Chapter 1397: Xibao Goes to School 5
Xibao didn’t want to go to school. He wanted to learn writing, painting, foreign languages, math, and also Grandpa Jin’s principles of leverage and chemical effects. He didn’t want to learn phrases like "When drinking water, think of the source" or "Sailing the sea relies on the helmsman," which he could remember after just one listen.
Seeing his grandson’s reluctance, Lu’s father stroked his head, "Your mom wrote to me about this last month. I’ll have a word with the principal and have you enrolled nominally. You can go to school for a few days whenever you feel like it, get to know the classmates, and study at home with grandma and grandpa when you don’t feel like it. Just focus on Chinese and math, and when it’s time for exams, just take them. But you need to study hard and score well. It would be embarrassing if you can’t get into middle or high school."
Xibao finally beamed with joy, "I know all the brothers and sisters, little brothers and sisters in our brigade!"
"But you don’t know the students from other brigades who come to our school," Lu’s father pointed out without mincing words. "You’re a kid, and kids should act like kids, don’t keep thinking about studying all the time."
Xibao made a face.
School always starts at the beginning of the year, after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. This year, school started late, on March first.
On this day, Lu’s father took Xibao to register. He went directly to Principal Xie who had spent some tough times in a cowshed during the Cultural Revolution and had returned to school once classes resumed. Naturally, he was very accommodating to Xibao.
Lu’s father didn’t plan to put Xibao in the Youth Red Guards class. Xibao didn’t want to either, as the kids there were all seven years old and there was nothing much to learn.
"I know Xibao’s academic level very well. Even middle school students may not study as many varied topics as he does. Here’s what we’ll do, I’ll give Xibao some of last year’s test papers to do, and then we’ll decide which grade he should be in."
After hearing Principal Xie’s suggestion and asking Xibao what he thought, Lu’s father agreed.