What is high school like in China?

[Junior]

What are the significant differences between high schools in China and those of Western society? The kinds of things I'm looking for are like, doing physical exercises in the morning and stuff like that. Is that very common? Do Chinese schools have a morning recess break like schools here? What time does school normally start and finish? etc....

My experience in Chinese high schools is relatively limited and I would like to give my class some cultural insight into the customs of schools in China. Any examples would be appreciated.

[davidj]

The Open University did a documentary series on Chinese Schools, that was shown on UK television earlier this year. It may have been shown in Australia, but you may also be able to buy it on DVD, although you might need to negotiate licensing terms for schools use.

http://www.open2.net/chineseschool/index.html

[kdavid]

The following is true for schools in Harbin. I assume it would be similar in other cities as well.

• Regarding physical activity, before attending the freshman year of both middle and high school, as well as university, students are obligated to attend a 2 to 3-week work out session that involves lots of marching, team-building exercises, etc. It's similar on some levels to boot camp, and though can be intensive, is certainly not as intensive as US Army boot camp.
  
• Students are up early and home late. Students' official classes may start between 7 and 8, but they're often up earlier than that attending extra classes, either at school or with a tutor.
  
• 12 hour days are common
  
• Saying that they have little free time may be a bit generous. Most of my students have zero free time. Any free time they do have is spent taking extra classes.
  
• Students are assigned an exorbitant amount of homework; about 3 - 4 hours per night and more on the weekends.
  
• Weekends aren't free. They are also spent attending extra classes; again with either their normal teachers or with a private tutor/education center.
  
• High school is made up of 3 years. The third year of high school is spent almost entirely on preparing students for the university entrance exam. This exam is very challenging and competitive. In 2007, ChinaDaily.cn reported that approximately 10 million students took the exam for which universities nation-wide only had 5.7 million openings. This means that that year, 43% of the test takers were unable to get into a proper university.
  

That's high school in a nut shell. From most westerners' point of view, it's quite sad seeing one's youth wasted in books. However, the Chinese know nothing different, and to them it's normal. There is also an intense amount of pressure to get into not only a decent university, but a major that leads to well-paying job. A student's performance on the university entrance exam dictates what major that student is eligible to enter. Therefore this exam really does determine one's fate.

There are, of course, always exceptions, and cities with more options for a night life or pop culture scene may have students that are more outgoing and adventuresome. Harbin students, however, are exceptionally studious, and about 95% of the students here all fit into the aforementioned category.

[Senzhi]

In Shantou (based on my school, but with little deviation in other schools in the area):

- Physical exercise: 2 hours per week, usually consisting of basketball (for the boys) or badminton (boys & girls).

- Morning classes from 8 to 11:30, afternoon class from 3 pm to 4:30 pm. Supervised study from 8 pm to 9:30 pm. Additional classes are available (but not mandatory) between 8 pm and 10 pm. "Supervised" means here: 1 teacher for about 1,500 students ...

- All other times students are free. Mainly sleeping or watching TV.

- No weekend classes. But sometimes, weekend activities are organised. Mainly one-day trips.

- Homework is given but seldom seriously executed (read: a lot of copying), since there's no failure system: all students graduate, regardless of their results. Of course bad results do not guarantee a place at any university.

In general, students don't study here. All simply because there's no pass/fail/retake system. The smart ones who study on their own intention do have a chance of attending university. The majority, however, just consider it as a formal pass of time ... a kind of burden they have to go through. It's based on the money culture: earning money is key here, and studying is a waste of time in which you can't earn money. Seeing it as an investment for the future doesn't get into their minds.

That is not to say though that there aren't students who invest by themselves in the rewards of good qualifications.

[Entropy_Rising]

Some posters have pointed out some technical difference between Chinese and Western schools - how long classes are, what kind of work students have to do. But after my year in a Chinese high school I have to say that I was really disappointed with the actual style and quality of the education.

Essentially every class I was able to observe or heard about second hand adopted a rigid "blunt force" policy of standing at the front of the room and talking at the students with the goal of shoving all the information possible down the students' throats. Teachers' lectures were a constant stream of talk and many didn't bother looking away from the textbooks, lecture notes, or the blackboard as they spoke. Student involvement was rare, and whenever it did occur it was a highly ritualized interaction that involved the teacher picking a student (no calling for answers and raised hands), the student standing up and probably repeating verbatim something the teacher said within the last 10 minutes, and sitting back down.

