Transmigrated into a female county magistrate during a famine, leading her country to prosperity

Chapter 687: Plaster "rectifies" the school

Printing house.

In the printing room, Bai Song and several others were applying ink to the molds for printing, while Niu Chu and his companions were cutting paper in the next room.

The cut papers will be dried in order, and after the ink dries, they can be bound into books.

This was also the first batch of books produced by the printing house.

It was the end of the school term at the county school. Students poured into the printing house from the main gate, and while they were anxiously setting the type, they could not help but stare out of the blast furnace room next door.

On the other side, Lord Shen was writing something on the board with a charcoal pencil, shaking his hand in disgust as he wrote.

Earl Yongning, Xu Zhubu, Liang Fu, Shen Xingjian, Mo Qingwan and others were all sitting behind her, listening to her attentively.

"Tsk..." Shen Zheng rubbed her black fingers on her clothes and put the "lecture" on hold for the time being. "It's too troublesome to write with charcoal pencils. It's dirty and wastes the board."

She picked up a straw and wiped the wooden board. Puffs of black ash fell down and everyone subconsciously held their breath.

"Ahem, just bear with it." Yu Shizhang covered his mouth and nose with his sleeves. "It's not like you need to use charcoal pencils every day, so don't be disgusted. Tell us in detail what a luxury item is."

Yu Shizhang told her not to despise him, but how could she really not despise him?

She had long felt that it was a big problem that the school did not use a blackboard for lectures!

Relying solely on the teacher's oral narration and manual presentation of papers really slowed down the class.

Shen Zheng put down the charcoal pencil, thought for a moment and then asked Liang Fu: "Sir Liang, how much is our Great Zhou soft gypsum worth now?"

The "soft plaster" she mentioned is actually gypsum, the main material used to make chalk.

But in today's Great Zhou Dynasty, the use of gypsum has not been fully developed. It is only used as a medicinal material or for making tofu. Even papermaking does not use gypsum.

Shen Zheng felt that if teachers could use chalk on the blackboard to teach, it would be much more effective.

"Soft gypsum?" Liang Fu wondered why she asked this, but after thinking it over, he answered seriously, "It's not expensive, only a hundred coins per stone. But you also know that gypsum is not very useful, so there are not many mining areas that mine soft gypsum."

Shen Zheng nodded in understanding.

Yu Shizhang asked her, "Why are you asking this?"

Shen Zheng smiled and patted the wooden board. "How about writing on it with plaster and then erasing it after use?"

"Plaster?" Yu Shizhang stood up and touched the board. "Writing?"

"Yes." Shen Zheng looked at him: "Don't you think it's inconvenient to write down many things when you teach students?"

It would have been better if he hadn't asked. When Shen Zheng asked this, a strange feeling surged into Yu Shizhang's heart.

Yup!

He seldom gave lectures to students, but every time he did, the students would pester him to see his handwriting.

How did he do it?

——Write it down on paper and then show it to the students.

As a result, the paper could not be used again, and the students did not enjoy the show to their heart's content. They felt uncomfortable in every way.

Can……

"How do you write on a board with soft plaster?" Yu Shizhang asked, "But use a brush to dip into the soft plaster slurry?"

Shen Zheng was stunned when he heard this.

Dip in slurry?

I almost forgot that they are not good at writing hard pen calligraphy, or rather they don't like it - in the minds of those people, hard pen calligraphy is something that children write when they can't control the strength of the calligraphy.

Shen Zheng thought for a while and shook her head, "No. It's written directly on the board using solidified hard plaster."

Yu Shizhang's mouth turned down when he heard this.

"Hard-pen calligraphy? That's so ugly."

Without brush strokes and without strength, how can he reflect the demeanor of the dignified Earl of Yongning?

Upon hearing this, Shen Zheng hurriedly said earnestly: "Hard-tip calligraphy is definitely a little inferior to brush calligraphy. But think about it, Master, if you can write directly on the board and erase it after use, it will be very convenient. On the one hand, it saves time. On the other hand, the students' eyes are completely synchronized with the teacher's hands. They can see what the teacher writes. This will improve teaching efficiency and save paper and ink."

Yu Shizhang hissed softly, touched his chin and stopped talking.

Liang Fu was not a person who paid attention to calligraphy. After listening to what Shen Zheng said, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this method was feasible.

His eyes became brighter and brighter, and he couldn't help but add: "And one more thing, the teacher's writing and explanation directly on the stage can attract the students' attention and greatly improve their memory!"

Shen Zheng raised her eyebrows slightly when she heard that.

Liang Fu was right. Human brain memory is diverse, and simple sensory memory is easy to be forgotten. For example, Da Zhou’s current teaching method is listening.

With the combination of multiple senses, memories can be more deeply imprinted in people's minds.

For example, when you hear something, see something, and smell something, the moment your senses reappear is the moment when your memory returns. And when the teacher is lecturing, writing on the blackboard step by step can make abstract and obscure knowledge easy to understand.

"Ding-ding-ding-"

While everyone was thinking hard, the small bell hanging next to the blast furnace rang three times.

Shen Zheng immediately picked up the protective gear and walked into the blast furnace room, saying, "Wait for me and Lord Liang for a while, we'll talk about it in detail when we come out. Gypsum has another great use, and I haven't even told you yet!"

Everyone was already used to this and they stood up and walked towards the printing room.

As for the "great use" that Shen Zheng mentioned, no one really listened to it - she was afraid that they would not come back, so she would lie to them like this every time before entering the blast furnace room.

"Busy, busy, busy." Yu Shizhang rubbed his waist and complained, "Every day, I'm busy all the time. Before the furnace is turned on, I listen to Teacher Shen's lecture in the blast furnace room. Once the furnace is turned on, she rushes us to print. When she closes the furnace, we have to go back and continue listening to the lecture! She's treating us like mules!"

Shen Xingjian smiled slightly and said seriously: "Uncle, a mule will not do two jobs at the same time."

"..." Yu Shizhang glared at him: "You were cuter before."

……

Half an hour later.

"Failed again?" Yu Shizhang was not surprised.

"Yeah." Shen Zheng was calm, "But I feel like I'm almost there."

Yu Shizhang didn’t believe it: “You said the same thing last time.”

Liang Fu, who was supposed to be his ally, turned against him today. "My Lord, I also feel that we are about to succeed."

“Yo——” Yu Shizhang looked towards the blast furnace room where the heat waves were rolling: “Is there anything going on today?”

Shen Zheng smiled slyly and took out her hand from behind her back.

“Dangdangdangdang——” She spread out her palms and looked at everyone with a smile, “Look what this is?”

“Wow!” Yu Shizhang was the oldest but the quickest, and he grabbed the thing in her hand. “Did you really refine a treasure? This is the first time I’ve seen such a complete piece of colored glaze in the past few days!”

He faced the sun and raised his hands. Several heads gathered together and screamed.

"Transparent and colorful."

“Like water.”

“There are still little bubbles in there.”

"Uh..." Shen Zheng whispered, "Don't worry about the bubbles, they are impurities."