The school experience of such rural children can be described as a kind of hard study. But behind this hard study, what is the inner world that has not been seen? This article from the micro-channel public number: a seat (ID: yixiclub) , Author: Cheng Meng, planning: melon West , Original title: “Many people think that going out of the countryside and changing destiny through education is full of inspirational colors, but this may be only one side of the story | Cheng Meng sits at the 838th speaker”, head image source: IC photo p>
Hello everyone, my name is Cheng Meng and I come from Beijing Normal University. I am mainly engaged in educational sociology and educational anthropology. Thank you very much for the invitation, so that I can share with you stories about the children of the farm.
Actually, I am a farmer myself and grew up in a village on the border of three counties in central Anhui. From the age of four, I followed my mother who worked as a private teacher in a village school through sections of muddy country roads and ridges to go to school in a neighboring village.
In the village, many people pay particular attention to whether the children of whose grades are good or not. They admire those with good grades very much, and sometimes they inevitably ridicule the children with poor grades.
I often hear adults talk about a naughty child, and there will be a conclusive statement: “He is not the material for reading.” When my mother said of a math teacher, when she criticized the child, she would say: “You are the elm knot with two eyes.”
The two metaphors of “reading material” and “elm lump” are very fatalistic. Some people are born as “reading material”, and some people are “elm lump”. “Reading materials” are teachable and intelligent, and they are very likely to stand out and have a bright future. The “elm bump” is hard to teach, stupid, and unlikely to have any special future.
To tell everyone, I was regarded as a “study material” when I was a child. This is me in elementary school, wearing a school uniform, behind me is my elementary school. If you look at it carefully, you will find that my hands are fat. In fact, they are not fat, but swollen.
▲ Photo courtesy of Cheng Meng and his elementary school Cheng Meng
I went to the junior high school in the district from my home school and started boarding life. One thing that I often feel in winter is that my hands thicken little by little during the day, and at night they are beingLittle by little the nest became what it was. Now my fingers are a little deformed, which is also the imprint of such a journey to school.
My grades in elementary and junior high school were relatively good. Many people in the village think that I am a “student”, but I often doubt it because I have to work very hard.
I know that I have never been a talented person. I often go to the water room or concierge to do homework under the faint light after the lights are turned off, but my grades are never the best in the class. Fortunately, every time I took the big exam, I performed exceptionally, and I only got a little more score each time, and I finally got admitted to the university in Beijing.
By my side, too many very talented friends are walking along because they have missed a few points because of a big exam, or have encountered inadaptability during the transition of their studies, or have changed their family. It changed the path of life.
Sometimes, I feel very lucky, like an academic koi. But sometimes, I feel uneasy because of this kind of luck. I don’t know where this arrangement of fate will take me.
This is a photo taken at the entrance of the village in 2016 when I went to Jishang on the electric tricycle driven by my father.
▲ The road at the entrance of the village. Photo courtesy of Cheng Meng
Even at certain moments, I would rather I have never been out of my hometown. I can’t help but think about what this kind of “favoring” itself means to me and to those “study materials” who have similar experiences with me. What’s going on.
Enter the inner world of the farmer’s children
In my doctoral dissertation, I used “study materials” to refer to such a group of peasant children who were born after the reform and opening up and entered elite universities through hard work. They grew up under the tide of the market economy and sharedA thorough learning and life experience across the border between urban and rural areas. In them, there are three structural forces of geography, identity, and class.
The school trip of the rural children is roughly like this: from the village elementary school to the township central elementary school, the district and county junior high school, to the key high school in the city, and finally to the key university in the big city, like a kite, leaving again and again Hometown, flying to more and more prosperous places, returning home again and again, returning to the home on the other side of the line, it is like traveling through different social worlds.
▲ The learning journey of the children of the farm family
People often pay attention to their external academic achievements, and even describe it as a good talk of “getting out of the countryside and changing your destiny.” But when you get out of the countryside, what is going out and what can’t be going out? To change destiny, what is changed and what cannot be changed?
