134. New Mission Assigned, Conditions?
The new work week officially began, and at the meeting the following morning, Qin Yong summarized the performance of the entire summer phase.
"Everyone has worked hard, and this summer Yudong's performance ranked first in the entire school."
Old Dong took the lead and started applauding.
"Clap————————————"
Then, Qin Yong laid out the work plan for the school-starting season.
With the official arrival of the autumn semester, teaching classes for campus wind and brass ensembles in major primary and secondary schools in Yudong District were about to begin.
This meant that the teachers in the wind/brass and string groups would become thoroughly busy. From Monday to Friday afternoons in the near future, they would head out to various surrounding primary and secondary schools contracted with the Yudong campus to conduct ensemble teaching activities.
However, what needed to be completed before that was the enrollment plan for the new academic year's ensemble classes.
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Ensemble classes.
Free courses freely organized by public or private schools in cooperation with social art training institutions, providing music literacy training to school-aged students in the form of public large classes.
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Every new academic year, after reaching an agreement with the schools, Lantian would send full-time teachers to the campuses to promote enrollment.
The promotion method involved professional teachers going into the schools to conduct oral promotions and instrument demonstrations class by class.
Afterwards, students would sign up voluntarily.
The schools would compile the number of registrants and subjects, and then hold parent-teacher meetings for the registered students.
Following the meetings, parents would decide whether to let their children participate in the ensemble courses.
This was a major revenue-generating item for Lantian every year.
Although Lantian provided professional teachers to major cooperative schools for free, children had to have instruments to sign up and take classes.
The money made from these instruments alone was enough for Lantian to make a fortune during every autumn enrollment.
Even though no regulations required parents to purchase instruments from Lantian, most parents lacked knowledge, and coupled with Lantian's offering of permanent warranties, ninety percent of registered parents chose to purchase nearby at Lantian.
For every instrument Lantian sold, the profit was approximately forty to sixty percent of the retail price, or even more depending on the type of instrument.
Last year, the Yudong campus alone sold 1,321 instruments through new enrollments.
Meanwhile, teachers responsible for teaching ensemble classes only received 80 yuan per class.
Even so, everyone scrambled and fought to participate in the ensemble classes.
Because once the ensemble classes rolled out, it was time for Lantian's next step: the student conversion plan.
Suppose School A opened a third-grade trumpet ensemble this year, with a total enrollment of 24 students.
Xu Hongxin was the teacher for the school's trumpet ensemble.
During the public ensemble class period, Xu Hongxin could convert these 24 children through communication with their parents.
To put it bluntly, it was telling them that their child had clear bone structure, was great material for playing the trumpet, and it would be best to come to Lantian for systematic communication with him.
The key lay in this "me."
Whichever teacher recruited the students would be the one to teach them private lessons.
Coupled with enrollment commissions, most teachers—except for the piano group—were willing to run ensemble classes.
Due to the nature of the instruments, piano ensemble classes were basically difficult to implement in schools.
"This year, a total of 26 cooperative schools in our Yudong district will conduct new autumn enrollments."
As Qin Yong's voice fell, everyone began to whisper among themselves.
Compared to the 19 schools last year, the new principal certainly had strong skills.
"These include Meishan Primary School and Yudong Jinhua Primary School, which have newly fallen under our Yudong territory."
Even Yudong Jinhua had been won over?
The veterans present all knew that in order to secure Jinhua Primary School, major institutions like Lantian and Baoyi had been following up on it for nearly five or six years, but no one had ever managed to win it over.
It seemed Yudong was truly about to rise.
Old Dong took the lead and applauded again.
"Clap——————————"
This was truly worth applauding. As a key regional primary school on par with the Yudong Experimental No. 1 Primary School, Jinhua Primary School enjoyed an extremely high reputation throughout the region.
From the perspective of the Yudong teachers, the better the school, the higher the quality of the students' parents. There was nothing arguable about this universality; these parents were often more willing to invest heavily in their children's education.
