The Paper Journalist Ge Mingning, intern Zhu Xiaoqin and Wang Hang
Zhang Simin (pseudonym) is 13 years old and has just graduated from Shangqiu Institute of Technology.
Friday afternoon was her nominal "working time", but she got out of a rusty red iron gate, and as she walked westward along the road, she looked back sharply, even though the road was empty.
There were too many visitors in the "Private School". Faced with them, Zhang Simin didn't look away from the screen of the phone. She put her elbows on the edge of the table, silently disgusting.
She is the "work" and "sample" of her father.
The same dark-skinned father Zhang Mintao opened a private school called "Shengtong Private School" (Editor’s note: now renamed "Shengtong’s Family School"), and promised parents that their children will be sent at the age of five, and “you will go to a specialist school at the age of 13. Focus on one book at the age of 16."
In 2016, Zhang Mintao and his "Shengtong Private School" started.
The Paper Journalist Yuan Lutu
To prove his point of view, in 2017, Zhang Mintao arranged for 10-year-old Zhang Simin to take the single-examination of Shangqiu Institute of Technology. He scored 352 points and became a college student.
In June of this year, Zhang Simin was asked to return to the "private school" to correct the homework of more than a dozen children aged five or six.
Despite the constant controversy, he did not train a second "young college student", Zhang Mintao is still very confident.
He repeatedly told the media who came to Shangqiu to interview: Compulsory education in the system is "low efficiency and high pressure", and he can provide more reasonable programs.
The question is, why do the founders of "private schools" and the parents who follow him feel that "extraordinary education" is not only feasible, but also worth pursuing?
"Extraordinary Education"
One level, two levels.
Zhang Simin slowly "swayed" from the first floor of the house to the second floor, her thin body also dangling in the spacious clothes.
On the morning of September 27th, Zhang Simin served as an assistant teacher of the "Private School" and took things for her mother Li Hanying.
She walked into the dormitory of the boarding students in silence: several iron bunks, all covered with summer mats, outside was a hall of more than ten square meters covered with artificial marble floors.
The walls are painted in a light blue color commonly seen in kindergartens. They are very tidy but look old.
A circle of desks is surrounded by the wall, and there are piles of "extracurricular reading materials", as well as textbooks, exercise books and mock examination papers for elementary and junior high schools.
Residents nearby said that this was originally a family courtyard under the Shangqiu municipal government system. They were all single-family courtyards, but they were built more than 20 years ago.
Later, it was transformed into a student dormitory or classroom of the "Shengtong Family School", with a projector screen and a whiteboard, just looking out from the window, it was still a small courtyard of a private house.
The small courtyard where "Shengtong Family School" is located.
The Paper Journalist Ge Mingningtu
The textbooks and supplementary books for all grades of primary and secondary schools used by private school students.
The Paper Journalist Ge Mingningtu
The tuition fee of "Shengtong Family School" is 10,000 yuan per semester, which can be paid in cash or transferred to the personal bank account of Zhang Mintao and his wife.
"The government does not support Teacher Zhang." A parent of a student explained to reporters, "It (private school) is not large."
Li Hanying wears black-rimmed glasses and is responsible for the language and mathematics of five or six-year-old children.
When Zhang Mintao was "promoting ideas" abroad, Li Hanying managed this "private school".
At this time, she was telling the children "three encirclement", some Chinese characters were "enclosed" on three sides, such as "area".
Many childish voices followed her and read over and over again: "Zone!"
Li Hanying said that in this "private school", the six-year elementary school course can be completed in four years, and the child "can read" at the age of six or seven. "I am still very confident."
When Zhang Simin was four years old, he learned a lot of characters by their teaching methods, "you can read it with just one book."
"Do you mean reading by reading?" the reporter asked.
"Yes, you can understand after reading too much." Li Hanying replied.
"Shengtong Family Learning" omits many steps of regular compulsory education.
An ordinary third-grade student in elementary school may learn a text "Lotus": "Lotus has bloomed a lot. The lotus leaves are crowded together like large green discs. White lotus flowers are in these big circles. Popping out between the plates..."
Usually, the Chinese teacher will lead the pupils to distinguish: What do "to" and "to squeeze" mean?
What is "squeeze" and what is "squeeze"?
Here, ten-year-olds only need to copy the newly learned new words six times, and older students "excerpt a paragraph about youth" or do two-page initial Chinese language exercises.
If Zhang Simin is not happy not to go to elementary and middle school, "Is it happy to go to bed until 12 o'clock when he does his homework?" Li Hanying asked.