It is education that changed destiny. What else has it changed? Such a questioning makes me want to go deep into the inner world of such a group of “students”. However, it is very difficult to enter the inner world of any social group. Therefore, I actually hesitated for a long time and explored for a long time on such a problem. In the end, autobiography entered my field of vision.
For those who are not poetic and willing to write down their past frankly, they need real bravery. If you want to get this bravery, I can only deliver my bravery, so I’m giving them an invitation My autobiography is attached to the letter.
Finally, with the help of my instructor, Kang Yongjiu, we collected the autobiography of 52 peasant children through students’ homework, sending invitation letters, and inviting interviewees to write autobiography.
In order to make up for the lack of focus on the subject of the autobiography, we also interviewed 36 peasant children. The interview process is difficult, because in the interview, we will ask a lot of hard-hearted questions, such as our views on rural origin, our understanding of poor life, the difficulties in school life, the relationship with our parents, the most ashamed things, The most painful studyStage and so on. I myself once felt an inexplicable sense of shame when I talked about these topics.
So every time I start, I have a kind of worry. I am worried that directly talking about the past will cause harm to the interviewee. I would hesitate to send out an invitation? How do I start after the invitation is sent?
Many times, the courage of the respondent inspires me. I have also convinced myself time and time again that if the interviewee is willing, I have no reason not to start. Even if it is a kind of injury, let the injury become meaningful. Since the Ph.D. study in 2014, we have collected more than 1.3 million words of autobiography and interview transcripts of rural children.
▲ Introduction to some interviewees
The rural children whom we interviewed and invited to write autobiography generally have relatively long rural life experiences. At least one of their parents is engaged in manual labor, farming, or migrant work, and they have clearly experienced family circumstances during their growth. limit.
Motivation to study hard
The school experience of such rural children can be described as a kind of hard study. But behind this hard study, what kind of inner world is there that we haven’t seen yet? Why can they break through the disadvantaged class situation and achieve high academic achievement?
In fact, compared to why the children of rural families can achieve high academic achievements, in real life we often talk about class consolidation, and the discussion is that more and more rural children cannot go to good universities.
This kind of discussion started ten years ago in my impression. About 2011, a Tianya netizen initiated a discussion called “No matter how difficult it is to have a precious child”, he wrote in the post, “Now the world has changed, and there are fewer rural children in key universities”, which is very important. One reason for this is that “achievements are piled up by money.”
This interpretation logic is in line with the cultural capital theory of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (Pierre Bourdieu) The same song works the same way. Bourdieu believes that the stratum that occupies a dominant position in a society will transform their advantages in economic and social status into cultural capital. Their children inherited this kind of cultural capital, they are just like fish in the water in school life, and they are more likely to achieve academic success.
And the children of working-class families without such cultural capital will be left out in the school, marginalized, and ultimately accept the fate of being eliminated. In the book “Heir”, Bourdieu said, “The education system has successfully transformed social privileges into talents or personal academic performance, thereby maintaining inequality without interruption.”
▲ Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), French philosopher and sociologist.
According to this logic, the peasant children fail to enter a good university because they lack the cultural capital of the upper middle class. Some researchers believe that the peasant children’s entrance to a good university is to make up for their lack of cultural capital in some way, and the process of achieving high academic achievement is also a process of making up for their shortcomings.
However, I very much doubt this view, because it can easily lead to the theory of cultural defects, and it also obscures the complex life itself. The process of peasant children’s high academic achievement cannot be just a process of remedying their shortcomings. This process must have their own unique life practice, must have their own creativity and active participation.
