Chapter 77 Section 1 Taichung No. 1 Middle School

After the Lunar New Year in 1953, Shen Zengwen, a Nankai classmate I met again in Taichung, introduced me to take her place in Taichung No. 1 Middle School, teaching high school English.She was admitted to the post-war cultural personnel exchange program scholarship of the US State Department. For 60 years, the world has called it the "Fulbright Exchange Program", which has a profound and long-lasting impact on international cultural exchanges.She went to receive English teaching training and returned to her original job within half a year.I am very interested in teaching. Besides my parents, the teacher in Nankai Middle School is what I can't forget the most.My most beloved teacher, Meng Zhisun, and other teachers are good models in terms of knowledge and demeanor.And at Wuhan University.Teacher Zhu Guangqian not only taught at a high level, but also solved my doubts when I was in emotional distress, so that I have an unshakable goal in my life.Now I have been squatting in the "college at home" (my mother's self-deprecating term) for three and a half years, and this job as a substitute teacher has opened up another opportunity in my life.It was the first time I walked into the gate of Taichung No. 1 Middle School on Yucai Street.I just saw the monument to the founding of the school, and I was deeply moved when I read the words on the monument many times in the past five years.Engraved on the front:

People in Taiwan didn't have a middle school at the beginning, but some people started from our school.Since the reform of the Liberal Liberation Army, Baifan has created a public school in Jiezhuang, focusing on language. The atmosphere is open, and people's thinking is advanced, so there are those who do not avoid dangers and obstacles, and cross the ocean to the inland.The husband is in his young age.Once you are far away from the village and live thousands of miles away, it is not easy to obtain special education, and you will also have doubts. People with insight feel deeply worried and know that the establishment of middle schools cannot be delayed.Sui Renzi, Lin Lietang, Lin Xiantang, Gu Xianrong, Lin Xiongzheng, Cai Lian

All the committee members of Fang are standing up to ask Yu to be in power... It raised more than 240,000 yuan, and the Lin family donated 15,000 square meters of land. It was built in 1915. It was a middle school mainly for Taiwanese children during the 50 years of Japanese rule: even in order to maintain the name of Taichung No. 1 Middle School, After years of struggle. I have the utmost respect for such a proud founding spirit, and it is an honor to teach there for five years and to be part of that venerable tradition.Taichung No. 1 Middle School reminds me of the Nankai spirit that educated me as an adult, and I often think of the Northeast Zhongshan Middle School founded by my parents, not only for educating the children of my hometown who "are far away from the village at the age of nineteen"; Guide them in reality, and protect them on the road of exile.However, Sun Yat-Sen Middle School returned home after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, and had no support. The school name and school history were buried for forty-six years.It was not until 1995 that the early alumni worked together to restore the school name and rebuild the school history in Shenyang.Taichung No. 1 Middle School can uphold the founding ideal.Cultivating first-class talents, it has developed steadily for nearly a hundred years without any worries, and most of its alumni are the backbone of Taiwanese society.

Such a school established with the spirit of urgency has an atmosphere of self-improvement and self-confidence.At that time, the Japanese colonists had left for less than ten years, and almost all the teachers came to Taiwan from the mainland after the war.Taichung No. 1 Middle School is the place to live and work. I can "steal" these few hours from the vegetable market, coal stove, baby bottle, and diapers, and talk about my cherished knowledge again - using good words to express emotions, describe scenes, and discuss are all knowledge, and I feel happy.A group of more than forty people looked up and listened to my lecture, and there seemed to be some reactions on their faces, which gave me a sense of bosom friend.

