Yuan Yuan Tutoring Center, classroom.

The boys sat in the classroom, not having had time to eat the instant noodles that Lin Lu brought.

Lin Wan Xing stood at the podium and picked up a piece of chalk.

The boys at their desks started shouting, “You’re finally going to teach us seriously?”

Lin Wan Xing smiled and asked in return, “When have I not been serious during any lesson?”

“I feel like sometimes you avoid teaching us from the textbook. Do you think you can’t teach us properly?” Qin Ao asked arrogantly.

Lin Wan Xing paused for a moment. She had never thought the boys would have this kind of idea.

“Of course not,” Lin Wan Xing shook her head. “To be honest, you’ve all studied in school for so many years. If I teach you the same knowledge, would it make a qualitative difference for you?”

Qi Liang — “How do you make ‘you guys are hopeless’ sound so refreshing and unique?”

Lin Wan Xing — “I definitely can’t save you. Including your studies, those are all your affairs. As for me, I can only provide the help you need.”

“Then what kind of help do you think we need now?”

“I already mentioned earlier, I think you need to properly discuss the concerns you have at this stage.”

“What is there to worry about? Just take each day as it comes,” Qin Ao said.

“You’ve already completed the ‘make money’ task goal. Do you plan to continue?” Lin Wan Xing asked directly. “If you want to continue making money, how will you allocate and properly manage the time between that, playing football, and studying?”

“We need to make money. Who doesn’t want more money?” Qin Ao said.

“But we’re about to have monthly exams again. If we make money, when will we have time to study? If we don’t do well on the exams, we’re finished!” Lin Lu said.

“Those who want to make money can go make money. Those who don’t want to can do their own thing,” Chen Jiang He thought for a moment, looked toward the blackboard, and said to Lin Wan Xing, “Isn’t this what you taught us about the principle of freedom?”

“If some people want to do it and others don’t, then what happens when we can’t get together for training?”

The boys spoke one after another, clearly unable to reach a unified opinion on this matter.

After listening to their discussion, Lin Wan Xing tossed the chalk from her left hand to her right hand and suggested, “Let’s have a formal meeting.”

The boys were wary of the words “formal meeting.”

“What kind of scheme are you up to now!”

The students’ wariness was justified.

Lin Wan Xing very seriously proposed holding a self-governance assembly at the Yuan Yuan Tutoring Center to achieve student self-management, democratic decision-making, and mutual consultation.

In general, it meant that whatever issues came up would be discussed together, and decisions would be made through democratic procedures.

Previously, Lin Wan Xing often let the students discuss freely, but those discussions were usually about how everyone could come together to accomplish something.

Since the last time when the students wanted to “give up football,” Lin Wan Xing felt that for many fundamental “yes or no” type questions, students could easily fall into a situation where they just chat and everyone collectively gives up.

Another problem was that often “loud voices win the argument.” The opinions of a minority were frequently difficult to hear.

Therefore, they needed a meeting to coordinate the problems they encountered and make joint decisions through an efficient, orderly, fair, and reasonable process.

“Then what do we need you for?”

After hearing her explanation, this was the boys’ first reaction.

“Me?” Lin Wan Xing turned around and wrote a new book title on the blackboard. “I will introduce you to a set of meeting rules. Of course, whether to use these rules should be decided by you yourselves, so you can try to hold a meeting according to these rules and vote on whether to use them. Consider it an interesting practice.”

Qin Ao looked at “Robert’s Rules of Order” written on the blackboard and said, “You’re nesting dolls here!”

Lin Wan Xing introduced the students to this book compiled by General Henry Robert. During the American Civil War, Mr. Robert was tasked with chairing a meeting, but both sides argued so fiercely that he failed terribly at hosting the meeting.

To learn how to conduct meetings, he diligently searched for books that taught people how to hold meetings. Finding none, in frustration, he took matters into his own hands and spent decades writing “Robert’s Rules of Order.”

In 1876, the first edition of “Robert’s Rules of Order” was published. After Henry Robert’s death, his descendants established a committee to continuously revise the book, and by 2011, the 11th edition was published.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen, based on “Robert’s Rules of Order” and referencing Ms. Shattuck’s “Rules of Meetings” from the American women’s rights movement, translated and compiled the famous “Fundamentals of Civil Rights.”

“This is a work with vitality,” Lin Wan Xing said.

“Over 700 pages!” The boys immediately started howling.

“To be honest, I’ve only read the concise version. My grandfather has a 700-page ‘Robert’s Rules of Order’ in the small storeroom. If you’re interested, you can go browse through it and get a feel for it,” Lin Wan Xing smiled.

“So… are we going to study this book now?” The students suddenly became anxious.

“If you fully understand and skillfully apply all the contents of this book, you will have the ability to chair meetings in most countries around the world,” Lin Wan Xing said. “If you’re interested, you can study it on your own. I’m just going to briefly introduce you to the core principles and operational rules of meetings described in this book.”

In total, it’s divided into four steps.

The first step is “making a motion.” A “motion” refers to specific opinions and suggestions on a matter.

For example, “We will abandon the money-making business and invest time in collective study” is a motion.

A simple statement like “Making money is interesting, studying is boring” cannot be called a “motion.”

“No motion, no discussion.” If there is no specific suggestion about what to do, the meeting is abandoned.

The second step is “seconding the motion.”

As long as one person among the participants thinks “We can discuss this motion,” regardless of whether they agree or disagree, the meeting will proceed to the next process for discussion.

The third step is “discussing the motion.”

