Time

Pre-title

Chubby boy being dragged along.

102#  01:18:04 - 01:19:15

103#   01:16:25 - 01:16:32

COMM

China's problem kids having it rough, away from home.

Sync  ‘I'm exhausted. My legs are killing me...'

                    TITLE

     THE WALKING SCHOOL 

Getting up sequence (whistle blows, kids get out of the military truck, etc)

101#

COMM

Early dawn on the outskirts of Wuxi, a small town to the east of Shanghai. A distinctive army is woken up by their morning call.

101#

Kids standing in one line, washing, drills...

COMM

This is China's first ‘brat camp', an unusual mobile school designed to reform spoiled kids, school-dropouts and troublemakers.

COMM

Over a hundred and twenty children, aged from eight to fifteen, are gathered here from all over China for military style discipline and physical training.

In a fast changing society which has no room for failure, they are left behind in the competitive race.

101#

Breakfast sequence

Line of trucks etc

Washing basins

Pile of trainers

COMM

Breakfast is simple. So is the method used to help them transform  - a long march, covering, in this stretch, a total of eight hundred kilometers.

101#

Commander inspecting the group 

COMM

For weeks now, the kids have been walking across China, from one town to the next.

But the hardest journey is yet to come.

Commander Guan giving the marching order

102#

01:05:35 - 01:06:09 

01:06:25 - 01:06:31

01:08:15 - 01:08:19

SYNC

‘A tough battle is coming up for you all in the next 48 hours. You are expected to do intensive marching, as hard and fast as you can. Do you have the strength to make it? Good. Now forward!'

102#

March begins

(with music)

Guan establisher

COMM

Commanding this unusual troop is the 26 year old supervisor Guan Zhi xiang.

Guan I/V

 115#

01:00:55 - 01:01:21

Sync

‘Our recruits here are what everyone calls ‘bad students', because they've got bad grades or bad manners. But we think they are very bright, and they are strong characters.'

Group walking shots

V/O

‘Their problem is a lack of self-control and will power. They are easily defeated.'

COMM

All the children on the march resent school, but each has a different story.

Lin Zhen ni walking shots

COMM

14 year old Lin Zhen Ni comes from south west China, and has a turbulent relationship with her parents.

Lin Zhen Ni walking shots 

104#

01:25:30

My mum and dad got divorced when I was 5.

114#   01:04:10 - 01:04:32

Lin Zhen Ni

114#

010824 - 010830

‘I was very moody, even at school. There was so much bottled up inside me that I couldn't focus on my studies.'

Li Zhan yu walking shots

??

( eating candy)

COMM

Li Zhan yu, also 14, dropped out of school because of his computer game addiction, and spent all his time in illegal internet cafés.

‘For 15 days, I played non-stop. When I felt hungry, there was food in there to buy, noodles, drinks and cigarettes. There were also beds there. I'd have a snooze, and when I woke I carried on playing.'

Lin Zhen Ni

114#

011619-011700

‘Once I missed an entire maths lesson because I was depressed. Since then it got worse and I gave up.

Li Zhan Yu

‘I was oblivious to all my parents' tears and persuasion. Even if the world exploded I want  to die in front of my computer.'

Li Zhan yu I/V

107#

01:08:08 - 01:09:03

COMM

Li Zhan Yu claims that he is related to China's last emperor, and revels in his new nickname ‘the prince'.

Li Zhan Yu I/V

107#

010808 - 010903

010918-010959

‘At school, I didn't get on with others. I was self-centered, and a bully. If anyone touched my things I'd kick them.

‘I'm rich, and I have royal blood, who can beat that?'

Wang ze wei walking shots

COMM

But his mate, 13 year old Wang Ze wei is not overawed.  

Wang Ze wei I/V

‘We all think the prince is very pretentious. Even now he hasn't changed his habit, and he's full of bullshit.'

Wang Ze wei

108#

013300 - 013340

COMM

But Wang Ze wei has his own secret.

(You have a reputation for getting into fights at school?)

‘It's just a pretence. If I don't look tough, I'll be bullied.'

COMM

Wang Ze wei had taken constant beatings from his dad for playing truant.

‘Once he hit me until my backside was black and blue. I never forgot that pain.

‘I thought, if you carry on beating me, I will kill you.'

Lin Zhen Ni I/V

114#

010824-010931

‘My teacher said to me ‘there are so many divorced families. Don't think you are any different'.  I was so furious that I smashed up everything when I got home.

COMM

While parents and school teachers have failed to handle these difficult children, supervisors at the brat camp have a better idea.

Guan I/V

‘These kids have a lot of anger and frustration inside them. So first we need to find an outlet for it, and secondly take away that negative energy.

Guan I/V

115#

011053- 011127

‘Walking is the most basic training. It wears them down, and stretches them to the limit. When they are tired they'll start to reflect.'