The junior high school class of "Shengtong Jiaxue" is on the second floor.
A teacher is teaching junior high school triangle knowledge to students about three or four ten years old: "AE is the midline, AD is the angle bisector, AF is high, who is equal to BE and what is it?"
The classroom diagonally opposite is taking English class, and the teacher and students prolonged their tones: "What, is, this?"
The automatic school bell rang, and several children immediately screamed and ran downstairs.
The aroma of cooking has permeated this small three-story building in the urban area, and the part-time chef will take pictures and send groups of meals, so that parents of foreign students can rest assured.
9-year-old Wang Xiaowei (pseudonym) can do "The Weather Vane of Junior High School General Review", but the last few questions need to be left blank.
The fat math teacher explained to the reporter: "These questions (children) are still a bit difficult to do."
Workbook of Wang Xiaowei (pseudonym).
The Paper Journalist Ge Mingningtu
The idea of "Shengtong Family Learning" is to let the children "pass" all the knowledge of middle and high school first, and then do the difficult problems.
According to the assumption, if you stay in this "private school" forever, after the age of thirteen, your child will live a life like a repetition of the college entrance examination: in the first year, he will have the ability to pass the college entrance examination score, and he will be able to study difficult problems with the teacher for one year. Undergraduate: and so on, admitted to a key university at the age of 16.
"Don't you worry that you didn't learn complicated questions the first time, and you won't learn it solidly later?"
"No, the children's comprehension ability is gradually rising. I used to say that'teaching learns from each other', which meant that the teacher himself didn't understand it in school. After teaching it a few times, he would slowly understand."
He feels that the same is true for students.
"The current test-oriented education is to produce top talents and elites, and to ask other children to serve as training partners." The math teacher said of his cousin, who graduated from high school, went to the south to teach himself programming, and is now a middle-level leader in the company. Some of them are graduate students.
"Then you say our national education is a success or a failure?"
"Avoid puberty"
There is an advertisement on the wall of "Shengtong Jiaxue": "Entrance to a key undergraduate at the age of sixteen, otherwise it is free to repeat."
It looks like it has been hanging for a long time.
The advertisement on the wall of "Shengtong Family School" reads: "Entrance to a key undergraduate at the age of sixteen, otherwise it is free to repeat."
The Paper Journalist Ge Mingningtu
But whether Li Hanying or a math teacher, there is room for talking about this.
The mathematics teacher said that it is best for students to enter the junior class at the age of fifteen.
He immediately talked about the good in Germany: many students go to vocational education, and they are all excellent engineers after graduation.
"They are currently selected for the Junior Class of Xijiao University. They are all champions in various provinces. They learn very well and think very fast. Some children can do it, but some children can't do it." Li Hanying also said, "Private school "It just provides a way for "parents in need". Even if the six-year elementary school content is compressed to four years, she only guarantees an 80% success rate.
Why encourage to start reading at the age of five?
They all say: what can be done at the age of five, why wait until the age of eight to do it?
"Children now are different from ours. They are five years old and know everything." said the math teacher.
Although the WeChat avatars are all "Fifteen College Entrance Exams" with red letters on yellow background, Li Hanying does not like Zhang Mintao's use of children as the signboard of "Shengtong Family Learning".
In front of reporters, Li Hanying called Zhang Mintao the "Principal".
In Zhang Mintao's mobile phone, Li Hanying's memo name is "Ms. Li from the Shengtong Family".
In early September, Zhang Mintao told reporters that he had been looking for suitable partners outside the country and had not returned to Shangqiu for three months.
"My absence is conducive to their growth." Zhang Mintao said of his wives and daughters, "When I was there, they depended on me. When I was away, they all did their own things."
As the founder of a private school, Zhang Mintao's ideas go further than his colleagues.
He does not admit that there is an intellectual gap between the children.
What he said to the outside world was that all children can go to the juvenile class of a prestigious school, "there is only a question of concentration." He straightened his head, always looked at others with piercing eyes, and laughed eagerly after a few words.
Zhang Mintao claimed that when he was a child, he was in poor health and was bullied by his classmates. He was sitting on the edge of the field and some older children would beat him up with dirt.
His father was a village teacher, tutoring him to study at home.
He was admitted to the village's junior high school when he was ten years old. His father recalled Zhang Mintao's self-study experience to reporters before: he encountered no obstacles.
At the age of ten, Zhang Mintao described himself as "still a primary school student's mentality": he thinks the teacher is very smart, "I do whatever I want, and I don't feel the pain of studying."