A year can be a very long time. Apart from winter and summer vacations, nine months can talk and listen to a lot.If you make good use of the 50 minutes of each class to gather students' attention, a teacher can use each lesson article as a ship to lead students to see a different world, just like a river and sea pilot. Teaching is really fun. As soon as you walk into the classroom, you hear the slogan "Stand at attention and salute", and you see a room full of strong men standing up with a "swipe", your mind immediately enters the state of preparation for battle, your mind is clear, and you stay out of the room. Concern, ready to challenge and be challenged.At that time, the high school English class seemed to be written clearly. Two-thirds of the time was spent on texts and one-third on grammar. Probably the proportion of English test questions in the joint admissions of universities back then.Grammar may become bitter as soon as it is "taught". This is the first challenge I face. Teaching grammar in a concise and interesting way, and integrating it into the text step by step.Parts of speech, tenses, and rules are all branches of the language tree. Words and sentences are leaves, and the literary sense is flowers and fruits. I don’t use Chinese to translate words and sentences, but encourage students to use free imagination to impress Deepen and increase vocabulary.The wind can go from "whispering" to "sobbing:," groaning", "roaring" and "howing" (whispering to mournful, to howling), and the gurgling stream can go from "ripping" to "rapid currents","over-powering flood ","violent torrents" (torrents, floods, raging waves...) The comparative degree of adjectives is not just to add "er" or "est". Chinese people like to say that someone is the greatest, and English say "one of the greatest" ,Because there are people beyond people, and there is a sky beyond the sky. I use the method of learning English by myself to explain the texts and expand their writing realm at any time. Good level, eager to learn, strong self-confidence, never afraid of difficulties, is a good start for my teaching career.

After the summer vacation, Shen Zengwen came back from the United States. When my substitute teaching period expired, the principal Jin Shurong sincerely invited me to stay full-time. The letter of appointment was a high school English teacher.It seems that fate has given me further challenges, but I have to assess my actual difficulties; I must first obtain the consent of my husband and then the support of my parents.these years.My mother traveled around Taipei and Taichung, and my mother supported me in childcare, illness, and business trips abroad in Yuchang, and my father was beginning to fall into political difficulties in those years.They worried that I would be weak and unable to cope with the double burden of family and work.However, being young, I regained the spirit of Nankai after half a year as a substitute teacher. I finally accepted the letter of appointment from Taichung No. 1 Middle School, and embarked on the educational journey I admired since I was a child.Another reason hidden behind is that three years later, I will also apply for the "Fulbright Exchange Program".My middle school classmate and college classmate (Xie Wenjin, one year earlier) could pass the exam, and I probably could too.At that time, only such public expenses could apply for a passport to go abroad.This is also a big stop in my future.

In schools like Taichung No. 1 Middle School, in addition to the consistent high-level homework, the goal of the senior three university entrance exams seems to permeate every breath of air.They not only want to be admitted to university, but what university and department they want to be admitted to.It doesn't bother me, I've breathed that air for years.Classes A, B, C, and D of Senior Three are said to be evenly divided into classes according to their student numbers, and mathematics and English are the focus of "spelling".For the sake of their students' grades on the list, the teachers in each class also secretly compete for some extracurricular questions.

In such an environment, I met my lifelong friend, Xu Huifang. She is ten years older than me and graduated from the English Department of Hujiang University.Her father is a famous bibliophile in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Her elder brother Xu Zhongnian returned to China after studying in France. He was a professor of foreign languages ​​at Central University in Shapingba, Chongqing. He was also a famous novelist and literary critic. a few books. The faculty lounge in Taichung No. 1 Middle School is very large.There are several long rows of tables, and colleagues from various departments have their own world.When I first went there, Lin Tonggeng (a lecturer at National Taiwan University) was introduced by a letter from the United States, and I met Yang Jinzhong, who once taught Taichung No. Liberal Arts), Meng Wenzhen (History), Lu Hanfen and Xu Huifang (English) several senior teachers took good care of me.Xu Huifang teaches Class B of Senior Three, and I teach Class C.She lives on Lide Street, less than 200 meters away from my home. Sometimes they go home together after class, and gradually make an appointment to go to get out of class in the morning, sitting on a tricycle.In the beginning, I only talked about homework and couldn't finish it, and there was still a whole room of things waiting at home.She came to Taiwan with her husband, Mr. Jiang Daoyu, and his family. Three generations live under one roof, and they have maintained a large family for decades.

