Since the elderly man who once served as the school principal passed away, the township never appointed another principal for the elementary school.
The main reason was simple: there were only a little over forty students. One teacher was enough. Appointing another principal would just waste resources…
So the village chief usually oversaw the school as well. But the chief was very busy, so most of the time these two men would come by to check on the school.
Hearing the chaotic shouting that sounded like it might lift the roof off, the two of them arrived outside the self-study classroom, both disappointed and angry.
Normally, whenever they appeared, the students who had been chatting noisily would instantly rush back to their seats and sit quietly, not daring to make a sound.
“This…”
But unexpectedly, this time—even though they stood at the classroom door with their usual stern expressions—the students did not fall silent. The shouting continued loudly.
“Geng Jun, listen—they’re reciting vocabulary words,” the other village cadre said after listening carefully, surprise in his voice.
The middle-aged man named Geng Jun listened as well. The two exchanged glances and quietly stepped away.
“These kids are unusually obedient today. Without a teacher watching them, they’re actually memorizing new words.”
“Shh. Listen—Teacher Lin is teaching,” Geng Yi said, hearing Lin Qiuman’s clear and fluent Mandarin. He smiled with satisfaction, then turned and entered the study room, calling a third-grade student outside.
“Our new teacher said she’ll test us on the vocabulary later. Whoever gets everything correct will become the class monitor,” the student explained quickly before turning back.
“Uncle, if there’s nothing else, I’m going back in to memorize.”
“….”
Watching the little student hurry away, Geng Yi’s smile widened.
“Wonderful. Teacher Lin really knows what she’s doing.”
Meanwhile inside the classroom, Lin Qiuman was reviewing all the key points from the day’s lesson with the eighth-grade students once more. Then she asked a girl to go to the blackboard and copy several example problems Lin Qiuman had prepared earlier.
Teacher Li had progressed very quickly in the curriculum and focused heavily on grade advancement, so the textbook content had already been finished.
Since Lin Qiuman didn’t know the students’ academic foundations, she could only review different problem types one by one.
Fortunately, there were still more than two months until the graduation exam. There should be enough time.
She wasn’t used to using her voice this much. Rubbing her throat, she suddenly noticed people standing in the courtyard and hurried outside.
“What’s going on?”
Seeing the two men standing near one of her students, she worried that the child might be getting bullied.
But when she recognized the two cadres—Cao Gengjun and Cao Gengyi—she immediately relaxed.
In the future, Cao Gengyi would become the school principal. He was also someone with a strong sense of responsibility.
“The village chief went with Lao Maohua to the agricultural machinery station. Early this morning he asked us to come check on things, worried the students might misbehave,” Gengyi said, looking at Lin Qiuman with clear admiration.
“We didn’t expect Teacher Lin to already have everything arranged. Now we can rest easy. We won’t disturb your class.”
“Uncles, I’ll definitely do my best to teach the students well,” Lin Qiuman said with a nod.
“In the township, each class has thirty or forty students. But the kids in our village are too wild—they just want to play and don’t want to study,” Gengyi sighed.
“But I see Teacher Lin has a good way of managing students. If you could also get those wild kids to come to school, that would be even better.”
“The elementary school only has two classrooms. If there were too many students, there wouldn’t be space,” Lin Qiuman said confidently with a smile.
“But if the village could build a couple more classrooms for the school, I guarantee we could fill them with students.”
It wasn’t blind confidence.
She had grown up in this era too.
Many villagers believed that the end of education was simply farming anyway.
So when children skipped school and ran around playing, parents would only scold them halfheartedly. If the kids refused to attend, the matter was simply dropped.
What she needed to do now was make the children interested in school—make them want to come learn on their own.
“Teacher Lin, do you have some kind of plan?”
“Yes.” Lin Qiuman glanced at the self-study room and said a bit awkwardly, “It’s a long story. Just wait and see the results. I need to prepare for the next class…”
It wasn’t that she was socially unaware or trying to chase away the leaders.
But chatting during class time as a teacher… simply wasn’t appropriate. The two officials would surely understand.
Geng Jun and Geng Yi laughed and waved as they walked away.
As they left, they continued discussing how Lin Qiuman was racing against time to teach the students—clearly a responsible and dedicated teacher.
Inside the study room, Lin Qiuman conducted a dictation test for all four grades at once.
Wherever she stood determined which grade she was questioning, and the students treated it very seriously.
The math assignments from that grade were also collected, and all the students were seated in the study room.
“The results are in. For fifth grade: Liu Bingyu. Fourth grade: Kong Dechuan. Third grade: Wang Zihui. Second grade: Zhao Na. First grade: Lü Wei. Congratulations to our class monitors—let’s give them a round of applause.”
She led the applause enthusiastically, creating a lively atmosphere.
The students whose names were called stood up shyly, though their faces were full of pride.
Since the results spoke for themselves, the other students had no complaints—they truly hadn’t gotten everything correct.
“But don’t get complacent, class monitors,” Lin Qiuman added.
“We’ll have tests from time to time. If next time you don’t get everything correct—or if another student does—your class monitor position will change.”
Her words immediately gave the other students hope.
At least now they had motivation to keep studying.
“I wonder if you’ve noticed something,” Lin Qiuman said, pursing her lips thoughtfully and placing her hands on her chest.
“Why are most of our class monitors girls? Can our boys try harder next time?”
“Yes!”
The boys shouted loudly in unison, their voices echoing through the room. Every student’s face lit up with excitement.
Lin Qiuman’s gaze fell on Shen Lingkang sitting quietly in the corner.
Seeing him smiling happily like the other students…
“Student, what’s your name?”
As Lin Qiuman withdrew her gaze, she suddenly noticed the pencil in Shen Zhichun’s hand.
It was the same pencil she had given Shen Lingkang yesterday.
Even with Shen Linghua at home, they still dared to snatch something that belonged to Shen Lingkang?
“Teacher, his name is Shen Zhichui! Hahaha!”
Shen Zhichun was the son of Shen Lingkang’s eldest sister-in-law. He was also ten years old—but he weighed nearly twice as much as Shen Lingkang.
He was the fattest student in the entire school.
So the other students had given him a very fitting nickname:
“Zhichui!”