began to reprimand Zhang Cong without reservation: "Yesterday, Zhang Cong was absent from the school's work-study activity without a valid reason. This is an act of disorganization and lack of discipline, as well as an act of not liking labor and being influenced by petty-bourgeois mentality. Here, on behalf of the school, I give him a serious reprimand. I hope that he and all the students present will take this as a warning."