The Chinese high school system is utterly and overwhelmingly dominated by the Gao Kao, the high school entrance exam. From what I gathered - and please, correct me if I'm wrong - this by far is the most important factor in determining where students go to college, if it is not the only factor (and I suspect it is, other than under the table stuff like guanxi and bribing). The school that I worked at, which prided itself in being the "elite" school of the county, had a giant board in its lobby covered with charts comparing different parts of their students' Gao Kao scores with scores from other schools in the area. This is what you would see on entering the school, along side another board proclaiming communist values sporting a hammer and sickle and another one with a Confucian ditty about morality and values sporting a stylized image of Confucius (I think I was the only person in the school who noticed the irony of placing these two ideologies alongside each other, as for the students and teachers, we'll call it "doublethink"). Given that a school's value is measured solely by Gao Kao scores and that the students themselves know their future is literally determined by this one test, the entire high school education system is lamentably nothing more than preparation for this test - at least at my school. They didn't study English, they studied Gao Kao English, they didn't study math, they studied Gao Kao math. This made my Oral English class a challenge I had to work hard to meet, as many students came into my class automatically dismissing it as useless since the Gao Kao no longer has a spoken or listening component - and as students got more comfortable with me over the year they confirmed verbally that that is how most students view the foreign teacher oral class. The attitudes get worse the higher the students get. I spoke with teachers, both foreign and local, who said the Senior 1 students tended to be more dynamic and enthusiastic about being at school. By Senior 2, the purpose of their education starts to set in and they start to lose some of that steam. By Senior 3, most students are overwhelmed by the oncoming test and several get depressed or in low spirits. My school didn't bother hiring a foreign teacher for Senior 3, incidentally confirming to the foreign teaches, the local teachers, and the student teachers that our class was indeed useless. The students I taught are now Senior 3 this year and those who have stayed in touch with me frequently mention how unhappy and "scared" they are - that is the English word they use to describe their situation. I remember being in a Senior 3 classroom once, and remember distinctly a sign, permanently bolted to the blackboard. I may not get the Chinese right, I think it was 距高考有 天, or "X days until the Gao Kao." That's what it was all about. There was a countdown just in case any students forgot.

Having mentioned the foreign teacher class is considered "useless" by almost all parties involved (In terms of the Gao Kao that is, but when I was there I tried my best so that the students would get something else out of it), some of you may wonder, why was there a foreign teacher class to begin with? And that leads me into my next lament. The school I was at experienced one major problem that many schools and hospitals in China face: the need for more money. Another grand irony in this socialist paradise. As time passed I learned that the school was a shameless capitalist enterprise - a full fledged business. The school was well known around town and people talked about the principal as if he were a businessman instead of an educator. He was gone half of the time I was there, visiting other cities in the province, giving presentations on the school so parents would send their kids there - a traveling salesman.The tuition and costs of lodging - half the students boarded - were visibly posted in the administrative hallway. In the interest of maintaining its elite image, the school was busy constructing new buildings, new athletic fields - and the money had to come from somewhere. That's what the foreign teacher class is. It was a selling point to persuade the parents of potential students to choose their school over others. A week after I arrived an administrator arrived at my apartment and told me to look natural as he took pictures of me. Later in the year two workers arrived unannounced to my class, one with a camcorder and the other with a camera. Before I left I was "delighted" to see pictures of myself and other foreign teachers, in our homes and in our classrooms, on a set of colored billboards out in the school courtyard. The captions talked about how the school has authentic foreigners and how we're treated well. I also suspect that bribery may have been a problem, particularly since the result of their advertising was that the parents of the students at the school tended to be rich, powerful, or both - lawyers, politicians, PLA, and Sinopec workers. I was in a meeting with the principal one time when a student's parents came in - in my part of China, anyway, there's no concept of "waiting your turn" - and had a pretty vivid argument with the principal about their son's math grades - blaming the teacher (he's too new!), blaming the textbooks, blaming everyone and everything except themselves and their son. That they could barge into the principal's office lead me to believe they were pretty powerful. Though I didn't hear any monetary offers at that time, I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to think some powerful official, for the sake of his kid, would pass over some sorely needed money to boost grades a bit. I'm quite certain the school woudln't say no.

The centrality of the Gao Kao and the dog-eat-dog atmosphere breeds a culture of cheating. It can't get more simple than that. In this kind of situation, cheating pays of far more than thinking and learning - and I don't blame the kids for this, it's really the raw truth. Students "cheated" on the survey I gave them - a survey I made to give students the power to influence and determine the content and character of the class - this stuff is not graded, more over, it was a rare chance for students to voice their opinions. But they cheated anyways - I would go through 10 or 15 surveys at a time where the answers to "What kind of things would you like to learn about in our class?" and "What kind of activities are you interested in doing?" were exactly the same - sometimes down to the handwriting. I know the students cheated in other classes, some of them told me as much. The cheating continues into college. I'm at a university right now - I'm purposefully living in remote China so this isn't Bei Da, mind you - and the desks are covered with writing, because the students come in and write the answers to the tests on the adjacent desks the day before. I talked with a teacher about this and she said there is nothing you can do. The write on the desks, they write on their own bodies, they learn to signal each other, and you can't instantly fail a cheater because then everyone would fail.

I guess to make this full circle, the fact that the students cheat and aren't interested in learning causes most of the teachers and professor I know to be really jaded and cynical about their teaching - you know, causes them just to drag themselves through their lectures without even looking at the students, like I mentioned above. So really it's a feedback loop - disinterested professors, cheating students, the two reinforce each other.