Each participant has the right to fully express their opinions on the motion.

Some principles need to be followed here:

The core principle is to “face the chairperson.” That is, no matter how the debate goes, all discussions are directed at the meeting chair, not arguing with each other.

Each person has a fixed limit on speaking time and number of turns, so they are required to prepare their views in advance. First state your position, whether you agree or not, then speak.

Respect the referee. Just as in football matches where the referee is respected, the referee has the right to send those who violate the rules off the field, and the meeting chair has the right to stop those who interrupt randomly, disrespect others, or deviate from the topic.

…

The fourth step, which is also the final stage, is the “voting phase.”

Voting respects the principle that the minority follows the majority and adheres to the final voting results.

Lin Wan Xing had thought that these contents were relatively dry and that the students, being used to freedom, would pick at and oppose various aspects during her narration.

But to her surprise, the students showed great interest in the content of “Robert’s Rules” throughout the process.

They listened carefully to her entire narration and could hardly wait to start a formal meeting.

Lin Wan Xing was selected as the chairperson of the first meeting.

“I know you’re teaching us to be lazy so that we’ll discuss and decide everything ourselves in the future, but don’t think you can get away,” student Qin Ao stated.

Overall, the first meeting began smoothly under the guidance of Robert’s Rules.

There were 10 participants. Chen Wei Dong said he went back to his hometown with his parents, so he didn’t come today.

This motion was proposed by student Yu Ming, who initiated the motion “Should stop the money-making business and turn to collective study.”

Lin Lu “seconded” it, and the meeting entered the third stage.

As the chairperson, Lin Wan Xing temporarily established speaking rules — raise your hand to speak, and each person has 2 opportunities to speak for 1 minute.

In the beginning, the boys weren’t clear about the discussion principles.

When Lin Lu said “Studying hard now can earn big money in the future,” Qin Ao immediately sneered.

Qin Ao — “At least with making money, every cent you earn is in your hands. Studying sounds nice, but it’s as if you could learn anything.”

Qin Ao hadn’t raised his hand and received permission to speak, so Lin Wan Xing immediately stopped him.

“Our goal in discussion is to resolve the issue, not to resolve ‘individuals.’ Attacking each other or questioning motives will render the meeting ineffective, so I must stop your behavior just now,” Lin Wan Xing said seriously. “No matter what content you want to express, please direct it to me.”

Qin Ao paused and was unexpectedly obedient, which surprised Lin Wan Xing. He said, “Then I’ll learn more and speak again later.”

But after a second, he raised his hand again.

The boy was anxious, but his lips were still pressed tightly together. Lin Wan Xing allowed him to speak.

Qin Ao — “Teacher, does what I just said count as one of my two speaking turns? But is this my last chance? Should I just state all my reasons for objecting now?”

He blurted out everything he wanted to say and then fell silent.

The process of the first meeting had many similar bumps and didn’t progress to the final step quickly.

The students were still trying to understand the rules, and they found that organizing their thoughts and expressing them clearly and logically in a short time seemed much more difficult than following those meeting principles.

In the end, Fu Xin Shu even took out paper and pen and wrote down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

What surprised Lin Wan Xing was that the focus of the students’ debate eventually centered on whether or not to “study collectively.”

In general, opponents believed that while everyone needed to be together for football training, during the remaining time, each person should be free to arrange their schedule.

If you wanted to make money on your own, you could go do that. They couldn’t possibly always be bound together to study.

Supporters believed that teaching had its own pace, and if you couldn’t keep up and suddenly wanted to learn, would you expect others to wait for you or give extra tutoring?

Learning should be like football training, requiring everyone to participate together.

And if you want to do something else, you should use time outside of this.

In the end, the entire motion passed with 6 votes in favor, 3 votes against, and 1 abstention.

The voting results came out.

Although the opponents were somewhat dissatisfied, they decided to comply with the motion.

After all, for them, sleeping anywhere was still sleeping.

The students stretched lazily and looked at the results on the blackboard with anticipation.

Lin Wan Xing took the opportunity to propose a new motion, fully realizing Qin Ao’s perception that she wanted to be lazy.

Lin Wan Xing — “I propose that every Sunday from 7:00-9:00 p.m. be the fixed meeting time for the football team. During this time, we will discuss everyone’s new ‘motions’ each week, decide on and handle the problems everyone encounters each week, and make work arrangements for the coming week.”

The students entered a new round of discussion.

At first, Lin Wan Xing was worried that the students would fall into the “methodology” trap.

That is, regardless of big or small matters, they would hold a meeting and vote to make decisions.

But obviously, the students’ thinking wasn’t that rigid and inflexible.

They were happy to respect the principles of freedom, democracy, fairness, and mutual respect in the rules, and this kind of court-like debate model felt somewhat novel.

But nobody wanted to hold meetings for every little thing either.

For instance, regarding the upcoming study and work arrangements, the boys simply said, “Teacher, whatever you teach is what we’ll learn. We’ll discuss and come up with a class time, and then you have to come teach us!”

Lin Wan Xing agreed.

As she wiped the chalk dust off her hands and was about to announce dismissal for lunch, Fu Xin Shu stood up.

Fu Xin Shu — “Teacher, I think we should also discuss the issue of the new coach.”

Fu Xin Shu’s words plunged the entire classroom into silence. The boys’ faces, more or less, revealed expressions of disappointment.

This was probably the issue they were most worried about at this stage.

Lin Wan Xing paused, then asked, “Uh, don’t you read the forum?”