Shan Yuan is a female student in a major university. Her parents died young. She grew up with her grandmother in the village. She wrote this at the beginning of her autobiography:
“Sixth grade, junior high school, behind countless honors, I started to think, I start to hate those traditions that seem to be impossible to change… My sister ended her academic career in the fifth grade. Because there is really no money in the family, she is a sister, so she has to make sacrifices. In the follow-up, there is no doubt that she will have to follow the path that our ancestors have taken for generations… The teacher often said that you have to get ahead! Must get out of this mountain! ……I started to make up my mind and go all out to study, keeping in mind that only good grades can have a way out. There seemed to be a force urging me in the dark, admonishing me not to be one of the countless replicas in the village. There is a terrible trap, a deep abyss. I must take a detour. I must flood my mind with knowledge and change my destiny. “
Sister Shanyuan’s fate is very different from her. Her sister dropped out of school very early due to her family circumstances and got married at the age of 18. The villagers still felt that her sister got married too late. In the autobiography, Shan Yuan wrote that at the moment when the family made herself and her sister who could continue their studies, she seemed to have a bucket of sulfuric acid on her head, and she did not dare to move. The only thing she can do is to go all out to learn, only in this way can it be possible to change her destiny.
In the autobiography and interviews of farmers’ children, “no retreat”, “out of the mountains”, “exceeding oneself”, “prominent” and “not a copy” are frequently used words. It is precisely because of their deep awareness of their own life circumstances that they have developed a source of power to resist fate.
In addition to wanting to change destiny, “money” has a very special meaning for the children of the farm family. American educational sociology scholar Annette Lareau (Annette Lareau) said in the book “Unequal Childhood” that for middle-class children In other words, “money always exists but never mentioned.” In poor families, “discussions on economic issues are not only open, but also often appear. Children are very clear about what parents can afford and cannot afford. What.”
▲ By Annette Lareau Peking University Press 201June 8
Of the 32 autobiography of middle and upper class children collected during the doctoral dissertation, money was mentioned 44 times, while only 23 of the autobiography of rural children’s education mentioned money 92 times, which is equivalent to each article. The autobiography mentioned an average of 4 money-related experiences.
The autobiography of middle-upper and upper class children rarely mention precise numbers. Generally, the words “spend money”, “have money” and “receive money” appear in the autobiography of children from rural families. The word “no money” often appears in the autobiography of rural children. “Finally saved enough money”, “request money”, “cannot be rich”, “borrow money” and “for money”.
The peasant children’s memory of money is accurate, and their attitude towards money is prudent. The pictures related to money are three cents of twists and five yuan of pork. They are worry about paying tuition, and three yuan in the cafeteria. Qian’s meat dishes and five yuan of vegetarian dishes are two yuan that my father earned from carrying liquefied gas upstairs and downstairs.
Every penny they spent before their economic independence directly affects the sweat of their parents on the swarthy land, in the hot construction site, and shouting on the road.
Xi Ruo is a girl who is studying for a Ph.D. in a key university. Her father works odd jobs and her mother works in a supermarket in the village. Xi Ruo told me in an interview that every year when school starts, she is most worried about. Their family is a bit patriarchal, and the tuition fees are paid to the elder brother and younger brother first. Dad originally smoked, but he quit smoking in order to let the three children go to school. Later, the family was too difficult. The brother who was in the second year of middle school felt that she had better grades, so he voluntarily dropped out of school and went to work in the breakfast shop. It was very hard to make breakfast, and my brother’s hair turned white after a few months.
We Chinese people often say “money is something outside the body”, but for these rural children, money cannot be something outside the body. Money is always scarce for them, and money occupies a dominant position in their family life. .
They are very aware of the dedication and sacrifice of their families, but often they can’t do anything. The only thing I can do is to really become a “student”, self-control and dedicated like an ascetic monk, and use better grades to give back to the family who loves me deeply.
Learning is not just a personal matter for them, but an ethical matter. Even in the face of the possible interference that is common in adolescence, love, there will be more moral fears. A boy said that he liked a girl in junior high school. When he found out that he liked this girl, he said that he felt deeply afraid and felt that he was over. He said that this was a very fatal realization. He was originally good friends with this girl, but in order to concentrate on studying, he chose to avoid this girl.
In addition, the results are in the farmIt is also very important in the school life of the children. In the process of studying, rural children need to constantly face the pressure that comes with getting along with classmates with better backgrounds. This pressure often makes them feel low self-esteem.
