The train driver in the courtyard

As the sun sets, travelers on the road return home.

Li Aiguo has returned home with Xiao Hongsheng.

Chen Xueru got off work early today and prepared a sumptuous dinner.

There was a plate of fried cabbage and a plate of fried peanuts. The staple food was wild vegetable pancakes and millet and cabbage soup.

Wild vegetable pancakes have been a popular delicacy in the slums of Beijing in the past six months.

Mix some corn flour with dried wild vegetables, then fry it in a large pan into semi-dry cakes.

Wealthy families will put some soybean oil when frying pancakes, which makes the pancakes taste delicious.

When life is stressful, people would eat dry pancakes. The pancakes taste like wild vegetables and are quite filling.

While eating, seeing that Chen Xueru was in a bad mood, Li Aiguo asked with a smile: "Is there any problem at work?"

"It's okay." Chen Xueru forced a smile.

She knew that Li Aiguo was busy with work and didn't want to make him worry.

Li Aiguo didn't ask any more questions. After dinner, he took out the building blocks from his canvas bag and placed them in front of Xiao Hongsheng.

"Xiao Hongsheng, come, let's play with the building blocks."

Xiao Hongsheng is not even one year old, so how can he play with building blocks?

It’s just that children all like brightly colored toys, and now when they see building blocks, they immediately giggle and take them in their hands.

The next second, it was stuffed into his mouth.

"Hey, this thing can't be eaten." Li Aiguo hurriedly reached out and took it out of his mouth.

Fortunately, the building blocks were quite large, so Xiao Hongsheng didn't swallow them.

"Aiguo, are you getting toys for Hongsheng again?"

Li Aiguo was teaching Xiao Hongsheng how to "use (eat)" building blocks when a voice came from outside.

I looked up and saw that the third uncle was standing outside the door.

"Uncle, come in quickly. Have you eaten?" Li Aiguo greeted Uncle with a smile.

"No need, Aiguo, I came here to understand what has happened."

The third uncle came this time to ask whether Yan Jiecheng’s recent performance had been recognized by the section and when he could be reinstated as a regular employee.

Ever since Yan Jiecheng was punished, the third uncle has come to look for him every now and then.

Li Aiguo knew that he wanted him to plead for Yan Jiecheng, and his answer was always the same: "The work assessment and ideological education of Yan Jiecheng are the responsibility of the Education Office, and the section has the corresponding standards."

Uncle San knew that he would get the same answer every time, but he still enjoyed it every time.

After getting the answer, the third uncle was going to turn around and leave as he did in the past, but this time something was different.

The third uncle stared at those strangely shaped pieces of wood and felt it was a pity.

"What a good piece of wood! If it were used as firewood, it would have burned a lot of fire. Now it's turned into a toy, which is such a waste."

For Uncle San, things in the world can be divided into two categories. One category is what can be used for food, clothing, housing and transportation, and these are useful things.

Apart from the useful ones, the rest are all waste.

Li Aiguo explained with a smile: "These wooden blocks are building blocks, which can improve intelligence. In addition, building blocks can also be used for learning."

In the eyes of adults, playing is a waste of time, but studying is a motivation to make progress.

This is also the reason why toy packaging in later generations all have the slogan "develop intelligence".

The third uncle was no exception. When he learned that the wooden blocks could help the children learn, he immediately became excited and stepped into the house.

"It's just a few pieces of wood, how can you learn from them?"

"Look, there are numbers on these building blocks: 1, 2, 3, 4, +, -, ×, ÷. They can help children learn math."

Li Aiguo took out another pile of building blocks.

"These building blocks have ㄅ: b, ㄆ: p, ㄇ: m, ㄈ: f, which can help children learn about vowels and consonants."

Looking at the blocks marked with vowels and vowels, the uncle suddenly widened his eyes and said, "Patriotic, are these blocks expensive?"

These words confused Li Aiguo.

"Uncle, are you going to buy my building blocks?"

"If it's cheap, you know your uncle doesn't have a good life either. The salary of two people is used by the whole family. Yan Jiefang, Yan Jiekuang and Yan Jiedi are still relatively young."

The third uncle took out fifty cents from his pocket and handed it over.

