After Xu Huiqing left, she stood alone for a long time by the shrub-lined path outside Yinshan Kindergarten’s gate, hidden from view.
Teacher Xi’s use of the word “weaning” struck her like a heavy blow to the head, leaving her stunned and forcing her to reflect: was it Xiaoxi who needed to be weaned off her, or she who needed to be weaned off Xiaoxi?
Undeniably, when she first found Xiaoxi again in her previous life, she had been the one constantly by Xiaoxi’s side, trying to use enough love to heal the wounds Xiaoxi had suffered during those three-some years apart. But gradually, over so many years of growing up together, had the roles reversed? Had Xiaoxi become her emotional pillar?
Just like what Zhao Bei had said to her—her need for control was too strong. She even meddled in deciding which provinces her child should apply to for university.
Putting herself in the child’s shoes, did Xiaoxi truly need her advice that much?
She couldn’t put herself in those shoes either. Perhaps because of the different environment she grew up in, people of her generation rarely rebelled. She had always listened to her parents since childhood, studied diligently, got into a technical secondary school, landed an iron rice bowl, and lived off the state.
That was the whole of her generation’s initial pursuit.
Because Xiaoxi had been lost before, Xu Huiqing had to be involved in everything—even school-organized competitions and spring outings. Only by seeing Xiaoxi from a distance could she feel at ease.
The thing she feared most on an ordinary day was hearing that no one knew where Xiaoxi had gone, that she couldn’t be found.
That would have killed her!
Perhaps Xu Huiqing had been sick for a very long time, only she hadn’t known it.
Youth Palace classes started at nine. After Xu Huiqing arrived, she wasn’t immediately assigned to teach. Instead, she was told to observe first. With pen and notebook in hand, she sat at the back of the classroom, listening and taking notes.
After two classes, the Youth Palace director smiled and asked her, “How do you feel? Think you can teach?”
The Youth Palace director was named Hu Limei, a very capable, sharp, and efficient female teacher.
As she spoke with Xu Huiqing, she took Xu Huiqing’s notebook and said, “I heard your English is good. If we assign you to teach English classes, are you confident you can handle it?”
Xu Huiqing smiled. “I used to teach math, but if it’s English, I think I can do it, too.”
She had personally overseen both Xiaoxi’s and Zhao Bei’s schoolwork. Since elementary school, she had practically followed along and re-learned every single subject from primary through high school twice. If Xu Huiqing were to take the college entrance exams right now, she felt she might not score any worse than many new graduates.
With that thought, an idea stirred—she wanted to take the self-study exams and earn an undergraduate diploma.
The self-study exams of this era weren’t like those of later generations. The strict separation of teaching and testing, along with rigid exam discipline at the time, gave the self-study qualifications high value. The diplomas were recognized across all sectors of society, including internationally.
Xu Huiqing felt that since she had the ability, why not give it a try?
As she was pondering, Director Hu smiled and said to her, “Since you feel you can teach English, here’s what we’ll do. Take this teaching material home, write up both a math lesson plan and an English lesson plan, and hand them to me after lunch. If they look good, I’ll arrange two trial classes for you this afternoon. If those go well, we’ll officially assign you a class to teach.”
The reason for the rush, naturally, was the Youth Palace’s shortage of teachers.
Although Xu Huiqing later spent many years as an accountant, because she had to tutor Xiaoxi and Zhao Bei, she had never stopped studying all those years. With over a decade of teaching experience, she often dreamed of being back at the podium. Teaching to her was as simple as breathing.
That noon, she ate in the Youth Palace cafeteria. After eating, she didn’t start writing lesson plans right away. Instead, she took her pen and notebook and went to the kindergarten.
Xiaoxi had been waiting for Xu Huiqing to pick her up.
Xu Huiqing went over and, once again, brought fruit for Teacher Xi and Teacher Little Lin. Teacher Xi was embarrassed when she saw it. “You don’t need to keep buying these things! We can’t even finish them—it’s such a waste!”
Xu Huiqing just smiled. “You can share them with the other teachers and everyone can have a taste.”
Teacher Xi laughed. “We already have! We even took Xiaoxi with us to the other classrooms and said that Xiaoxi and Xiaoxi’s mom brought these to share with everyone. We had them all thank Xiaoxi!”
The older children had graduated, and the kindergarten had emptied out. Over these few days, summer program students were starting to arrive in dribs and drabs, though each class had very few kids. Xiaoxi’s class, being a new intake, still had only her for now. It was estimated that the numbers would grow slightly in a couple of days, but not by much.
Originally, Xu Huiqing should have been picking Xiaoxi up around this time. Seeing that Xu Huiqing was busy scribbling lesson plans in her notebook, Teacher Xi said, “Teacher Little Lin and I don’t have much going on these two days. If you’re busy, just let Xiaoxi take her afternoon nap here at school. It’s not too late to come get her after you finish your work. It’ll give her a chance to get adjusted.”
As the homeroom teacher, Teacher Xi had other work to do with the summer program about to start, so it was mostly Teacher Little Lin who played with Xiaoxi.