While doing field research in a key high school in the city, a girl who had just passed the entrance examination of a rural junior high school told me that she felt that she had no merit at all and was inferior to others in every way. She very much hopes to get the teacher’s attention. When she wants to speak, she keeps staring at the teacher’s eyes, but she does not dare to raise her hand. The teacher always looks for classmates who raise their hands, and she can only speak in a low voice below, so small that the teacher can’t hear her.
Many peasant children have just entered the city to study. They are shy, introverted and even inferior. They wait passively. Achievement is their life-saving straw. They are eager to win the attention of teachers and the respect of classmates with their excellent results, and they also gain a sense of security and self-confidence for themselves. As Shan Yuan wrote in his autobiography:
“The excellent performance at school undoubtedly won me many honors. All the teachers pay attention to me and proudly regard me as a good story everywhere. They talk like this: It would be great if there were such girls in my family, this The child is too mature, I have never seen her buy snacks, study in the classroom all day long, the class is too focused, this child is really rare. I listened quietly, full of joy, and never talked to them. Rebuttal, I like the feeling of being noticed.”
For myself, the process of transitioning from a rural junior high school to an urban key high school is the most difficult. When I first went to study in the city, I always felt that the clothes and conversation of the classmates who grew up in the city were in line with the school. I always felt so inconsistent and easy to feel inferior, cramped, and at a loss. I feel that this is not my school, but more like someone else’s school.
What’s more difficult is that when I first went, my grades plummeted. After poor grades, the teacher’s attention dimmed. At that time, I was very depressed. I went to Internet cafes to “book out the night” on weekends and played a game called “Red Alert”, which gave me a little comfort in the world of tank soldiers.
I will tell my mother that I am learning computer, but this thing cannot be hidden after all. Because I played games all night on Saturday, and came home the next day like a wandering soul. Once she questioned me, asking what am I doing? I cried that time. I didn’t say how hard school life was, and my mother didn’t say anything. However, I was very impressed that she also cried.
Such an experience brought me back to study. Despite the hardship of my first year in high school, I persisted. Therefore, the dedication and sacrifice of the family sometimes still gives the farmer’s children a chance to turn back the prodigal son.Back to the track of school again.
The dark side of the story
Many people also feel that going out of the countryside and changing destiny through education is full of counterattack and inspirational colors, but this may be only one side of the story. Such a long, cruel, upward mobility journey that may fall behind at any time is accompanied by some unknown inner experience.
The first is the interpersonal and cultural two-way impact. For many children who have achieved high academic achievement, their situation in the city is sometimes a bit difficult, and their family background limits many of their interpersonal possibilities. A boy said that he was still in the post-high school era at university, and he usually didn’t go to classmate dinners because it would cost too much money.
At the same time, they have achieved dazzling high academic achievements, which makes them “children of other people”, people who are different from their parents and neighbors. Xi Ruo told me that she was being ignored when she came home to attend the class reunion, as if she had become a stranger. She didn’t want to go later, and was left behind by her hometown.
There was another boy who told me that he was often ridiculed by his family or villagers as being like a big girl, “the door can’t go out, and the second door doesn’t move.” Many rural children also said that when they returned to the village, they felt that they no longer have a common language. They didn’t know what to say, and even some neighbors hadn’t seen each other for a long time and didn’t know what to call them.
The life of these rural children is like migratory birds, and they only go home every winter and summer vacation. Sometimes their hometown is only as big as their home, They become strangers in their hometown.
I remember when I first talked with my tutor, Teacher Kang Yongjiu about my research interest in farm children, Teacher Kang suddenly said, “I think you still have anxiety about your rural background.”
▲ Cheng Meng (left) and his mentorKang Yongjiu (right)
This sentence shocked me. I began to wonder what does it mean to rural origin for children from a farm family? When does it appear, and when does it become invisible? When does it sting us? When will you comfort us again?