************************

**************************************

Group walking shots

School gate GV

While the young marchers carefully negotiate traffic on China's motorway, 250 kilometers away in the small town of Huai an, 60 or so fellow students are undergoing training of a different kind at the school headquarters.

COMM

This is the Xu Xiang Yang ( pronounced Shu Shiang Yang) school. Named after its founder, it is a pioneering private education institution for China's ‘bad students'.

Posture exercise

Kids running along corridors

COMM

Bucking the trend of elitism is the founder and headmaster Mr Xu, a 46 year old war veteran with a business acumen.

Xu I/V

119#

01:00:58- 01:01:49

SYNC

‘Everyone believes that if you can get into a university, you are a good student. If you can't, you are bad. I go the opposite way, and I deal with the bad students. I don't believe anyone is bad.'

COMM

Mr Xu's experiment began with his own son, who had a hard time at school for being a poor achiever. Now his son is a successful graphic designer in South Korea.

‘My son was asked to stand outside the classroom, in the biting wind, and the boy had a running nose. I said where is your schoolbag? He said my teacher threw it away. I was furious.'

‘How can you judge a child by his grade only, and label him as a bad apple? Once he takes on such a label, he slips further. Bad grades leads to bad behaviour, and no one cares about him any more.'

COMM

Convinced that his son was wasting time at school, Mr Xu started to teach him at home, a bold decision in a culture which reveres formal education and relies much on state provision.    

COMM

But the Chinese education authority considers one in six of its three hundred million school children as ‘bad students', so a market opportunity presented itself. 

‘An old Chinese saying tells us that teaching should be flexible to suit individual needs. These kids don't fit well within normal school scheme.'

Abacus

Beads threading

Meditation

COMM

Mr Xu's curriculum is simple - the long march.

And for restless children, the devil makes work for idle hands.

‘Everyone talks about being elite, going upwards. Like hydrogen flying to the north pole. What about the basics?

‘You have to be a man first, a healthy, balanced man, who knows how to communicate your own thoughts.'

COMM

As a solider who fought in the Sino-Vietnam war, Mr Xu was brought up by his revolutionary mother. His family tradition has left him with little doubt about putting his school under a military regime.  

Folding quilts sequence

‘The military management is the most effective form of management. China's best-selling book in 2006 was ‘Learning From the Liberation Army'. There are lessons in it for businesses, schools and social institutions.'

COMM

And Mr Xu's school seems precisely a hybrid of the three. At more than three thousand dollars a year, the fee here is considered expensive in China. But as the school's reputation grows, more and more parents are sending their problem children here, hoping for a cure.

************************

**************************************

New kid sequence

Back at the training camp, a reluctant new recruit has just arrived by train with his father.

Actuality

Dreaming of becoming a pop singer, the boy is determined to leave school to learn guitar. 

Sync

(s) Why? You've got good grades.

(b) I want to do what I want to do.

His disappointed father gives him the ultimatum. It's either back to school or join the march.

Sync

(dad) Every star has to earn his success. It's not about the hair and the clothes...

(b) But I like them!

(f) ok, time for you to go on the march!

(S) You said you were studying for your teachers, what do you mean? 

(b) To them, I am not a person. I am just a number on his marking sheet!

( Father and son shake hands)

COMM

Like this father, many parents have sent their children here as a last resort, hoping that the training will prepare them for life, if not bring them back to school. 

COMM

Li Zhan Yu, the prince has been told off by supervisor Guan that morning.

Li Zhan yu

107#

010159 - 010246

‘I was asked to make bed for everyone. Again and again. And no breakfast. It drove me mad.'

Guan having breakfast among kids

Guan I/V

‘When we got up this morning, he said go ahead everyone, I'll clean up here. I checked afterwards and it was a mess. I asked him to do it a second time, it was again a mess. I made him do it ten times until it was ok, and he started crying.

Guan I/V

‘Whatever you do, even a very simple thing, you've got to do it properly. Only then can you manage other things.'

Letter reading sequence

COMM

Lunch time, letters from home arrive. This is the moment that the children have been waiting for.

As words of encouragement from their parents bring tears and joy, many have begun to reflect on their behaviour.

Li Zhan yu

‘ I used to throw out new clothes mum bought me because they were the wrong label. I'd throw down my chopsticks if the food wasn't exactly what I liked.'

Li Zhan yu

‘Here, I'm part of a team. The supervisor is not going to treat you differently because of your surname. If others get one candy, I won't get ten.'

Guan

Sync

These kids need different things. Some needs encouragement, some needs telling off, still others need ignoring or even attack. 

Group of boys

Sync

We're trained to obey orders.

To obey absolutely. 

If you don't...the cane and shouting, says Mr Xu.

(Have you been caned?)