Teacher Little Lin was a newly graduated teacher, and Xiaoxi was the very first student of her teaching career. Her enthusiasm was sky-high. She was either reading with Xiaoxi or playing with toys. Sometimes she would hold Xiaoxi’s hand and take her to play in other classrooms for a while. Thanks to the fruits and snacks Xu Huiqing had brought as introductory gifts, both the kindergarten teachers and the children were very friendly toward Xiaoxi.
In just these two days, the fruit and snacks Xu Huiqing had brought for the two of them amounted to several tens of yuan. At a time when their salaries were still less than two hundred, Teacher Xi and Teacher Little Lin felt acutely embarrassed. Since they happened to be free, they decided to let Xiaoxi stay at kindergarten a little longer. They usually didn’t get off work and go home until after four in the afternoon anyway.
Kindergarten meals were always brought to the classroom in containers by the teachers. Xiaoxi ate the same lunch as the teachers: a steamed egg and minced meat patty, loofah with edamame, and a light corn and pork bone soup.
To cater to children’s palates, the kindergarten cafeteria made almost no spicy dishes at all.
Xiaoxi was a very easy baby to care for. She would sit quietly and eat by herself, gnawing on the corn from the soup, and never needed anyone to fuss over her.
Having had these two days to adjust, she knew that Teacher Xi and Teacher Little Lin were safe and that the kindergarten was safe. With Xu Huiqing there that noon, she obediently lay down on her little bed and napped alongside Teacher Little Lin. Teacher Xi and Xu Huiqing sat to one side on little chairs, writing lesson plans.
Once Xiaoxi was asleep, Teacher Xi came over and said to Xu Huiqing in a low voice, “You see? Children adapt to their environment much better than you think. Sometimes it’s not the child who can’t leave the mother, but the mother who can’t leave the child. As parents, we have to learn to let go at the right time and let the child grow on their own.”
Teacher Xi was three years older than the current Xu Huiqing. Her own child had just graduated from the senior kindergarten class. With seven or eight years of classroom experience under her belt, she understood newly enrolled children very well. Even though Xiaoxi was a little girl who had recently been sold off by her grandparents and aunt and had a special past, in Teacher Xi’s eyes, the parent still had to learn to let go.
Teacher Xi’s words made Xu Huiqing reflect on her own parenting in her previous life. Had she protected Xiaoxi too much? So afraid that anything might happen to her, she would plunge into panic and anxiety if she lost news of her for more than a certain amount of time.
Looking at Xiaoxi, separated by a cloth curtain, sleeping quietly in the nap room with Teacher Little Lin, Teacher Xi lowered her voice and said, “Go to work normally this afternoon and pick her up in the early evening. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of Xiaoxi. Once new kids start coming in a few days, things will be fine.”
Summer program class sizes were generally small. At this point, two teachers would only need to look after five or six students, allowing them to give comprehensive attention to every new arrival. This was the perfect adjustment period for Xiaoxi to start school.
Xu Huiqing said gratefully, “Thank you, Teacher Xi.”
“What’s there to thank? It’s our job.” Teacher Xi truly was a warm yet strong teacher. The resolve in her eyes reassured not only Xiaoxi but also Xu Huiqing.
Not long after, Xu Huiqing returned to the Youth Palace and began her trial class.
Teaching, of course, was absolutely no problem for her. Not only did she have many years of teaching experience herself, but in all those years of accompanying Xiaoxi and Zhao Bei through their studies, she had also sat in on countless classes by other excellent teachers. In that process, she hadn’t just learned the knowledge those teachers imparted; she had also studied their methods and approaches as teachers.
There was another perk to being a Youth Palace teacher: she didn’t have to be a homeroom teacher.
She only needed to show up on time for the hours she was scheduled to teach each day. Once that day’s lessons were over, she could leave. The schedule was extremely flexible.
Even though Xu Huiqing had clearly stated that she had been a math teacher at her previous school, the Youth Palace still assigned her to primary school English: two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon, each lasting one hour. She was free to go once class ended.
Had she been teaching math, Xu Huiqing wouldn’t even have needed a lesson plan—she could just walk in and start teaching. English, however, required careful preparation. Because her classes were for students from first to third grade, the teaching couldn’t be rigid. It had to be lively and engaging, allowing students to absorb the material without developing a distaste for the subject.
English, after all, is a language subject. Getting the students to open their mouths and speak was crucial. To that end, Xu Huiqing specially designed some learning cards and games, used the Phonics method that would become widespread in her previous life, and dug out the English songs she had later learned alongside Zhao Bei in his English teacher’s classes. She planned to buy a tape recorder, record everything onto cassette tapes, and play them for the students. She organized the weekly content according to a systematic curriculum model.
These were all systematic teaching models that many well-known English institutions in her previous life had long since refined. Xu Huiqing could basically take them and run. The only thing she lacked were the rich video and audio materials.
Teacher Hu, after sitting in on her English class, found it highly vivid and interesting, which was why she made her an English teacher.