Doing It Over Again [Rebirth]

8: Pitfalls

When the students of Class 1 saw Shen Shao return, they surrounded him and asked what happened. After they heard Shen ZhengYang was criticized by the teacher and forced to apologize, they immediately said with some pleasure, "Serves him right!"

As for Shen Shao, he didn't say anything more from beginning to end. There was a polite smile on his face, and in the eyes of his classmates, he was once again an innocent victim, shot while lying down.

The incident, having reached this point, wasn't over yet. Who would have thought that Shen ZhengYang's parents would come to the experimental junior high the next day. They said their son was bullied by another student and they wanted the teacher to give them an explanation.

During the past few years, Shen FuDong made some money and even bought a house in the city. He'd always been a respected, well-to-do man in the village. He couldn't sit still when he heard his son was bullied by Shen Shao, who had a father but no mother to raise him. He drove his brand new car to the school early the next morning and waited in the teachers' office, giving a strong impression that he wouldn't leave until the teacher gave him what he wanted.

It wasn't like the teachers in the experimental junior high had never met similar people. Although there weren't a huge number of parents like Shen FuDong and Zhang ChunLan, they certainly existed. When the teaching director saw that the two parents were unhappy, he tried to persuade them with soft words, but finally he had to be a little strict. "If the two of you feel that our school's way of handling things is unfair, you can go through the transfer procedures and remove your child from the school. We support parents' freedom of choice."

When Zhang ChunLan heard this, she felt nervous. She looked at her husband uneasily. What if they made too much trouble and the school really asked their family's ZhengYang to transfer somewhere else? They'd gone through a lot of effort to get ZhengYang into the experimental junior high in the first place, not to mention he was a third year student. Transferring now would affect his studies.

Shen FuDong had been in business a long time, and his psychological quality was better than Zhang ChunLan's. However, he immediately improved his tone of voice. "Director, we don't have a problem with the school. We're just parents who love our child. Who wants to see their child being wronged?" With that, he pulled a cigarette packet from his pocket, took out a cigarette, and handed it to the teaching director. "Go on, please help yourself."

The teaching director saw "Furongwang" printed on the cigarette box. Although he didn't like smoking, he knew the cigarettes weren't cheap. No wonder this man was so confident. There were a lot of children from prosperous households enrolled in the experimental junior high. The children of the director of the Bureau of Education himself went to this school, and they never put on such a show. This man thought his own child was a treasure and everyone else's child was trash. Wasn't he just bullying this kid because he was poor and didn't have parents?

"Sorry, I don't smoke." The teaching director smoothed his expression and refused the branded cigarette. "Mr. Shen, this was originally just a small conflict between two children. When we initially handled the problem, both students were present. There was no favoritism. After all, both children are exceptional students. As teachers, we don't want to find fault with either one of them, but when children make mistakes, we have to correct them. This is our responsibility as teachers, don't you agree?"

Shen FuDong opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the teaching director continued, "Education is never easy. If we discipline a child, I'm afraid the parents will say we're too strict. But if we don't take any action, I'm afraid the parents will say we haven't done our jobs as teachers. Fortunately, most parents are supportive of our work. Well-educated parents like you have seen the world and understand how difficult things are for us." Then he sighed.