Li Aiguo rubbed his ears, and after confirming that he had not heard wrongly, he could not help but take a breath.

Chen Xueru was also shocked by the words of the third uncle.

Yan Bugui, who would always smell the manure truck whenever it passed by, actually spent money to buy a pile of wood? !

"Third Uncle, are you sick? Or..." Chen Xueru felt that the third uncle might have mental problems.

Mental problems are a big deal, especially for intellectuals, who are prone to having wild thoughts.

Chen Xueru was about to ask the third aunt to come over, but the third uncle stopped her: "Miss Xueru, your third uncle is not confused. Your third uncle wants these building blocks for a great use."

Then the third uncle explained the uses of building blocks.

This matter is related to the work of the third uncle.

The third uncle is a Chinese teacher in Class 2, Grade 4, Red Star Primary School. He is responsible for teaching Chinese to 60 children.

The third uncle is an old teacher. He is quite good at his job and is awarded the title of excellent Chinese teacher every year.

Since last year, the teaching quality has plummeted, and the average scores of students in the class did not even pass the final exam.

"The reason why such a serious problem has occurred is not because of me, but because the new "Chinese Pinyin Scheme" has been implemented since last year." The third uncle sat down on the chair, looking as if it was not his fault.

When he heard the term "Chinese Pinyin Scheme", Li Aiguo immediately understood what was going on.

Because of modern history, some scholars attribute the reason for backwardness to Chinese characters.

The reason why we are backward and corrupt is because of the old traditional culture.

The reason why the old traditional culture is so stubborn is because of Chinese characters.

Therefore, if we want to make progress, we must get rid of the old culture.

In order to eliminate the old culture, we must first abolish Chinese characters.

They proposed many methods, and although their ideas were different, they finally decided to replace Chinese characters with alphabetic writing.

They believe that replacing Chinese characters with letters that are easy to write and remember can greatly lower the threshold for literacy, making it easier to promote universal education, thereby greatly improving the cultural quality of the people and thus connecting with the world.

At that time, there was even a slogan in the cultural circle: "If Chinese characters do not disappear, we will perish."

but.

Some people also raised objections.

For example, Master Zhang.

He denounced the abolition of the Chinese language and the use of the "new language of all nations" (i.e. Esperanto) as "a pursuit of strange things and an attempt to shock the white people with their extravagant words."

He also believed that "the land is rich and vast, with different colors and different inhabitants, not exclusive to white people. Knowing their language is not enough to travel around the world, and it is only in Europe that there is a convenient transportation."

Translated: You admire the bizarre and the strange, and are overwhelmed by the white man's exaggerations.

The land is vast and rich in resources, and each place has its own unique customs and habits. It is not only the places occupied by white people that are special.

From this we can see that the language (used by white people) is not enough to be used throughout the world, and (it can have its current status) only because of the convenient transportation and communication conditions in Europe.

As expected of a master of Chinese studies, he saw the essence of the problem at a glance: the status of a language or culture is determined by its economic and military status.

The stronger the economy and military, the wider the language and culture will spread.

It is not that the economic and military status can be improved by changing the language and culture.

Abolishing Chinese characters and abandoning one's own culture can only mean discarding the heritage of our ancestors and following the lead of others.

However, it is an objective fact that traditional Chinese characters are not suitable for literacy and promotion because of their dense strokes.

The debate about Chinese characters continued until after liberation, and has intensified.

At that time, how to carry out the reform of Chinese characters, whether to adopt the "Pinyin scheme", "Latin alphabet scheme" or the "Slavic scheme" suggested by Comrade Lao Maozi, became the focus of debate from all sides.

At this critical moment, the leaders had a far-sighted vision and put forward two most important guiding opinions.

"Chinese characters must be simplified before they can be phonetically converted."

The introduction of simplified Chinese characters perfectly solves the problem that traditional Chinese characters have too many strokes and are not easy to write and recognize.

"Pinyin cannot replace Chinese characters. Pinyin is used to annotate the pronunciation of Chinese characters. This is also conducive to the promotion of Mandarin."

The introduction of Pinyin solved the problem that Chinese has no common standard and is difficult to promote.