Zhang Mintao thinks that he has avoided "puberty", unlike other classmates, it is difficult to study after entering "puberty" if you want to fall in love and fall in love.
He lives in a gloomy family atmosphere: his parents are in a bad relationship, and his mother wants to invest in a well to explain his funeral.
Later, his mother was rescued by a cousin.
Zhang Mintao likes to make various small inventions and small devices.
In the rural area of Luyi, Henan, there is a worker's family next door to his home. Children of the same age have a pen from the city.
He saw it very enviously, and did everything possible to exchange his toy for this tube of pen, and then modify it, hoping to "produce different colors of ink."
He has many such designs.
But his father didn't like it. His father thought that "it is wrong to be different from others." Some teachers ridiculed him: "There is no room for big gods in the small temple."
Life in the country is hard.
He still remembered that the township leader went to his father's village school to inspect, and his father looked like "only a promise."
He hated it from the bottom of his heart.
He likes philosophy.
On different occasions, he has at least four different opinions about his academic qualifications-he studied in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University and transferred to the Department of Education a year later; graduated from Peking University and then went to Hong Kong to audit the Ph.D. program in linguistics; graduated from the Department of Philosophy at Henan University ; Graduated from Kaifeng Workers College with a major in computer accounting, and worked as an instrument salesman and insurance broker.
"You definitely don't believe me." Li Hanying told reporters, "Principal Zhang may have told me about the past, but I have forgotten them all."
The consistent statement is that after graduating from university, "I am a'civilian'", Zhang Mintao sometimes laughs at himself.
Before founding "Shengtong Family Learning", Zhang Mintao's dream was to improve Chinese, delete some homophonic words, and add artificial new words, so that foreigners and machines can easily grasp it.
"I think Esperanto should be based on Chinese." He explained his idea that Chinese is the most spoken language in the world.
He went to the university to audit courses, and the teachers and students who studied language analysis laughed at him, but he didn't care.
Only after ten years of "R&D" did he admit that "Esperanto" was inferior to English.
In order to stabilize his income, in 2005, Zhang Mintao registered an English-Chinese bilingual school to do extracurricular tutoring for students.
He said that he worked for this job for about five years and then went to work for a charity organization in Huizhou, Guangdong.
Zhang Mintao said that doing cram school made him feel guilty: "I often admit some poor students,'children with ADHD', originally in school, exhausted their energy and did not study well. I taught and taught, and he fell asleep. , Right? If I wake him up, I can't bear it, am I?"
In 2013, the American Saint Child Education Co., Ltd., registered in Hong Kong, was established.
Zhang Mintao rented a small farmhouse with a monthly rent of 600 yuan. Because of the lack of qualifications to run a school, he was unable to apply for student registration.
After the establishment, a couplet was posted at the door: six-year-old full enlightenment, twelve-year high school.
"Compromise with Parents"
In a rented house in Kunming, "Family disciples on four walls", Zhang Mintao insisted on wearing a new tunic suit with a large row of cufflinks on the cuffs reflecting each other brightly.
In September, he prepared a new school project in Kunming alone, and cooperated with a local private elementary school to open a "holy boy class" with "school-run qualifications".
Starting from Shangqiu, Zhang Mintao wanted to promote his ideas to the whole country.
He tirelessly elaborated on his "educational philosophy": read early to avoid "adolescence"; do less questions, do not engage in competition, and do not engage in "examination-oriented education"; read "sage classics" to cultivate children's aspirations to study.
He invented a set of literacy software and showed it to different media reporters: the high-frequency words appear one by one, and the explanation of the words is displayed below.
During the interview, Zhang Mintao accepted interviews with other media.
The Paper Journalist Ge Mingningtu
He felt that he had solved the pain points, "I have been engaged in first-line teaching for more than 20 years, and linguistics research has also been engaged in seven or eight years. I also understand Chinese information processing. I have been engaged in these three fields for several years in the world. People, I think only myself."
Speaking of a well-known Chinese teaching expert in the industry, "I have seen XX." Zhang Mintao said, "He has never been in contact with a primary school classroom. How can he be qualified to guide me?"
"Chinese textbooks are all rubbish." He added.
In the classroom of "Shengtong Family Learning", Lee Hanying's statement became more gentle.
"The principal feels that the Chinese textbook is too shallow," but "we use the textbook as a supplement to the literacy teaching material. It is easy for students to go back to the institutional school."
The textbooks for the first to sixth grades of elementary school must be completely gone.
She showed the reporter the Chinese textbook on the child's desk.