( nodding) It was ...so cool. Afterwards my hand was like a bear's paw. It was black, blue and red. 

COMM

But there is also the soft touch. During a break, the children are taught a new song about motherly love, to help them reconnect with their families.

COMM

The song strikes a deep cord with Lin Zhen Ni. In a story familiar all over China, she boarded at her teacher's house for three years while her divorced mother was swept along by China's economic boom.

Lin Zhen ni

‘On new year's eve, I cried so much that my teacher had to contact my mum. When mum came I cried even more and wouldn't let her go. Then mum said, good girl, I need to make more money before taking you home.'

COMM

At the camp, after an escape attempt, Lin Zhen ni has finally found a friend. 

‘The supervisor found out and she started talking to me. I never had the same kind of communication with my parents.'

‘I cried for the first time since been here. When I spilt everything I'd bottled up for so long, I felt so much better.'

COMM

But there are deeper wounds within these children which can't be cured easily - a sense of failure in the school race and often, a feeling of being abandoned by their own teachers.

Lin Zhan Yu -

‘He said, you can sleep in class as much as you like. Or go out to play when you wake. As long as you don't disturb others.'

Li Zhen Ni

‘I failed my maths exam. He said in front of everyone, what is your brain for? Is it for eating pig food?

Wang Ze wei

‘What do I hate most?  Parents' beating, kids' bullying, teacher's nagging and sarcasm, also the endless homework.'

************************

**************************************

COMM

At home, some anxious parents are following the progress of the march on the schools' website.

Jiang Da wei's mother at computer

COMM

But many worry that once the march is over, their children still have to face an extremely demanding school timetable.  

Jiang Da wei's mother

‘They get to school by 6.30, and come home for lunch at 11.30. Then back to school from 1pm until 9.30pm, with just one hour dinner break'

COMM

Zhu Zhong Fang's family owns a supermarket chain. Her only son dropped out of school because he could no longer cope.   

‘With this one child generation, the only thing for them to do is study, study, study. If he studies well, he is God. He is the emperor. The whole family move around him.

COMM

Once an anxious father himself, headmaster Xu has plenty of empathy with the parents, but as a self-made educator, he thinks that the parents are also part of their children's problem.

‘All their hope, and drive come from their only child. That's not going to work.'

‘The parents' generation was never able to fulfill their dreams, now they are forcing it upon their children.'

Chen Kang's parents

COMM

In a nearby village, He Xiao Mei, a farmer and motorbike-taxi driver, is desperately worried whether the long march will wean her son off his computer game addiction.   

Like many other parents, she can do little to stop the growing attraction of illegal internet cafes across the country, as more and more distressed schoolchildren seek escape in the thrills of cyber space.  

‘We took him to see a doctor to see if there's anything wrong with his head. We were told that he had minor depression.'

‘The hospital charged 25 dollars a day, so frighteningly expensive. We couldn't afford it, and the treatment didn't work anyway.'

.

COMM

When they heard about the Xu Xiang Yang school, they saw it as their last hope.

(wife) ‘We've borrowed money from relatives and got a loan to send him there.'

(husband)   ‘It's worth it, for our son'

COMM

But Mr Xu does not pretend that his school is the real answer to a much wider social problem.

‘Whichever way you see my school, a hospital for the sick kids, or a supplementary institute, in an ideal world, it shouldn't exist.'

‘But as long as the education system remain unchanged, and teachers unchanged, my business will keep growing.'

COMM

Having pioneered a new path for China's problem children , Mr Xu is however pessimistic about their long term future.

‘In schools today, one class has 50 to 60 kids. Only the first 15 have any real chance. Anyone who comes after 25 is a victim.'

************************

**************************************

On the road, the children's long march goes on, night and day.

Night

The Prince

105#

01:29:15 - 01:29:40

‘I'm sleepy. I can't feel my legs anymore, and I've got blisters on my feet'

Night

Lin Zhen Ni

111#

01:35:00-01:36:00

 ‘When I was at home, I never cared about my mum's feelings, now I'm away from home, I feel lost.

I realize how selfish I am after coming here, and feel guilty towards my mum. I want to show her with action that I'm great!'

COMM

 The long march carries with it moments of consternation and confusion, but also reflection and revelation.

Day

111#   013140

( Chubby boy walking )

Day

New kid walking in silence, in deep thought

COMM

When they are tired, good humour keeps them going.

Day

The prince 

107#

01:14:20- 01:17:00

‘My mum tricked me...

‘I thought this must be a very posh school with Cadillacs and we'll have steaks! When I got here and saw the military trucks, it was all too late!'

   Epilogue

Dawn shots - kids walking over a bridge into town...

Still photos of kids

Group photos

Six weeks later, the children finally reached their headquarters.

They walked a total of 800 kilometers and crossed 10 cities during their long march.