With these two guiding opinions, the "Chinese Character Simplification Scheme" was implemented in China starting in 1955.

A total of 1055 variant characters were abolished, a total of 2238 Chinese characters were simplified, and 14 radicals were simplified.

In 1958, the "Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet" was announced.

The promotion of Pinyin is also being carried out across the country.

Since Pinyin became a phonetic tool subordinate to Chinese characters, "square characters" have become more complete and more beautiful.

Ancient Chinese characters represent the profound and extensive Chinese culture.

Such a profound culture is difficult to express using pinyin letters, and pinyin letters cannot express the artistic conception of Chinese characters.

If we combine Chinese characters with pinyin letters, our "square characters" will definitely be the most valuable and cultural characters in the world.

The development of history is just as expected. In later generations, there is a global craze for learning Chinese. Chinese language and Chinese "square characters" have spread to the world.

Because of its unique charm, Chinese characters have become the most important cultural treasure in the world.

The reason why I have said so much is that Li Aiguo still feels scared when he thinks of the experience of launching the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme".

If the higher-ups hadn't insisted on following their own path, our Chinese characters might have disappeared.

The scene turns back to the house.

After the launch of the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme", students of all grades in Hongxing Primary School began to learn Pinyin.

At this point a problem arises: those students had previously learned Zhuyin characters, and the old knowledge had already been stuffed into their heads. Now they have to learn new Pinyin characters, which will inevitably cause confusion.

Children in particular are not very interested in the new pinyin.

Therefore, children’s academic performance is generally poor.

Now the standard building blocks with Zhuyin and Pinyin characters can completely solve this problem.

Children can treat learning as playing games and use building blocks to learn pinyin.

Uncle San is an old teacher. He immediately realized the importance of building blocks and was willing to spend 50 cents to buy them. Of course, Uncle San can also make wooden blocks by himself, but the appearance of the building blocks is related to the children's interest.

It is not easy to make such exquisite building blocks and paint them in various colors these days.

"Be patriotic. Uncle San only has fifty cents left." Uncle San held the fifty cents, looking helpless.

The third uncle was actually willing to spend money on the students, which changed Li Aiguo's impression of him a little.

This old teacher really puts students first.

Li Aiguo stood up, wrapped the Pinyin blocks in oil paper, and handed them to the third uncle: "Take it, I'll give it to you."

"Give it to me?" The third uncle's pupils had a magnitude 9 earthquake.

"All our efforts are for the children and the next generation," Li Aiguo said with a smile.

If it were someone else, the third uncle would definitely think that the other person was being high-profile, but when these words came out of Li Aiguo's mouth, they seemed so real.

"Okay, okay, Aiguo, Uncle Three will choose you this time. I'd like to thank you on behalf of the children."

The third uncle knew that any more words of thanks at this moment would only make him appear to be out of date, so he said nothing more and turned around and left the house.

Li Aiguo looked at the babbling little Hongsheng and scratched his head: "I have to find a way to make another set of Pinyin building blocks tomorrow."

The next day, Li Aiguo not only commissioned Master Chen from the Wood Products Business Department to make a few more building blocks, but also used a truck to pull the slide to the entrance of the Red Star Kindergarten.

Director Zhou Chunhe was playing games with the children together with a group of teachers.

Seeing the truck coming, Zhou Chunhe opened the door and walked out.

Just as he was about to say hello to Li Aiguo, he saw the slide in the truck bed.

"Oh, driver Li, you really made the slide?" Zhou Chunhe suddenly became excited and shouted to the teachers, "Everyone come and help us install the slide."

The slide was carefully designed, but for the sake of stability, Li Aiguo asked the masters in the maintenance workshop to reinforce the slide with cement and steel nails.

The entire installation process took less than twenty minutes.

After installation, everyone was attracted by the exquisite slide.

The slide is more than three meters high and half the size of a truck. It is carved with a five-pointed star and a relief of "Study hard and make progress every day."

The smooth slide of the slide glows softly under the sunlight, as if inviting children to play. The handrails of the slide are polished to be round and smooth, and feel comfortable, which can ensure the safety of children while playing without hurting their tender hands.