On September 27th, five or six-year-old children read aloud the newly announced "Ministry Edition" elementary school Chinese textbook paragraph in the "Private School": "One cannot become a multitude, a single tree cannot become a forest, everyone is one heart, and loess becomes gold... "
Zhang Mintao interpreted this as a "compromise with parents."
In his opinion, students do not study hard because they do not have the ambition of a home country or a world.
There is no need to read Chinese textbooks, and the time saved should be used to read Confucius, Mencius and Lu Xun.
"Learning the sages and sages can enhance students' self-control and sense of responsibility. Only with internal motivation can you endure the pain of writing questions (when preparing for college entrance examination).
A seven or eight-year-old girl told reporters that when students read ancient poems, President Zhang often criticized them for being "unsentimental."
"He must have us read the sense of antiquity."
There is no Chinese studies course in "Shengtong Family Studies" recently.
Li Hanying explained: Older children have learned "San Zi Jing" and "Zhengmeng Baodian", but younger children have little literacy and cannot learn.
No one understands Zhang Mintao.
In the eyes of parents, the advantage of "Shengtong Family Learning" is that it teaches quickly, is not tired, and "is not out of touch with public education."
Liang Ying (pseudonym) from a coastal city is one of them.
She recalled that her 12-year-old son had tried two elementary schools before.
The first private elementary school was under a lot of schoolwork pressure. "As long as the grades are counted down, the teacher will directly persuade you to leave." Liang Ying looked distressed and asked the child to transfer; she changed to a primary school with no learning pressure, but she couldn't learn much.
Liang Ying said that the quality of this "private school" is slightly better than that of the previous school.
"The school is small, mainly the principal and his lover, which is equivalent to small class teaching."
Her daughter is 5 years old and she is also studying at the "Shengtong Home".
She satisfactorily took out her daughter's workbook: After half a year of study, her daughter has learned two-digit addition and subtraction, and "knows a thousand words."
"The first time was to read aloud to their self-compiled Chinese character song. The second time, the teacher covered the characters on the side to check if she knew it."
"Being able to read is not necessarily able to write, right?" the reporter asked.
"That must not be written." Liang Ying replied.
She has given up on letting her elder son take the high school entrance examination. She feels that he is not smart enough. She can't learn English as she "reads in a daze".
In private elementary schools, some children have very good grades, but they are under too much pressure and start to lose their temper and fight with their parents.
That was not the result she wanted.
She wants to send her son to the juvenile class of Beijing University of Humanities.
My son is not good at math and English, but "good verbal skills".
Liang Ying believes in feng shui, "there is a channel", and thinks that her son can be a feng shui master in the future by studying Chinese culture.
In the eyes of another parent, Liu Wanli (pseudonym): Since the schoolwork of "Shengtong Family School" is not tiring, then why not start school at the age of 5 and put the child at home or kindergarten for fun?
What's wrong with getting into society early?
He said that when he was in high school, his classmates were much younger than him, "there is nothing to adapt to."
Liu Wanli is 55 years old this year and gave birth to a daughter and a son from his second marriage.
When his daughter was less than six years old, he wanted to send her to a public elementary school.
At that time, the education department replied: It was still two months away.
Liu Wanli still feels uneasy about it.
As he gets older, he hopes that his children "can be admitted to a bachelor degree and get a job, isn't it enough?"
There is no need to pursue a key school. He said that he has two retired old colleagues. One of them has two excellent children. They went to the United States far away, and the old couple is sick and no one takes care of them.
The other four children did not enter the university and stayed in Shangqiu, and their lives were prosperous.
Many parents have inspected many semi-underground "private schools" before sending their children to Zhang Mintao.
But Zhang Mintao doesn't like the easy-going attitude of parents.
According to his wishes, students should put their hands together before going to class, shouting: "Thanks to mom and dad for giving birth to me, thank the teacher for educating me, I will study hard and ask questions, become a young college student, be a scientist, in order to achieve social harmony And work hard."
As a "model" daughter
"Do you want to prove the feasibility of your concept through the education of your daughter?" the reporter asked.
"Yes." Zhang Mintao did not hesitate.
When Zhang Simin was 5 years old, Zhang Mintao wanted to isolate her from the "negative influence" of the outside world. "There are too many poor students in extracurricular training." He determined to stop the cram school business and set up a full-time "private school."
While starting the "Shengtong Family Study", Zhang Mintao used the literacy software he designed to educate his daughter. He told reporters that the "top-level design" of the software was made by himself, and the code was outsourced to others to write.
This software is currently priced at 1,600 yuan per set and is sold on a social platform.