A girl from a rural background said in a topic discussion that she was from a rural area “I don’t usually think about it”, but every time she talks about things related to her rural background, such as the occupation of her parents, there will be a Feeling of guilty conscience.
Xi Ruo also told me in the interview, “I actually don’t care about my rural origin. I am very strong and I have worked in farming.” There is a sense of pride in her words.
But she also said that when she was just in her freshman year, she hadn’t had the opportunity to work part-time. She didn’t dare to eat in the cafeteria because she could only afford vegetables and rice, and she didn’t want her classmates to know that she was eating. To be so light, she didn’t want her classmates to see her low self-esteem, let alone be sympathized by others.
Rural origin is not just a symbol, it is often diffused in the details of the lives of these rural children. Many peasant children will develop a unique sensitivity to their rural origins. Qingyang is a doctoral student in a key university. His father is a farmer and his mother is a small business. A saying my father often said is, “Look, the height of other people’s houses, our family’s culture is high.”
Qingyang said that at school, sometimes some people use “farmers” and “migrant workers” to make fun of a person who is dressed in earthy clothes. Although he didn’t make fun of him, he felt a weird feeling in his heart every time when others said that. He was also stung, and he felt as if he was being teased at the same time. Because to these peasant children, peasants and peasant workers are their relatives and family members.
Qingyang also talked about a detail of getting along with her roommate. When I was in college, I played games with my roommate. He won several games in a row with a classmate with an urban background and a well-off family. The classmate became anxious and said, “What else is better than me besides this?” This sentence was a bit hurtful, but Qingyang said that at that time he seemed to have no way to refute, he could only endure silently, even if he felt Somewhat humiliating.
Of course, rural origin is not just our inner memory that is connected with sensitivity, low self-esteem, and shame. It is sometimes accompanied by pride, self-reliance and happiness.
A rural boy said in an interview, “I think I was born in a rural area but I can get into such a good university, which shows that I am really good.” Qing Yang also mentioned that the only thing he is proud of is that he started to teach as a tutor when he was in college, and became self-reliant very early:
The only prideAo is always trying to be self-reliant… My parents’ mobile phones have always been bought by me… Since the eleventh holiday when I entered the freshman year, I have participated in the training of the family education department and started. A four-year tutoring career. The first tutoring was for a family that took two hours by bus to teach mathematics and second-year science at a cost of 30 yuan per hour. I was very nervous every time I went there, but luckily I had just finished the college entrance examination at that time and most of the questions were still available. I remember one time I went to Wumart to buy two big bags after finishing my tutoring, and I spent all 60 yuan. I was so happy.
People from rural areas often affect their interpersonal communication in urban society. Qiu Jing is a master’s degree student in a key university. His parents are farming and small businesses, and his family income is in the upper middle class in the village. He said that he seemed to be more comfortable with people who are closer to his family background, and he also felt that he would learn more by making friends with classmates from an urban background.
The ease and discomfort brought about by rural origins will also affect their performance in intimate relationships. We asked Qiu Jing in the interview: “Do you think your family background has any influence on your relationship?” Qiu Jing said: “Of course I do. I will be more inferior.”
He said that he thinks his usual EQ is quite high, about 100, but when he gets along with this girl, it seems to drop to 50. He felt that he cared too much and put too much pressure on himself. But he also knows that his family background is too poor, and feels that it is always difficult to express himself in love.
cost and risk
In addition to the complex and special inner experience, such a journey of upward mobility through education is accompanied by unknown costs and risks. The price is first of all the emotional frustration between and his family.
The emotional structure of a family is closely linked to its livelihood. The way parents make a living has a great impact on the way parents get along with their children.
“Work” often means “a fixed salary, no food from the sky, no heavy physical work”, so there is a special leisure time and mood to accompany the children; and the farm parents usually have to “work”. “Labor” means “you can’t guarantee the harvest during droughts and floods, you must look at the harvest”, “rely on energy to eat, there is endless dirty work, there is no public security”, and sometimes even have to go out to work and leave their children.
For rural families, parents are often busy working in the fields or going out to work, and it’s not an issue for the whole family to sit together and eat a stable meal.Easy thing. A farmer girl in the Northeast said that she especially likes rain, because her mother can stay at home with her mother for a while without having to go to work in the mountains when it rains.
During the long and arduous journey to school, these rural children are eager for the company and emotional support of their families. But this is again these rural families, and it is difficult for these diligent and very hard-working parents to give them adequately. This is a passage written by Qing Yang in his autobiography, describing his lonely mood when he was studying in a city high school:
“The classmates around me are loved by my parents, but I am just a person, I am the only one, I am the only one who is hungry, cold, and sick, and nobody takes care of me. I don’t know who I want to share with the grievances in my heart. I don’t know who to ask when facing all kinds of problems. The house is just a harbor without wind and waves, and it can’t provide you with any supplies. You can only wander back and forth on your own and let your life go.”
The process of peasant children entering the city to study is a process that collides with a world where there is no place for them. They know the hard work and sacrifice of their parents, so they don’t want their parents to worry, and often have to face many difficulties alone.
Compared with upper-middle class parents who can give their children all-round support in economic, professional knowledge and life decisions, farm parents cannot talk about professional knowledge with their children, nor do they know what kind of world their children are facing. , Can only admit that “parents can’t help you either” and let the children make their own decisions.
Yun Yin is a male student studying a Ph.D abroad and his parents are farming. He feels that there are many differences between himself and the roommates of intellectuals in big cities. The way he communicates with his family is very different, even the length of the phone call is different.
His roommates will play for one or two hours every time they hit a dozen. They will also talk about various academic matters, interpersonal matters, and even many details of dating. But every time he makes a phone call, it only lasts for five minutes or at most ten minutes. At the end of each time, he starts talking about the weather and relatives, and at the end it becomes a question of the cold and warmth—”Mom, what did you eat for dinner.” /p>
In interviews, many people will mention that they rarely have physical contact with their parents such as hugging. Qingyang said that his mother often took him with him when he was young. Later, as he continued to study abroad, sometimes his mother wanted to get close to him and would come to hold his hand, but he would Very resistant, he didn’t know why.
Although children and their parents love each other very much, their relationship is often limited to the coldness and warmth over and over again. Love is not expressed, complaints are not expressed, and only substantive exchanges are made about major events in life. Such a deeply loving relationship eventuallyIt may become a two-way “reporting the good and not the worry”, and some things are always blocked there.
But this kind of emotion will explode at some point. Qing Yang told us that once when he was about to leave home, his mother was helping him with his luggage, and suddenly said, “Mom is old and can’t help you.” At that time, his emotions broke down all at once, he gave his mother a hug, and both of them were crying.
Later on the way back, he wrote such a poem:
Mom is getting old, when I am leaving home
She hugged me and said this
Either my mother picked me up when I was young
Either I ran into my mother’s arms
At that time we embraced carefree
Never worry that the next hug is far away from me
When we grow up, we will never hug each other again
Whether it’s meeting or parting, because you cry when you hug
We never talk about our grievances, because every talk is endless
We silently protect each other and also protect ourselves
This time, my mother said she was old
I hugged my mother, we all cried and red eyes
In fact, Qingyang’s story also reminds me of myself. When I was in elementary school, my mother was always holding my hand, or I was sitting on the bar of my bicycle, and she rode me to school. When I was 10 years old, I left my hometown to go to a junior high school in the district and started a boarding life. In fact, many things were very challenging for me. That was the first time I left home, leaving my familiar family.
I was very impressed by the scene of returning home after the first week of accommodation. I got out of the car at the entrance of the village, and along the small road at the entrance of the village, I just walked to the pigsty in front of our yard. I saw my mother standing at the door and there were tears in my eyes.
That was also the first time she left me. But I was very brave at the time, I didn’t cry, and even acted a little coldly. It seems that since then, the relationship between my mother and I has ceased to be as close as it was when I was a child.
If I could go back to when I was 10 years old, I would like to tell that kid, in fact, you can be less brave, you canTo cry, you can run into your mother’s arms and tell her that you miss her too.
In addition to the emotional frustration with family members, the journey of upward mobility through education for rural children also faces the risk of premature sensibility.
Qiu Jing said that he was sensible when he was in the fourth grade. He did all the farm work, and he had thick calluses on his hands and soaks on his feet. From that moment on, he felt as if he understood something and felt that he was different from others.
From the moment these peasant children are sensible, they understand the hardships of family livelihoods, see the hardships of their parents, and understand their parents’ heavy love. They are no longer innocent children, but want to protect their families. Burdened on one’s body, childhood was interrupted.
In the interview, we also encountered a story that made us very distressed. Yuluo is a graduate student in a key university, and his parents are farming. Her father is a heavy drinker and will lose his temper for no reason after drinking, and her mother is often helpless.
In elementary school, Yu Luo was fighting with her classmates, and her classmate made a cut in her hand with a sharp object. If it is an ordinary child, after returning home, he may cry and tell his parents that this classmate bullied me or something.
But Yuluo couldn’t be such an ordinary child. When I returned home for dinner in the evening, Yuluo shrank her hands tightly, facing her with the cut side of her hand, and did not dare to reach out to pick up vegetables, for fear that her parents would see it. Because she was afraid that her father would lose his temper again, and she was afraid of being scolded, saying that she caused trouble.
Later, many life choices made by Yuluo, and even what kind of school to attend, were greatly influenced by the family, and it was often necessary to consider the family’s financial situation and family emotions. Obviously, she got into a good junior high school in the county, but she didn’t want her mother to ask others to borrow money every time she paid her tuition. It felt too uncomfortable. In the end, she chose to go back to the junior high school in her hometown to study, because the principal of the junior high school in the village told her, “You will give you a sum of money when you come to our school to study.”
These rural children are really too sensible. Many of the choices they make are altruistic. They want to be self-reliant as soon as possible. They want to give back early. They suppress their own needs. For them, being sensible is not just a set of external norms. It has also become a certain inner need.
In many cases, Yuluo suppressed his true feelings and needs, and became a caregiver for his family’s emotions and family livelihood very early. But let’s not forget that she is just a child and she needs to be taken care of.
Hawkhild(Arlie Russell Hochschild) wrote in “The Decoration of the Mind” that the altruists (too People who care about the needs of others)“There is a greater risk of over-cultivating a false self and losing boundaries.”
All sensible people have this kind of risk implicitly, especially the sensible people of peasant children. The most extreme sensibility will bring the most depressed self, but also with greater risks.
Yu came back to tell us that even now, she still finds it difficult to express her true emotions sometimes. She said: “I am afraid to express my emotions. I am afraid of incurring other people’s dissatisfaction. I dare not express it.” This risk of self-repression will run through for a long time and requires a long healing process.
buried
Actually, it has always been difficult for rural children to go to a good university. Li Chunling’s research shows that among the post-80s group, urban residents have four times the chance of going to university as rural residents. Another study found that rural children accounted for only 16% of the total number of students in a college in my country. Although the social situation is changing, the proportion of rural children in key universities is not commensurate with our entire population structure for a long time.
The rural children who have entered key universities mentioned above are really born “students”, aren’t other rural children? In fact, in the long and cruel process of studying, there are more “reading materials” buried, and they have no chance to become “reading materials”.
The economic and social development of urban and rural areas and the gap in educational resources are truly engraved in the lives of each of us. When we were born, where did the great hand of fate throw us? Whether it is thrown to the city or to the countryside, this has already determined the possibility of our future life.
Xu Lizhi, known as the “Working Poet”, was born in the same year as me, and he is also a farmer. In the high school entrance examination, even though he was the first in the class, he was still a few points away from the key middle schools in the county. Because his family couldn’t pay the 15,000 sponsorship fee, he could only stay in the high school of Yuhu Middle School in the town.