"Wow, this slide is so beautiful!"

"Yes, Driver Li, you are really amazing. This slide will definitely make the children have a lot of fun!"

What attracted people's attention most were the three flags, which were fluttering in the wind. The flags with red background and yellow stars were particularly eye-catching under the azure sky, like burning flames or agile dragons, attracting everyone's attention.

"Driver Li, once this flag is added, the slide will taste just right!" Zhou Chunhe's face turned red with excitement and he kept patting Li Aiguo's shoulders.

Li Aiguo smiled and nodded, but his eyes were still on the slide. "This slide is not just a toy. We need to teach children from a young age to have a sense of patriotism and be positive. If we want to achieve our goals, we have to rely on the next generation."

At this time, some of the older children could no longer bear it.

"Slide! It's a slide!" The little girl with pigtails jumped excitedly, her voice shrill and full of surprise.

"Wow, there are beautiful stars and words!" The little boy tilted his head back, staring at the reliefs on the slide with his eyes wide open, his face full of curiosity.

The children rushed to the slide in groups, their eyes sparkling, as if they had found the most precious treasure.

The teachers stood by, with gentle smiles on their faces, and gently reminded the children to be careful.

And that slide, with the flags flying and the children's laughter, has become a permanent landscape in the nursery, carrying the children's joy and dreams.

Afterwards, Li Aiguo donated several sets of building blocks to the kindergarten.

After finishing everything, Li Aiguo rode his bicycle back to the studio.

As soon as I entered the room, I saw Dou Wu tilting his neck back and breathing in.

"Old man, what are you doing?"

"Have a meal."

"."

Li Aiguo then remembered that he seemed to have not left any meal ticket for Dou Wu.

"Let's go. I'll treat you to a meal in the locomotive section cafeteria." Li Aiguo wanted to treat.

Dou Wu: "I'm full."

As he spoke, he had already sat down, picked up the notebook, and began to study it with his head shaking.

Li Aiguo: "."

He didn't feel sorry for Dou Wu, but he was afraid that this guy would die here.

In the end, under the threat of Li Aiguo to take back the notebook, Dou Wu had no choice but to come to the cafeteria reluctantly.

After dinner, Li Aiguo took Dou Wu back to the studio. At this time, Cao Wenzhi and several off-duty train drivers also rushed over.

"Patriotism, what do you want us to do?"

Li Aiguo took out the sketch of the railway network operation map.

"Masters, I need your help now. Check if there are any loopholes in this operation diagram. In other words, can we increase the speed of the train a little bit?"

"We are all train people. Your business is our business. There is nothing we can't help with."

It was the first time for Cao Wenzhi and the train drivers to see such a timetable, but they had many years of driving experience and quickly got the hang of it with the explanation of Li Aiguo.

"Aiguo, look here, the switch station at Liumaqiao can be completely eliminated. Every time we pass through there, we have never been stopped in the block section."

"Yeah, it's pretty much the same with our freight."

Li Aiguo took a closer look and found that the Liumaqiao switch station was actually located between two switch stations.

The Liumaqiao switch station was set up in the past because there was a lumber mill nearby, and it was to prevent trains transporting timber from colliding with the main line.

Now that the sawmill has been relocated, the local authorities did not communicate with the railway in a timely manner, so the switch station has not been abolished.

Removing the switch station will not affect safety, but will save at least five minutes for each passing train.

Theoretical knowledge can never replace practical work. If we only rely on those researchers, we will never be able to discover the problems with the switch station.

This is the real reason why Li Aiguo invited these veteran drivers to participate in the design of the railway network operation diagram.

"Yes, let's move on to the next one." Li Aiguo circled the switchman station with a pencil.

Although Cao Wenzhi and the train drivers had no idea what Li Aiguo was doing, looking at the densely packed railway network, they knew it must be a big deal, so they were very active.

Just when Li Aiguo was busy developing the railway network operation diagram.

Yan Bugui also came to the office with building blocks.

Ran Qiuye was preparing for class and felt curious when she saw Yan Bugui playing with building blocks on the table.

"Teacher Yan, what are these building blocks for?"

"Teacher Ran, do you know building blocks?"

