She Only Cares About Cultivation

In this era, the school schedule in the Northeast wasn’t the same as in the south; there weren’t fixed winter and summer vacations, and Baijiawan Commune Primary School itself already started late—only after May Day—so they probably wouldn’t dismiss until August or September, right? That was when the busy farming season here began.

But after just a few days of classes, the weather turned cold, so after discussion among the commune leaders, they decided to keep having continuous classes all the way until the commune started "cat-wintering."

An Yi also felt this arrangement made more sense; after all, in the dead of winter, with temperatures tens of degrees below zero, it was too hard to run out for class, and where would the Firewood for heating come from? Catching just the edge of winter was still okay, but if they had to have classes through the whole winter, it wouldn’t just torture the children, it would torture the adults too. So the best way was to hold classes from March each year to the end of October, and have vacations the rest of the time.

That meant spending the four months of November, December, January, and February "cat-wintering" at home.

As soon as this decision was put forward, not only did the teachers agree and the children feel happy, even the parents thought it was reasonable.

Once the principal and director made the final call, An Yi stopped worrying about when the vacation would start.

Later, when the two Sisters came back, she learned that it wasn’t just their commune that had decided this; in fact, the three northeastern provinces were basically all using this schedule. Even if some places were different, it was only because the length of winter varied; in any case, the annual teaching tasks were laid out there, and as long as they were completed, it was fine.

"So that means you guys also officially break for vacation in November and go until the end of February the following year?"

Qiuxia nodded. "It should be about like that."

As An Yi turned it over in her mind, her eyes started to light up: "That’s perfect. If it really works that way, next term you two can directly apply to enter the third year of junior high."

That would be the same as linking their first and second terms together, which made those four winter-vacation months especially important. If they made full use of those four months, then taking the skip-grade exam when school started again wouldn’t be that hard.

Thinking about the fact that they’d referenced finishing primary school in four months and that junior high material was indeed harder, the two Sisters felt that An Yi wasn’t joking with them. To save money and time, they gritted their teeth and agreed; after all, everyone knew that the current level of the school teachers wasn’t as good as their Sister’s!

At this pace, wouldn’t they be able to start studying fourth-year junior high material by next winter vacation?

The more they thought about it, the more they felt they had to work twice as hard, but whether they could actually complete this task still depended on how hard it would be in practice.

After all, the further you went, the more material there was; no one dared make too many promises.

"I’ve already signed up for the qualification exam,"

Exams in this era weren’t as complicated as in later generations. Even public school teachers still had written tests and interviews, and everyone’s situation was different, because the educational gap in this era was just too big. It all depended on which level you applied for: if you applied for the Primary level, the relative difficulty was lower; if you went straight for Advanced, the difficulty you faced would be greatly increased.

She applied under the name of Baijiawan Commune Primary School, with letters of recommendation and introduction from the commune and the primary school. Registration was in early June, the written test in July, and the interview in August. If everything went smoothly, she could get the certificate by October. With this Advanced qualification, it would even be possible for her to teach at a high school in the future.

She chose National Language, which is what we later generations call the Advanced Chinese teacher title.

The so-called junior-high Advanced corresponds to primary, junior high, and high school; beyond that you go into Special Level, which is treated like a University teacher.

Of course, as a high school teacher she could also teach in technical schools, vocational secondary schools, and junior colleges; those all accept Intermediate titles. Only universities require a Special Level qualification.

And you also had to have a University graduation certificate. Without a University graduation certificate, you wanted to teach university students? Wouldn’t that be a joke?

In this era there was no such thing as "degree," because many people had their schooling interrupted by war, so they all called it "level."

For example, if you’d finished primary school, that was "primary school educational level"; if you’d only gone up to the second year of junior high, that still counted as "junior high educational level." She didn’t have a high school graduation certificate, but if she said she’d gone up to high school, then outwardly people would present it as "high school educational level."

At present the minimum requirements were: to teach primary school, you had to have at least a junior high educational level; to teach junior high, you had to have at least a high school educational level. Someone like her, a high school–level person teaching primary school, was a bit overqualified, but teachers were still in pretty short supply.

"You two can try for the Primary qualification certificate; just take it as practice. With this certificate, even if you don’t go on to high school or become teachers, when you get to your work units in the future, people will still look at you with more respect."