In the last month of the second semester of the third year of high school, all courses are over, and counseling for further studies begins. The famous teachers of each subject will take turns to teach four classes according to their specialties. They must compile their own textbooks, specialize in possible questions for the entrance exam, and train students to think sharply and answer accurately.Xu Huifang and I were assigned to grammatical fields such as translation and part-of-speech inflection during the meeting. Each of us still needed to choose a few concise essays for reciting and improving reading ability.

We collected information to the best of our knowledge. At that time, I started to run the USIS library on the platform. My brother and his old classmate Yang Kongxin from the Central News Agency would sometimes send some English manuscripts, new articles on literature and culture, and so on.After our discussion, the child went to sleep at night. She came to my house from Lide Street and wrote it on my desk. quiz questions.The handouts carved out of steel plates were quite successful, and a lot of them were "pirated" in the best-selling college entrance guides in the next few years. Of course, no one in our time thought of copyright.My handwriting was upright and not unrestrained, which was very suitable for engraving on steel plates. I was not yet thirty years old at the time, and I felt very happy doing such "important" things.

In the seventeen years in Taichung, outside of family life, the first thing that jumps into my memory is often the small desk at the end of the corridor; a small table lamp with a dark red felt hanging on the threshold of the room across the bedroom, with the lampshade low , the scene of the two of us doing the topic and writing on the steel plate under the light is both romantic and poignant.In fact, there is not much romantic sentiment in it. Most of the time, we are just two housewives, facing mental challenges in a corner of the corridor after the family has fallen asleep.English has one of the most exact words: "Necessity" (necessity).Both my family and myself understand that once we get in, we must win this battle.Working at my small desk (I didn’t have a small, real study until I went to the dormitory on Lishui Street in Taipei in 1972), in my small family, as long as my husband forgives me, it’s relatively simple. .My husband "allows" us to work that way because he works 7 days a week, travels a lot, and I never complain when he's not home. That little desk established our lifelong friendship until she passed away at an advanced age in February 2007. During the fifty years, all the changes in life did not stop us.She is the mother Jiang whom my three sons still remember warmly: and I, who have been teaching since Taichung No. 1 Middle School, have lived in Taiwan all my life, and have always had the spirit of bowing my head and carving steel plates on that small desk. At around ten o'clock in the evening, I sent her along Fuxing Road to the entrance of Lide Street. There were often unfinished words, and the two of them sent her over and over many times.It was not until many years after I left Taichung No. 1 Middle School that we still did not break up. Besides homework, we also talked about life and family. Her grace, wisdom and generosity had a profound impact on me. During those five years, watching the college entrance examination rankings every summer vacation was also a major event in my life. It was like watching a newly hired coach watch a football game. a newspaper.I drew my student's name with a red pen on that densely packed list. Fifty years ago, it was the same as today. I first looked for the candidates from the National Taiwan University School of Medicine and the School of Engineering, and the School of Engineering looked for the Department of Electrical Engineering first, because the score was the highest. .I can't pretend to be arrogant and say that I don't have this "vanity", especially the admission rate of the class as a tutor occupies my young heart.In those few days, there was only no one setting off firecrackers at the door, and those who were on the list came to thank the teacher in an endless stream. Overall, the results were good enough.But there are also some who were not admitted well and those who failed the public universities. They also came to see me a few days later. Some people cried when they entered the door.The sharing of successes or setbacks made me believe that many 18- and 19-year-old boys established a long-term "revolutionary relationship". During the summers when they were in the army at Chenggong Ridge, I heard many anecdotes about recruit training.Students kept ringing my doorbell. Every Sunday, I prepared a lot of sour plum soup to keep cold, and steamed a lot of delicious buns. Some of them still remember it after many years.The most memorable story about being a soldier is Shi Jiaxing. He asked me for some short English articles that I could recite while standing guard. I was in awe.When he was studying in the Biology Department of National Taiwan University, he regularly discussed literature and cultural issues with several classmates. He fell in love with Jian Chuhui (the later famous writer Jian Wan), and he also brought it to me.After graduation, I taught