Gourmet Kindergarten

Three seconds passed...

The group chat remained quiet.

Teacher Yu was all too familiar with this kind of stillness.

This is called watching each other before the storm, seeing who will be the first to step forward.

Five seconds.

ten seconds.

"Ding!"

The first message popped up.

[Zhuangzhuang's Mom]: ? ? ? ? ? ?

Five question marks immediately set the stage.

[DouDou's Mom]: Cooking class? Isn't early childhood education all about singing, dancing, and recognizing characters? Teacher Yu, did you post this in the wrong group?

[Xiaoyu's Dad]: Wait a minute, "basic cooking" means... I'm letting my son cook? At an age when he can barely hold his pee, he's supposed to be learning to stir-fry? That's absolutely outrageous!

[Tiger's Mom]: @Teacher Yu, my son just put a watercolor pen up his nose last week, and you're letting him near the stove???

Seeing the screen full of doubts, Teacher Yu rubbed his temples.

What could she say?

Is this actually what she was thinking when she first heard the proposal?

No, we need to hold things steady.

[Teacher Yu]: Parents, please don't worry. All kitchen utensils are child-safe, there is no open flame, and teachers will supervise. The main focus is on developing hands-on skills; absolutely no dangerous operations are involved!

The message was sent, but instead of calming down, the group launched a new round of bombardment:

[Xiaoyu's Mom]: I've searched through all the early childhood education WeChat official accounts, and I've never seen a kindergarten offer this kind of class. Is it reliable?

[DouDou's Mom]: That's right, wouldn't it be better to use this time to teach more pinyin and arithmetic?

Teacher Yu stopped typing and directly sent a video that she had just filmed.

The group chat fell silent the moment the video was released.

There was no chaos or teachers yelling for people to line up.

Older children led younger children, moving quietly and orderly through the teaching aids area.

But that's not the most outrageous part.

Sharp-eyed parents immediately noticed a blind spot—why were there several unfamiliar faces in the picture?

Upon closer inspection, there were a total of 8!

And they come in different sizes!

The park is practically closing down, when will it ever recruit any new students?!

What shocked parents even more was what happened next:

These eight new students weren't assigned to separate classes; they were put in the same class as their parents' children!

Common sense dictates that the arrival of new kindergarten students is a scene comparable to a disaster movie – they cry their hearts out, clinging to the gate and refusing to let go, and several teachers can't manage it even with pulling and dragging.

But what about in the video?

Not one of them cried or made a fuss.

Their own little darlings, who used to be waited on hand and foot, were now acting like "little adults," holding the new students' hands and teaching them how to use the teaching aids.

The new students were not afraid at all; on the contrary, they stared intently.

The group fell silent.

What... exactly is going on?

[Tiger's Mom]: Wait... is that my Tiger pulling the little girl's hand and demonstrating beadwork? Yesterday, when I asked him to hand me my slippers, he just lay on the sofa pretending to be dead!

[DouDou's Mom]: Am I seeing things? DouDou is actually patiently teaching someone? He's too lazy to even put away his building blocks at home!

[Xiaoyu's Dad]: Don't just look at your own child! The key point is those eight new students, not a single one cried! Whose child didn't cry for two whole weeks when they first entered kindergarten?!

The group fell completely silent after those words were spoken.

Yes.

This is very unusual.

Which parent hasn't experienced the "hellish two weeks" of starting kindergarten?

The child was crying, and the parents were secretly wiping away tears outside the door.

Some even cried for a month before they could get used to it.

But these eight new students, on the first day, didn't cry or make a fuss at all, and integrated immediately?

This unscientific.

[Xiaoyu's Dad]: @Teacher Yu, is this really a new student who just started kindergarten today? Or did they get used to it beforehand?

[Tiger's Mom]: Yes, when my Tiger entered kindergarten, three teachers couldn't keep him in check. How come these eight kids are like they've been given a cheat code?

Teacher Yu looked at the screen, a slight smile playing on her lips.

She knew she would ask that.

[Teacher Yu]: This is the charm of the "Montessori mixed-age class". In the traditional class division, the new students face all peers. No one knows how to play, everyone wants to cry, and once they start crying, it spreads to each other.

[Teacher Yu]: But we have a mixed-age system, with older children mentoring younger ones. If you watch the video carefully, you'll see that each new student is paired with an older child. The "older brother/sister" role triggers the older child's protective instincts, and the new students feel incredibly safe in an environment where they are being cared for by their older siblings, so they naturally stop crying.

After these words were spoken, the group fell silent again.

To be honest, this new educational philosophy is really flawless.

But after calming down, many parents who had previously taught cooking still felt that the idea of ​​"teaching cooking" was questionable.