Who wouldn't want to teach ensemble classes at such a school?
In the past, when passing by the gates of Jinhua Primary School, everyone could only look on with longing.
But starting today, things were different from the past.
Jinhua was now their territory, but which teachers Principal Qin would assign was another new question.
Knowing what everyone was thinking, Qin Yong smiled and said:
"To be honest with you all, I have already promised Senior Liu that within two years, we will establish a fully student-composed, large-scale symphonic wind orchestra at Jinhua Primary School."
An uproar swept through the crowd.
This was no child's play. Organizing a group of zero-foundation children and forming an orchestra in two years—how was that possible?
Although everyone knew he came from a background of studying conducting abroad, even a clever housewife could not cook a meal without rice; no matter how brilliant your conducting skills were, it was useless if the children couldn't play.
There was once a joke circulating that a beggar conducting the Berlin Philharmonic would be a hundred times better than Karajan (considered by most to be the emperor of conductors) conducting a community orchestra.
That was indeed true.
The first problem to solve here was the teaching of each instrumental section.
Speaking of teaching problems,
it came back to the issue of teachers.
"This semester, we will open 8 ensemble courses at Jinhua Primary School, including wind, brass, percussion, and music literacy."
Qin Yong paused, his gaze sweeping across the crowd.
After a moment,
he smiled cordially:
"Any teachers who would like to participate in this ensemble activity can raise your hand to let me know."
Seeming accustomed to Principal Qin's unconventional ways,
the teachers smiled and didn't take it too seriously. We were still far from that stage; if they were actually assigning work tasks, this shouldn't be the process.
Yet, thinking about it, who wouldn't want to?
Just then, someone in the very last row of the conference room raised a hand.
Wang Panpan was stunned.
Li An was stunned.
The two of them simply watched as Chen Xuan raised her hand straight up.
"Oh?"
Qin Yong's gaze fell upon Chen Xuan's raised hand. "What does Teacher Chen have to say?"
"I can take the flute section at Jinhua Primary School."
Qin Yong clapped his hands. "Good, Teacher Chen will be responsible for the flute ensemble class at Jinhua Primary School."
With that, he continued to scan the room. "Who else?"
At that moment, Xu Nana in the corner raised her hand.
"Good, Teacher Xu will be responsible for the clarinet ensemble class at Jinhua Primary School."
After two spots were settled consecutively, the rest of the room reacted.
The conference room fell silent.
Qin Yong was playing for real.
And it seemed that as long as you raised your hand, you could secure it.
Yet everyone knew what raising their hand meant: if the students failed to deliver results during classes or rehearsals broke down, it would smash their own rice bowls.
"Who else?"
Qin Yong's searching gaze landed once more on a male teacher in the second row who had raised his hand.
"Good."
"Teacher Sun will be responsible for the percussion ensemble class at Jinhua Primary School."
With fewer seats remaining, those who were anxious were still hesitating.
Suddenly, Xu Hongxin grabbed Ma Tao's hand and hoisted it into the air.
Ma Tao hadn't even reacted.
Then came the words: "Good, Teacher Ma and Teacher Xu will be responsible for the trombone and trumpet ensemble classes."
Xu Hongxin flashed a grin.
Wang Panpan refused to be outdone and raised her hand as well. Although she was in academic administration, she was the only person in the entire Yudong campus who could play both the cello and the double bass.
Even if you were putting together a wind and brass symphony orchestra, you couldn't possibly do without a double bass.
Besides, more than half of the people in the west office were participating; how boring would it be if she were left alone in the office?
"Good, Teacher Wang will be responsible for the cello ensemble class."
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"Good, Teacher Cai will be responsible for the violin and viola ensemble classes."
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"Teacher Zhang is responsible for the saxophone ensemble class. Are there any more?"
