Education Report - Teachers, Students Recall China's Cultural Revolution

Listening and Doing Exercise:

Select Play button. Listen and fill in the blanks with suggest words

60-year-old	Almost	Chen	One	People	School	Zedong	apology	himself	his
in	it	life	need	of	old	people	period	school
students	suspended	teachers	they	this	times	years

40 years have passed since Chinese Communist leader Mao died and his Cultural Revolution ended. Changes in Chinese caused widespread suffering during the Cultural Revolution. In recent , some aging teachers and student leaders who lived through period in Chinese history have been telling their stories. of the first such stories published in China told an apology from a student to a teacher. The gained attention in the West since appearing in China 2010. The teacher was Chen Bi, now 90 years and retired. She worked at the Beijing Foreign Language during the Cultural Revolution. Today, Shen Xiaoke is a lawyer. He was a teenage student at Chen Bi's in 1966. In August of that year, school was . Political indoctrination was extreme. Mao incited people to denounce , intellectuals and others in important positions. Students influenced by speeches turned against Chen Bi. Chen Bi recalls the with horror. She says, "For us who were persecuted, was a nightmare." Shen Xiaoke says he heard many argue among themselves about who was the most revolutionary. tried to prove they were revolutionaries by hurting other . Chen Bi said if students did not strike others, would be accused of opposing the Cultural Revolution. So who were normally not aggressive would start hitting victimsThree ago, Shen Xiaoke decided to face the past. "We to apologize to our teachers," he says. He wrote Bi an apology letter. He expressed his regrets for and for others in his class.

SCORE: