I am a Big Player
Chapter 269 - 267, Tearing Apart Worldviews (First Update)_1

Chapter 269: 267, Tearing Apart Worldviews (First Update)_1

The schoolhouse had no heating, and in the freezing winter of the mountainous area, everyone wrapped themselves tightly in blankets at night. Back in their homes in the Capital, and even at school, they had heating, making it almost unimaginable for them to consider how to get by without it.

However, reality told them they had to get by somehow...

But no one blamed Ren He for bringing them here; before falling asleep at night, they felt only an inexplicable awe and looked forward to teaching the children well the next day.

The next morning everyone got up to wash up, but then they were a bit conflicted. There was definitely enough water for everyone to wash up simply, brushing teeth and washing faces wouldn’t be a problem, but if they used the water in the morning, there wouldn’t be any left for cooking lunch!

The day before, during the soy sauce stir-fried rice, Jiang Haoyang had already explained to everyone how tough it was to fetch water. Liu Bing and Li Yifan were worrying about what to do when it was their turn to fetch water on the third day—could they carry the water themselves?

Technically, they could ask Ren He to drive there, but it was obvious that Ren He had no such intention. Even when Ren He himself went to fetch water, he walked. It was just like what Ren He had said: coming here was about enduring hardship; they shouldn’t think about anything else.

So now, water had become their most precious resource, and no one was willing to use it to wash their face. They had to make do with a cup of water to brush their teeth.

They really had never experienced such hardship before.

They discussed it among themselves: what to teach at an elementary school? Teaching a musical instrument would probably take 15 days just to have them recognize simple music scores—not practical; physics also wasn’t a subject they should be teaching.

At last, the division of labor was: Ren He taught drawing, physical education, social studies, and morals; Liu Bing taught mathematics; Jiang Haoyang taught simple English; Liu Jiamin taught natural science; Li Yifan taught language arts.

Such nostalgic subjects, they hadn’t heard terms like social studies and natural science for so many years. The subjects Ren He had chosen were also thoughtful; he didn’t expect there to be a sports star among these children with all the sports equipment he had brought. After all, if they couldn’t even keep up with nutrition, what was the point of playing sports?

At 8 o’clock in the morning, the children had all arrived, and Ren He checked their names against the list left by Elder Zhou, recognizing faces. Much to his surprise, there were still over 20 who hadn’t shown up.

He understood that in the countryside, many parents felt that paying for school was useless, and even if they didn’t have to pay fees, it was still useless. After learning, wouldn’t they just grow up to raise chickens, farm, and rear pigs? What was the difference?

While teaching those present, Ren He sent Jiang Haoyang and the others to negotiate with the villagers. Elder Zhou had also thought about these issues, so the addresses of the children were listed behind their names.

The first class Ren He was to teach was social studies and morals, but he didn’t bring textbooks; instead, he brought over a stool to sit down and look at all the children.

The children gazed at him eagerly. In childhood, everyone still harbored curiosity about the world, wanting to understand how this and that worked, why there was thunder in the sky, why it rained after thunder—wasn’t this exactly why the Haier Brothers cartoon was so popular, right?

Curiosity is a pair of eyes with the root of wisdom, it can help a person grow quickly, and aid everyone in touching the greater world.

In his past life, there was a saying by Gao Xiaosong that resonated well, which roughly meant, originally it was thought that "life begins at forty" meant you would understand all the principles you didn’t understand when you reached forty.

But when he actually reached forty, he realized, oh, it wasn’t so; rather, when you turn forty, those things you didn’t understand, you no longer bother with them. Those things you couldn’t comprehend, you no longer want to comprehend.

When you’re young, it’s different; you want to understand everything, every person you want to understand. In youth, if you can’t understand some things, you panic; this panic is the essence of youth. Once you don’t panic anymore, your youth is gone too.

This desire to understand everything is curiosity.

Children in the mountainous regions receive much less information compared to those in the cities, but precisely because of this, when you open a new world to them, they thirstily soak up all the nourishment they can absorb.

The reason Ren He did not bring textbooks is that he didn’t plan to formally teach Social Studies and Ethics. Instead, he intended to use these short fifteen days to open a door for these children to another world.

He wanted them to understand one thing: the outside world is truly magnificent, and they must strive to step out into it.

Ren He wouldn’t tell them that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, because only those who have truly witnessed the world’s splendor are qualified to say that. There’s a saying, what frightens me the most is leading a mediocre life and still convincing myself that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

The key question is if you haven’t seen the more splendid world, what right do you have to say you don’t like it?

Ren He didn’t mind using the harsh realities to shatter the children’s worldviews, values, and outlooks on life. Only when something is broken can it be rebuilt; better to help them shatter these things early on than to let them groping in the dark. Then, whether they turn out to be dragons or worms, they can all try leaping over the Dragon Gate.

Moreover, Ren He came here with the Qinghe Club using the harshest realities to tear apart the three views of Liu Bing and the others, and the remaining ten or so days are for their slow reconstruction.

Perhaps Ren He could adopt some gentler methods, but though he could be gentle, sometimes the world isn’t.

Looking into these curious eyes, Ren He simply started with a story about a cabbage being taken out of the ground, tracing its journey to the market, the layer-by-layer markup as it moves toward the city. He explained how much the price increases from the farmer’s hands to the vendor’s, then how much it sells for in the market, and if the market is unfavorable, these vegetables might rot in the farmer’s hands, in the end only fit to feed to pigs.

The point of starting here was to let the children know that no matter how much farmers are praised by others, they must not lose themselves, because farmers are still the most exploited at the bottom of society!

Ren He could think of farmer uncles as great, but they themselves couldn’t.

If someone felt after Ren He’s lesson, "If everyone follows what you said, then in the end, no one will farm the land, and what will we all eat? Won’t society descend into chaos?"

Ren He would certainly retort, "Why the hell should they farm for you, and why shouldn’t they have the right to a good life? Why the hell don’t you farm yourself!? Whoever loves farming can farm!"

In reality, society wouldn’t descend into chaos because of this. If one day no one wanted to farm anymore, farmers would become a scarce profession, and their scarcity would elevate them to a middle-income group, rather than some places now where their annual income is only four thousand.

It’s like the cultural industry in my previous life in our country, which was weak compared to foreign cultural output. However, when the state recognizes a weak area, it talks about providing support and protecting intellectual property rights to encourage capital flow toward that industry.

If aging becomes a serious problem, they provide subsidies for nursing home beds; in the future, if no one farms the land, they’ll give subsidies for each unit of land—the logical sequence can be foreseen.

After finishing with cabbages, he proceeded to talk about the life of the lowest stratum in the city, starting from the vegetable market, and then he systematically went on to discuss society’s structure, portraying their lives as wonderful and rich!

The worldview of the children began to be slowly torn apart from this lesson. They were filled with longing for everything Ren He spoke of. This is power, the desire for material wealth, and this is the motivation Ren He gave them to learn!

Talking about so many high principles is useless; people are selfish. Why on earth should you be selfish and still expect others to be selfless?

...

Having a bite of lunch.

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