Moreover, as everyone knows, in addition to tuition and meal fees, kindergartens nowadays have an unspoken "hidden cost"—extracurricular classes.

Painting, dancing, public speaking, Lego... a wide variety of activities.

They call it cultivating special talents, but frankly, it's just paying money to have someone manage it.

But this business has thrived because it precisely targets parents' Achilles' heel:

Kindergarten ends at 4:30 pm, but parents don't get off work until 6 pm.

What to do during the one-and-a-half-hour "vacuum period" in the middle?

Extracurricular classes are the perfect backup service.

Paying an extra thousand yuan each semester allows the child to spend an extra hour and a half at the kindergarten.

As for what you can learn?

Parents don't expect anything from their children; they just want to avoid any accidents.

Now, a dilapidated old kindergarten on the verge of bankruptcy and desperately short of funds has suddenly announced, with its newly appointed principal, that it will be implementing "life practice classes"...

Alarm bells rang in the parents' minds, and they instantly conjured up a "shocking conspiracy":

Is this kindergarten principal trying to repackage an ordinary extracurricular class as a high-end "cooking class" and then make a quick buck before it's too late?!

It's very likely!

It's not uncommon for kindergartens on the verge of bankruptcy to find new ways to make money.

[Tiger's Mom]: I'll just ask you directly, is this cooking class free?

[Teacher Yu]: No fee.

[Teacher Yu]: Life skills classes are a basic course at our kindergarten and are free of charge. Children can eat the meals prepared in class or take them home. The kindergarten covers all the cost of the ingredients.

send.

The group chat exploded again.

[Tiger's Mom]: ...No charge? The garden is even paying for the ingredients?

[DouDou's Mom]: A kindergarten that's about to go bankrupt is paying out of its own pocket to teach kids how to cook? What's the principal's motive?

[Xiaoyu's Dad]: Could it be that they're offering it for free first, and then charging for it later? I know that trick all too well!

Just as the conspiracy theory was about to snowball, a few parents of new students who had just been added to the group chimed in.

They quickly scrolled through the chat history and immediately expressed completely different attitudes.

[Jianjian's Mom, Haohao's Grandma]: Just because my Haohao and Jianjian had fun on their first day of kindergarten, I support the principal! Think about it, how bad could someone with such advanced educational philosophy and superb cooking skills be when teaching kids to cook? Besides, children should be raised roughly, let them jump around and grow up through bumps and bruises, so that they can develop strong personalities instead of crying loudly at the slightest scratch.

[Grandma Beibei]: Exactly! Kids these days are too pampered. When I was that age, I could cut pig feed on the mountain and cook for my younger siblings. What couldn't I do?

The words may be crude, but the logic is sound, leaving the young parents in the group speechless.

Although their generation did not do hard labor such as cutting pig feed, who did not help their family with tasks such as lighting fires, washing rice, and taking care of younger siblings when they were young?

Back then, there weren't so many fussy rules like there are now, and everyone was doing just fine. We even developed some life skills along the way.

The sentiment in the group has begun to shift visibly.

[Duoduo's Mom]: Actually, thinking about it calmly, the kindergarten principal's cooking skills are undeniable, so teaching her to cook isn't really a bad idea... After all, her sweet and sour pork is absolutely amazing! If she could teach my Duoduo even a tenth of her level—that would be a huge win! At least I wouldn't have to worry about her going hungry in the future.

[Zhuangzhuang's Mom]: I think it's feasible too! And think about it more deeply—if they learn it even better, you'll be exhausted after get off work every day, and when you open the door, your daughter or son will bring out a steaming plate of food and cheerfully call out, "Mom, dinner's ready!"... My goodness, what an amazing scene that would be! Just for that reason alone, I wholeheartedly support this course!

The moment the message popped up, Lin Minghui, who had just stepped out to set up his stall, stopped at a red light and glanced down at his phone.

"..."

His eye twitched violently.

Honey, you really dare to dream!

But then again, if you already have a professional chef at home, is it really necessary to train another one from a young age?

Besides, he definitely doesn't want his son to follow in his footsteps.

Even if you really want to lead someone down this path, wouldn't it be better to teach them step by step himself?

Why do we have to rely on that junior kindergarten director?

It seems...

In his own daughter-in-law's heart, she always felt that the kindergarten director's cooking skills were far superior to his!

Lin Minghui gripped the steering wheel, feeling a strange sense of frustration.

It seems that this morning's exhilarating "physical work" still didn't win my wife's heart!

As for why they didn't object in the group chat...

There's no use objecting; once a wife makes a decision, you can't change it even in ten years...

……

In a WeChat group.

The other parents of returning students stared at the screen in silence for a long time.

You know what?

After imagining that scene, I'm actually a little tempted.