Literacy software invented by Zhang Mintao.
The daughter learned 3,500 commonly used Chinese characters when she was 5 years old. “The Shangqiu media reported it at the time.” In the next four years, Zhang Mintao used the method of “Shengtong’s Family Learning” to educate his daughter, “to finish the entire middle and high school courses in the shortest time” .
He was very confident at the time.
Now, he admits that the cultivation of his daughter is “extremely extreme” and he has the consideration of producing a “model”.
Therefore, "I don't learn well."
Although the advertisement in the yard specifically stated that "children have playmates, parents are no longer annoying", but Zhang Simin has almost no friends.
Zhang Mintao arranged for her to face the textbooks of middle and high school in a separate classroom.
"I don't think it's easy to define what kind of friend is a friend." Li Hanying said, "You still have to rely on yourself in everything. It also depends on what kind of friends you make. I think we should make good friends and good friends."
"To say that she is unwilling, the children in public schools also have a lot of unwillingness. It's just that the unwillingness is different from the unwillingness." She said again.
When Zhang Simin was admitted to Shangqiu Institute of Technology, Zhang Mintao invited several media to observe her daughter's entrance ceremony.
He imagined to reporters that Zhang Simin could study a Ph.D at the age of 20, then engage in scientific research, and enter a "higher-class society."
Three years later, he stopped mentioning this vision.
The current argument is that in the future, my daughter can take the animation design major she likes. If not, "you can also inherit the "Shengtong Jiaxue" as a "pocket".
"In the future, our'private school' business will expand, and she will have a bigger stage. It is bigger than that of key universities."
In the past, in addition to letting Zhang Simin learn the courses of middle and high school, Zhang Mintao also gave her a "small kitchen" and taught her the "Four Books and Five Classics". Li Hanying only gave her some knowledge of Chinese for middle and high school.
"After she was in college, she didn't touch this piece of (Chinese studies) much." He didn't explain whether he was lazy or his daughter didn't want it.
Li Hanying once disagreed with Zhang Simin's admission to Shangqiu Institute of Technology, feeling that "the starting point is too low".
Now, she emphasized that her daughter is only in a different way from others: "Just like you are a policeman, he is a white-collar worker, and he is a doctor..."
"Are you worried about her having conflicts with classmates in the dormitory?" the reporter asked.
"I have never heard my daughter say about fighting, nor have I heard of anyone fighting in their school." She said, "I also came from college. The relationship in the dormitory is very good. How can there be a fight?"
Now, my daughter always stays in her room to draw anime.
Zhang Mintao complained that after becoming a "teaching assistant", Zhang Simin often came late and did not arrive in the classroom on time.
When the reporter visited, Li Hanying was in class, and Zhang Simin was shrinking in the corner of the classroom, playing with her mobile phone in the sunlight outside the window.
Zhang Simin (pseudonym) is in his mother's classroom.
The Paper Journalist Ge Mingningtu
The parents didn't know what she was thinking.
"She doesn't speak, and I speak for her is false. She speaks for the truth." Li Hanying tried to block several waves of media reporters.
"It's puberty." Zhang Mintao sighed.
Zhang Simin will not say a word for a long time.
When it’s time to eat, she sometimes reads a passage with the children according to the arrangements of her parents: "Thank you for your grandparents, grandparents, and parents for your nurturing. Thanks to farmers and chefs for your hard work. I am not picky about food, nor leftovers. Good health will benefit the people."
The chef put a large bowl of dishes on the table, and amid the smoke, she put one leg on the chair of a ten-year-old student and continued to play with her mobile phone.
The conversation between her and the chat partner is the back and forth of the emoji.
"What animation website do you usually watch?" The reporter tried to talk to her.
"I do not watch."
"Do you want to leave Shangqiu for a while?"
"I do not want."
She quickly ran into the night outside holding her phone.
If you turn to the left, it is "Boiled Lobster", and the tables and chairs of the food stalls spread messily from the sidewalk to the non-motorized vehicle lane. If you turn to the right, it is a bilingual kindergarten with a facade several times larger than the "Sheng Tong Jiaxue".
The chef of "Shengtong Family School" said that Zhang Simin would go to the Xinhua Bookstore or the "park by the river."
No more than one kilometer of the "private school".
Zhang Mintao also has a son.
Now, he tells the media that his son is going to be admitted to the juvenile class of Xi'an Jiaotong University, and he will become a cadre or school principal in the future, "it will also help spread my ideas."
However, he plans to let his son take the exam until he is 15 years old.
He will not give up hope.
Near the "Shengtong Family School".