After going to work at Foxconn, he wrote a lot of poems. This is one of them, called “Swallowing a Moon Made of Iron”.
I swallowed a moon made of iron
They call it a screw
I swallow the waste water from this industry, the jobless orders
Those youths below the machine die early.
I swallowed and rushed, swallowed and was displaced
Swallow the pedestrian bridge, swallow the life covered with rust
I can’t swallow anymore
Xu Lizhi can be regarded as a buried “reading material”, he has left the world we live in. For these peasant children who have entered key universities, the hardship of their growth is only the tip of the iceberg of the pain experienced by the peasant children who have moved up through education in contemporary China. Compared to the people who were buried, the price they paid for this luck was really insignificant.
The more difficult it is for such an upward mobility through education, the more serious the injustice and implicit discrimination that individuals experience in such a process, the more it shows that our social mobility is not smooth, and there may be More and more people are being buried.
So the story of “reading materials” I am telling here today is not as it appears in the literal sense. It is not a gifted story, nor is it a counterattack inspirational story. It is a story of a farmer’s children moving forward under a heavy burden, full of conflicts, confusion and struggling. It will also be a story of getting out of the unreal inner projection and rebuilding themselves.
True inner beauty
The peasant children I portrayed in my doctoral dissertation are mainly those born in the 80s and 90s. Today, the distinction between rural and urban areas and the dual structure of urban and rural areas are undergoing further changes, and the social conditions such as technology and media have also undergone many changes. The social life and spiritual world of peasant children will naturally be different. With such an educational experience and individual growth process that crosses the border between urban and rural areas, the obstacles and impacts encountered will be different. However, some things will always be connected.
After the publication of the doctoral dissertation, I have received feedback from readers. One reader said that his “unspeakable shadows were gently resolved”, and some readers said that his experience was different, but he felt not alone after reading. Surprisingly, some readers who have no experience of growing up in the countryside said that they seem to understand their parents or partners better.I saw the fine texture of another world.
▲ By Cheng Meng, China Social Sciences Press, December 2018
The growth narrative of these rural children is not only a personal narrative, but also a social narrative, which concerns each of us. Whether it is “reading material” or not, if readers can gain understanding from the text and reverberate in their hearts, then the sincerity and courage of all interviewees in this book will have the best destination.
In the process of preparing this speech, I chatted with a friend. I said that I was afraid of telling the stories of these peasant children too dull and depressing, and I was afraid that the stories of these peasant children would be shining brightly. She told me, don’t worry, you will definitely not speak sunny.
I think the real sunshine is how much free choice this era can give each of us, and how much fairness and justice this society can give each of us. Only when the differences between urban and rural areas continue to be bridged and the society becomes more fair and just, will there be true inner radiance and the pain of upward mobility will be relieved.
Thank you everyone.
[References]
[1] [法]P. Burdieu, J. -C. Passron: “Heirs: College Students and Culture”, translated by Xing Kechao, The Commercial Press, 2002 Year edition.
[2][US] Annette Laroux: “Unequal Childhood”, translated by Zhang Xu, Peking University Press, 2009 edition.
[3][America] Alie Russell Hawkschild: “The Finishing of the Mind: The Commercialization of Human Emotions”, Cheng BoqingTranslated by Dan Weijun and Wang Jiapeng, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, 2020 edition.
[4] Kang Yongjiu: “The “Princess” in the Village—The Growth Trap in the Process of Urbanization”, 2016 (internal manuscript, not yet published).
[5] Li Chunling: “Educational Experiences and Unequal Opportunities after the “80s”-A Comment on “The Silent Revolution”, “Chinese Social Sciences”, 2014 4 periods.
[6] Cheng Jiafu, Dong Meiying, etc.: “Research on the Stratification of Higher Educational Institutions and the Equalization of Enrollment Opportunities for All Classes of Society”, “China Higher Education Research”, 2013, Issue 7.
This article is from WeChat official account:One seat (ID: yixiclub), author: Cheng Meng, planning: melon cc