Two minutes later, only the music literacy ensemble class remained unclaimed, while the other seven seats all had their owners.
The so-called music literacy class was simply music theory.
The people sitting here were clever; seeing how things stood, this literacy class meant teaching large music theory lectures to the children of the other seven classes.
Not only was it hard work, but there were also no extra commissions.
Who would go for 80 yuan a class? Not even a primary school student would do that.
As Li An hesitated, he saw Qin Yong's smiling gaze land on his face.
Sigh.
Fine.
Consider it keeping his girlfriend company.
He raised his hand.
Seeing Li An raise his hand, Lin Pengfei let out a sigh of relief. Seeing Qin Yong look over, he was truly terrified of being called out.
Thanks, brother. He cast a grateful look toward the side.
"Good, Li An will be responsible for the Jinhua Primary School literacy ensemble large class."
It really was a large class.
"Next, I would like to introduce the team leader for Jinhua Primary School this time, who is also the new academic affairs manager of our Yudong campus, Teacher Tao Ziwen."
Everyone looked toward the lean figure standing up on the extreme left of the front row.
Everyone had noticed this unfamiliar visitor at the very beginning of the meeting today.
Old Dong, the rhythm master, once again took the lead in applauding.
"Clap————————"
Tao turned, nodded slightly to the crowd, and then sat back down.
Possessing both good looks and temperament, a single action won him the favor of many female teachers on the Yudong campus.
These days, good looks could indeed be used as currency.
Except for Wang Panpan, whose gaze was somewhat complicated—she knew.
Qin Yong didn't offer half a word of further introduction. Finally, he kept the teachers from the wind/brass and string groups while dismissing the others.
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Returning to his office, Li An took out the student growth records of Che Lin, Marco, and Chi Yu to review them once more. Tomorrow was Saturday, and the three children would officially begin their lessons with him.
Through the notes Tian Yu had previously filled in, he could tell that Tian Yu cared quite a bit about Che Lin.
Li An could clearly sense from his several interactions with Che Lin's father that the other party didn't pay much attention to the child's piano learning progress.
Yet even under such circumstances, Tian Yu was still willing to spend effort designing a teaching plan for Che Lin.
What pieces should be played at each stage and what technical studies required attention were filled out clearly in the two growth records.
If he were asked to design one, it would likely be much the same.
Conversely, the two children Marco and Chi Yu followed the standard grading route typical of ordinary training institutions.
After pondering for a while, he began drafting lesson plans for the three of them for tomorrow.
He would teach a first lesson and see how it went.
Specific conditions would be adjusted based on tomorrow's classes. Although the concert stage had already made him familiar with the three children, they hadn't started a single formal lesson yet.
By the time he finished organizing everything, it was past eleven o'clock. He took out his phone and waited for Chen Xuan to return so they could go get lunch.
Opening WeChat, he spotted another red notification dot on Moments.
Ever since he posted the official announcement on Moments yesterday, he hadn't stopped clicking on these red dots.
The original owner didn't like posting on Moments, and he liked it even less.
Yet posting yesterday brought out all sorts of ghosts and monsters.
Ghosts and monsters weren't scary.
What was scary were those unwanted romantic entanglements.
The very second he posted on Moments, the one who liked it was a girl from a neighboring university with whom he had a暧昧 (ambiguous) relationship for less than a week.
If he didn't block such a person immediately, was he keeping her for the New Year?
Immediately afterward, he blocked a whole string of bombing targets, including the pipa junior sister, vocal senior sister, and so on.
Therefore, the comments and likes on this particular Moments post were still relatively clean.
They were basically blessings and question marks from relatives, friends, high school and college classmates, and roommates.
So who was this one?
He tapped to open it.
He froze.
'You'
Sigh.
Li An could only sigh.
Although this person still seemed somewhat nostalgic about him, things between them were completely clean.
From now on, maintaining a simple "like" relationship would suffice.
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Half an hour later, several people walked into the office one after another.
Seeing their beaming faces, their harvests must have been quite good.
Following Li An's inquiries, Xu Hongxin and Ma Tao had each secured ensemble classes at 8 schools this semester.
Chen Xuan was even more astonishing, single-handedly monopolizing flute ensemble classes across 11 schools.
"Won't it be too exhausting?"
Li An proactively handed over the brown sugar ginger tea he had brewed in advance for Chen Xuan.
Being cared for like this in front of several people, Chen Xuan—only on her second day in her new position—felt a lingering shyness. Yet, second-guessing herself, she had already done things like last night, so this expression of care from him didn't seem like much anymore.
"It's alright."
She smiled softly as she took the cup, and the gentleness in her eyes caused the three onlookers to exclaim that they simply couldn't stomach this wave of dog food!
After Li An's Moments post last night, who didn't know by now that the two of them had publicly gotten together?
With her lower back aching and unwilling to go downstairs, Chen Xuan stayed put while Li An went down to buy food, followed closely by Xu Hongxin, Ma Tao, and Wang Panpan.
When the four of them arrived at the Shaxian Delicacies restaurant, they saw Qin Yong and the newly appointed academic affairs group leader eating head-to-head.
Exchanging greetings, Li An paid a little extra attention to Tao, who merely nodded at him without saying anything. Tao's expression couldn't be called bad, but it couldn't be called good either.
Instead, Qin Yong said to him, "Come to my office this afternoon."
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After lunch, everyone began working on their ensemble class plans for the new semester, and Li An went to Qin Yong's office.
Qin Yong put aside his work and handed him a cigarette. "Have you thought it through?"
Li An took it. "Thought it through."
If he still harbored the slightest hesitation before, after last night, he would no longer let slip any opportunity to increase his income.
Chen Xuan had said last night that the two of them would work hard together, and today she applied for ensemble classes at 11 schools.
He knew very well just how massive that workload was; from Monday to Friday afternoons going forward, it would be practically impossible for him to catch sight of Chen Xuan in the office.
Therefore.
"I'm in."
As Li An stated his position, logically, Qin Yong should have begun sketching out his grand blueprint.
Yet Qin Yong brought up Jinhua Primary School instead.
"Here's the deal: this teaching group aimed at arts-track high school entrance examination students is still in the preparation stage, and we need to do the preliminary groundwork."
Li An raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me this teaching group currently consists of just the two of us?"
Qin Yong smiled. "Yes, just you and me."
Li An: ...
"Listen to me."
Qin Yong said earnestly, "Incorporating music into the high school entrance examination is already a settled matter. However, how exactly the exams will be conducted and what will be tested—before the new policies come down, no one in the country has done this field, and we have no references."
"So if we want to be the first people to eat crab, we must prepare the groundwork in advance."
Li An understood. "Then which aspect should we start with next? The examination board side should have some information, right?"
Qin Yong gave an appreciative glance. "The former principal has been pulling strings and asking around recently, and he obtained a rough examination framework."
"The exam is divided into two parts: basic literacy and specialized skills."
Wasn't that music literacy, sight-singing, ear training, and the major specialty? Li An asked, "Similar to the college entrance art examination?"
Qin Yong: "Right, we can simply understand it that way."
After pondering briefly, Li An understood why Qin Yong attached such importance to Jinhua Primary School.
"Are you planning to take Jinhua Primary School—?"
Qin Yong nodded. "Principal Liu and I have reached an agreement. In November, Jinhua Primary School will establish an arts-track experimental class targeting the high school entrance examination."
He paused.
"So I need you to use these two months to design a set of music literacy training teaching materials tailored for the transition from primary to middle school."
Li An stated bluntly, "Difficult."
Qin Yong understood. "You can state any conditions you have right now."
After a moment:
"For the Jinhua Primary School music literacy ensemble class, I want 500 yuan per class."
"Deal."
"And one more thing."