Chapter 12 Summary and Analysis

In 1970, students to Beida are admitted on the basis of recommendations and not entry exams. Many of the students will be soldiers, workers and peasants. In Liyuzhou, ten teachers from the departments of history, literature, philosophy, economics and international politics, are released from their labor. They will eat, work, live, study, and reform their thoughts together. This is known as the five-same-thing-teachers. Yur Daiyun and Lao Tang are both chosen.

They begin to construct facilities and to transform Liyuzhou. Families are allowed to live together. One hundred students arrive. The teachers are more enthusiastic than the students who are skeptical about education without books, libraries, or classrooms. This is an educational experiment. The instructions sent from Beida begin with criticizing the old system. Yue Daiyun is expected to explain how mistakes in the old system led her to become a rightist...