for several years and went to Cornell University in the United States to study for a doctorate. I was invited to visit Hu Shi’s campus and saw his family live in peace and study.That night, he invited several students from Taichung No. 1 Middle School and her younger sister Jian Jinghui to talk about the joys of the year. In the past 50 years, I watched him grow from a teenager to an international scholar. In 2008, he was awarded the quadrennial World Poultry Society. Academic Research Award, I really share their sense of accomplishment. In the tradition of Taichung No. 1 Middle School, those who choose liberal arts as their first choice to go to university seem to be a minority. For decades, Luo Zhiyuan, who is outstanding in the diplomatic circle, Zhao Shoubo, a political commentator who hosts China Broadcasting Corporation, and Liao Yinan, a professor of law at National Taiwan University Wait.Lin Borong, Zhang Heyong, Zhang Pingnan, and Chen Daan graduated from the Foreign Languages ​​Department of National Taiwan University.Lin Borong was my first-year student. Before he founded Liren High School and ran for the mayor of Taichung, he talked to me about his ideal of doing things for Taichung.When he was mayor, I had already left Taichung, but from the campaign propaganda, I can see the style of literary education, although I also know that the politics and literature he entered are two different worlds.Zhang Heyong, who was in the same class as him, helped the "Xiezhi Series" translate many world classic humanities works when he was serving in Datong Company.Zhang Pingnan is Xu Huifang's favorite student. He is proficient in both Chinese and English, and has a deep knowledge of literary works. When I was at the National Institute of Translation and Translation, I invited him to translate Auerbach's "Simulation: The Presentation of Reality in Western Literature" into Chinese. , published in 1980 by Qu Xiaoshi Cultural Enterprise Company, is a very meaningful book. In the last class I taught, Chen Daan, who entered the Department of Foreign Languages ​​and Literatures of National Taiwan University, is a student who really loves literature, and he also has deep insights into literature books.When he was in college, he often asked me about the books he must read after class. He wrote many new poems in five or six years, which were very creative and profound. I was the first reader.He later went to the United States to engage in cultural work.In the early 1990s, I saw on TV that the Muse Cordero Chen advertising agency founded by him and his friends won the Silver Bell Award from the National Advertising Association of the United States, and in 1994, the Gold Award for Advertising Effectiveness from the American Sales Association.To stand out in such a nationwide competition, one must have a solid literary and artistic foundation and truly touching creativity. Students from No. 1 Middle School in Taichung have outstanding performance in the fields of science and engineering and medicine in the future, and they are probably the traditional mainstream force.At that time, the students with the best grades chose medicine as their first choice. A student who was always smiling said to me, "Teacher, I will take care of you when I become a doctor in the future." .Many years later, I saw reports of them becoming famous doctors, and even saw their clinic signs on the street, but they never sought treatment as patients.Only Liu Maosong, the deputy director of Ren'ai Hospital, who once approached me to talk about the friendship between teachers and students, when I had an upset stomach, he arranged for a gastroscopy.A few years ago, I gave a final lecture at Hexin Hospital, entitled "Pain and Literature".It was Cai Zhexiong, an old student from Taichung No. 1 Middle School, who returned to Taiwan after practicing medicine in the United States for more than 20 years, and served as the vice president of that famous cancer hospital.I described myself reciting poems to divert the lingering pain during various sicknesses, and, not changing the classroom habit, I printed some English poems worth reciting for the audience. In the summer of 2006, my students in the first class of No. 1 Middle School, Liao Yijiu, an academician of the Academia Sinica who made great contributions to Taiwan’s aquaculture, and Wang Zhenxiu, a laser expert who returned to Taiwan for the first time in 40 years, and Zhang Heyong. get up and look at me.When the door opened, teachers and students reunited after fifty-three years. Not only did I have retired from the world, but they were also nearly seventy years old. The sense of success in their careers and the vicissitudes of their lives came to my heart. I have kept the group photo they sent that day on my desk. For decades, I have met students from all walks of life in Taiwan or around the world for meetings and trips. Those who came to meet each other have warm memories; Feel fulfilled outside of class.Mr. Fang Dongmei once said: "Students are the descendants of the soul." For me, teaching has never been just a job, but a kind of transmission. I share what I read, think, and think with the people who listen to me. Sharing, besides gathering and dispersing in the classroom, has other profound meanings.They are all descendants of my soul.