Yan Bugui thought about it carefully and realized that he had been negligent.

Ran Qiuye just came back from abroad, so he has seen all kinds of strange things.

"This is a Pinyin building block, made by driver Li in our compound," Yan Bugui explained the function of the Pinyin building blocks.

"So it was driver Li who made it. I only knew that he could drive trains and draw comics, but I didn't expect he could also make toys." Ran Qiuye's eyes lit up when he heard this.

She stared at the building blocks and hesitated for a moment, then said to Yan Bugui a little embarrassedly: "Teacher Yan, my Chinese class starts earlier than yours today, please lend them to me first."

"Okay, but don't lose it."

They were all colleagues and they often helped each other on weekdays. Yan Bugui didn't mind and handed the building blocks to Ran Qiuye.

Ding-a-ling, the class bell rings.

Ran Qiuye walked into the classroom holding a book.

"Today we are going to learn pinyin. Everyone must remember that v is only used to spell foreign words and dialects."

When they heard that they had to learn pinyin, the primary school students started yawning.

“It’s boring. It’s so boring.”

At this moment, there was a "bang" sound, and the blackboard stick fell heavily on the table, and the students were startled.

These days teachers really beat their children, and after being beaten, parents not only don’t make trouble, but also give their students a severe beating.

The effect of physical education sometimes far exceeds that of ideological education.

Especially for fourth-grade students, the deterrence brought by ten thousand words of advice is not as great as that brought by a whip.

Under the threat of the blackboard pointer, the classroom immediately became quiet, and the pupils all raised a confused and ignorant face.

"This young teacher's teaching level is very high." Outside the window, a middle-aged man in a gray Zhongshan suit nodded in appreciation.

He had a badge on his chest, his hair was neatly groomed, and he looked very dignified. At first glance, he looked like a strict person.

The principal smiled and echoed, "Director Gong, Teacher Ran has been working diligently over the years and is the best Chinese teacher at our Red Star Primary School."

As the headmaster of Red Star Primary School, he treated the middle-aged man with some respect. Who was this middle-aged man?
The man in the grey Zhongshan suit is the supervisor of primary education in the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture, Education and Health, who is specifically responsible for supervising teaching and curriculum.

Hongxing Primary School undergoes inspections twice a year, in spring and autumn. If the teaching quality is not up to standard, the school will be criticized.

Supervisor Gong asked, "How were the Chinese scores of Class 3, Grade 4, last semester?"

"Under the tireless teaching of Teacher Ran Qiuye, a small number of students have achieved excellent passing results." The principal puffed out his chest slightly and said with some pride.

"Only a small number of students passed the exam, which is still far from the bureau's requirements, especially since the bureau is vigorously promoting the Chinese Pinyin Scheme. The bureau has even set up a Mandarin Promotion Office to require that all schools' Chinese language scores must meet the standards."

Director Gong's expression looked a little grim, but his tone did not contain any accusation.

After all, the promotion of the "Chinese Pinyin Scheme" has encountered many difficulties. For example, the Chinese language performance of Class 3, Grade 4 of Hongxing Primary School is already considered excellent.

"Yes, yes, we are trying every possible way to improve the teaching plan." The principal winked at the dean of studies, "Dean Chen, didn't you make up a jingle?"

Director Chen sang in a brisk tone: "Open your mouth aaa, the rooster crows ooo, the goose swims eee, the teeth are aligned iii, the crow drinks water uuu, the fish blows bubbles üüü."

Supervisor Gong waved his hand and said: "Other schools have also compiled many Pinyin nursery rhymes, but they lack intuitive impressions and the effect is not good."

He saw that Director Chen's expression was a little gloomy, and his tone softened: "You can compose these nursery rhymes, which shows that you have worked hard."

Director Gong turned his gaze back to the classroom, because at this time Ran Qiuye actually took out a pile of wooden blocks.

Supervisor Gong frowned and said, "Does your teacher want to be promoted to a higher position?"

"It's summer now, why light the coal stove?" The principal was also shocked by Ran Qiuye's behavior.

The supervisor is watching outside now, so Ran Qiuye must not do anything weird.

(End of this chapter)