I was reborn without dreams

Chapter 16 The Underworld
"Zhang An, are you risking your life for money? Can you handle this kind of intensity?"

Uncle Zhang, who had once doubted that his nephew Zhang Da'an would be able to hold on, saw that when winter vacation came, Zhang Da'an was still as energetic as ever, and his voice was fine and he was perfectly healthy.

In January, Zhang Da'an even went to the river to use gillnets to catch fish, humming a song while rowing the boat.

Extremely strong.

“You’re an outsider, so you don’t understand the ins and outs here. Back in October, I mainly used multimedia teaching. With just a microphone, I didn’t need to hold small classes. If there was anything I didn’t explain clearly in class, the students could just review the recorded lecture. It saved me about 60-70% of my energy. Do you know how this difference is made up in a typical high school, Uncle?”

"What do you mean? I don't understand. Does it mean we can rewind and watch the classroom recordings?"

"Correct."

Zhang Da'an nodded. After all, his uncle needed to keep up with the school's progress, so he wanted to give him some pointers in advance. "Generally, after a day of classes in high school, the review of the main subjects is done during evening self-study. Usually, teachers can communicate more flexibly with students at different paces during evening self-study. But with class recordings, you can practice repeatedly, and the review is easier and actually the least costly."

"Why? I see that video recorders aren't cheap either, they cost tens of thousands of yuan."

"Think about it, a key provincial school would charge at least 30,000 yuan a year for a teacher, not including bonuses, right?"

"Hmm...not that many, right?"

"Let's say it's 30,000, let's aim higher."

"Ah."

"If we consider the five courses that need to be tested, that means five highly qualified teachers. The total personnel cost will be at least 150,000. Is that right?"

"Uh...right."

Do you still think video recorders are expensive now?

"It's not expensive, not expensive at all."

"We'll use the secondhand machine for now, and then we'll upgrade to a more advanced video recorder when we get better storage devices. This kind of investment is about making a lot of money with a small investment, a sure way to make a huge profit."

Hearing this, Uncle Zhang nodded repeatedly, thinking that his nephew's brain was indeed worthy of a top scholar's level, and was indeed quite clever.

However, there were some things he didn't understand, so he asked curiously, "Would it be effective to let the students watch the videos themselves? What if they still don't understand or know how to do it?"

"Hahahahahaha..."

Zhang Da'an laughed upon hearing this, "Uncle, use your brain. From the very beginning, when I was recruiting students, I set thresholds and conducted two rounds of interviews. These 150 people are all basically competent, and there are even 20 or 30 of them who are already at the level of provincial key high schools, but they are aiming for national key high schools. The difference is not their intelligence, but their time and proficiency."

"When? And what level of proficiency?"

"Study time and test-taking proficiency vary from person to person, but apart from a very few geniuses, the IQ distribution of most people fluctuates normally within a certain range. So the difference in test scores is the individual difference between individuals. Some people are highly self-disciplined, some people have strong ability to apply what they have learned to new situations, some people have faster periodic memorization, and so on. These subtle differences are reflected in the scores."

"So you're still saying we should teach according to individual aptitude, right?"

"Holy crap, Uncle does have a brain after all."

"..."

Uncle Zhang was right this time; slight individual differences mean that we must teach according to aptitude.

However, I'm sorry, except for a very few families, the vast majority of families cannot afford individualized education; the cost is too high.

From a national perspective, educational resources remain low per capita. For the vast majority of students in compulsory education, encountering even one truly outstanding teacher in a single subject during their nine years of education is considered extremely lucky. Theoretically, these highly qualified teachers are unlikely to remain in ordinary schools; they are highly probable being poached and concentrated in one or two top-performing schools in a particular region.

If some schools are indeed incredibly lucky and manage to retain such teachers, or even more incredibly lucky, such teachers also possess management skills, then congratulations, this school will definitely take off because of one person.

At that very moment, a rural middle school on the other side of the Yangtze River was undergoing a similar transformation, defying fate to become a national-level model high school.

This phenomenon is similar to a county-level economy encountering a highly capable leader during its period of rapid development.

"So, according to you, many schools nowadays are actually failing to provide individualized instruction, right?"

"Definitely, the cost is too high. Apart from places like the capital and Shanghai, for a small place like ours, we can only dream of having this."

Zhang Da'an stretched out his thumb and forefinger and rubbed them back and forth.

"What I really do is let these students who have passed the basic skills teach themselves according to their own aptitude. The principles are worthless if explained, but if I don't say them, they are worth 30,000 yuan."

"..."

Speechless for a moment, Uncle Zhang thought to himself that his nephew was really a bit abnormal. Wasn't this the same as letting those parents spend money and then letting their children study here most of the time?
Do you think I'm just making them study on their own?

"..."

Uncle Zhang, whose thoughts had been read, began to suspect that his nephew might be able to read minds. He already thought Zhang Da'an was a pervert, but now he was even more so.

"There are also some things that are, frankly speaking, worthless. Two things that you might need later, Uncle, when you've expanded Dongweigang Middle School."

"What is it?"

"First, learn self-discipline; second, learn the learning environment."

Zhang Da'an patiently instructed Uncle Zhang, "Of these 150 students, half were ruined by a lack of self-discipline. But once you come here, you can't be undisciplined, after all, it's a remote and impoverished area, there's nowhere for them to just laze around. But I don't use high-pressure coercion, instead I use the title of top scholar to lead them to passive self-discipline, and then I give them a little reward, like the computer room and the audio-visual room, you know... hey, you've raised dogs before, haven't you, Uncle?"

"I've owned dogs before, what family in the countryside doesn't keep a dog... No, you, Zong Sang (beast), you really have no nice words. What do you mean by 'keeping a dog'?"

"The words may be harsh, but the principle is the same. This is called a reward system. When training a dog, you give it a treat when it sits. After doing it ten or eight times, it will understand the command. The computer room and the media room are the treats for training dogs."

"..."

"Secondly, there's the learning environment. The entire 'Top Scholar Tutoring Class'—I'm not bragging, Uncle, what do you think of the learning atmosphere?"

"That's definitely an old man's egg, to be honest."

"That's right, most people are pretty much the same. Some students in their previous schools and classes, even if they had the desire to study, would go play basketball or 'Dynasty Warriors' with their friends. At fourteen or fifteen, they're at the age where they care about face and want to show off, so they'd definitely do something exciting and interesting together for the sake of face. In this environment, there are no such conditions, everyone is a stranger, but the atmosphere of studying is there, so they'll naturally follow suit."

Zhang Da'an's tone was slightly sinister, even his eyes were sinister, "Ninety-nine percent of individuals, in a specially regulated group, are unwilling to be outliers. Especially when this group cannot communicate with the outside world for a long time, forming the objective condition of 'turning a deaf ear to what's happening outside the window,' then they can only 'focus solely on studying the classics'..."

"..."

It was clearly a good thing, but for some reason, Uncle Zhang felt that something was off about it.

That's the underworld.

(End of this chapter)