So finally, the disclaimers: this is just my personal experience, at a school in a less developed part of China. Honestly, though, this really was the best school in the region so I doubt the schools most of the students in the area are going to are any better. However, when living in Nanjing, my host brother when to an "experimental school" - 实验中学- of which there are a few in every major city. When, later, I told my host brother about my sour experiences at the high school he assured me that at his experimental school they addressed a lot of these problems, even addressing what I think is the biggest problem - my host brother didn't take the Gao Kao - because of his 3 year performance at the school (fairer, really), he was admitted into one of the best schools in the country, Nan Da. And so I leave with that slightly more optimistic note. These experimental schools need to stop being experimental.

[Entropy_Rising]

Okay, that was a pretty big rant and I was obviously venting. I apologize for that . But really, the whole experience made me look back and really appreciate my Western high school education and so I guess I'm just saying your students have a lot to be grateful for!

[Meng Lelan]

Wait a minute, I don't get it - your host brother didn't take the Gao Kao but he got into NanDa? I thought everyone had to take the Gao Kao to get in anywhere.

[yonglin]

Entropy_Rising, I don't think the Chinese put the gaokao system in place to make students' educational experience miserable. It's forced by the circumstances.

Firstly, you cannot compare the resources and spending per student between China and the West. China is a developing country, and just doesn't having the spending power a typical western country. The educational system in its current form is very new (only established after the Cultural Revolution), and is an attempt at addressing some of the most blatant regional inequalities in a geographically immense country. Poorer provinces have very few and generally poor quality universities, so if kids from these regions are to have some chance whatsoever at attending a decent university, they must be given the opportunity to excel in some centrally administrated examination. Admitting students to university based on teachers' personal judgement might work where teachers are well-educated, teaching and teaching quality is homogenous across schools, and competition for university places isn't that fierce (Canada and Sweden comes to mind). Otherwise, it's typically more fair to make use of centralized examinations.

For this reason, I predict that we will see a change in the nature of the gaokao, not the abolishment of it. In fact, this kind of educational reform (towards integrated, critical and analytical skills), is currently being implemented in Hong Kong. However, I doubt it will happen on the Mainland for at least another ten years. This is not because Chinese people like their school system (I'm pretty sure most Chinese would agree it's bordering on ridiculous), but because there are currently no economically alternatives. China is a developing (or transitional, if you look at the bigger cities) economy, and just doesn't have the resources. Few teachers can be hired, so class sizes are large. Since teacher pay is low, the best and most well-educated ones are like to leave for jobs in the private sector. There is a particular problem recruiting competent teachers to the western provinces and autonomous regions. How would it be possible to implement a more creative or stimulating curriculum, whilst at the same time ensuring fairness across the country? This would surely require libraries, well-equipped IT labs, well-educated and dedicated teachers, as well as additional teacher training. It is incredibly much more difficult to teach students to think than to read a textbook to them, and I'm not so convinced that all teachers in China are trained to do so. Surely, this would be possible in bigger cities, in schools were students pay fees and resources aren't as scarce. But then what options would be left for the kids out in the provinces, where they barely have the resources to teach a curriculum requiring a single textbook and a blackboard?

I would say that for the given level of income per capita, China isn't doing too poorly.

[roddy]

Outstanding students can be exempted from the exam - not sure what the procedure / standard is, but they're known as 保送生. See the 教育部《2004年普通高等学校招收保送生办法》for more information

[Entropy_Rising]

@Yonglin

I agree with the substance of your post - especially your note about a systemic problem which leads most intelligent teachers to abandon teaching positions (and by proxy leaving the students in the hands of the not so good teachers) - I decided not to include that because I realized my rant was getting too long so I'm glad you brought that up too. But I have to point out that 1) regardless of my criticisms of the gaokao system I never said that it was put in place with the express purpose of making students miserable and 2) I'm not calling for the abolishment of the gaokao, I'm calling for a more intelligent use of it. When describing the ACT and SAT to Chinese people, I often call it the "America's gao kao," the difference being that these standardized tests are used in conjunction with a ton of other things rather than the sole criteria. My host brother's experience proves that other factors can be used to reward intelligent students with good universities and 3) monetary resources are different between Western countries and China but I think money can only be a small fraction of the explanation, if a factor at all, for the culture of cheating and indifference that permeates the Chinese education system. I believe that if China were suddenly granted the monetary resources of Western countries, that mindset wouldn't change overnight, over a year, or even a few years. It'd take a long time because it's become an engrained cultural thing.

@Menglan

See what Roddy said. My host brother was in an experimental high school - it literally had the word "experimental" in its name. They did crazy experimental things. Like let the brightest students go straight into great universities based on their 3 year record rather than the gaokao. And let me tell you my host brother is one crazy smart guy. He's getting his PhD in computer science - thesis is on some bizarre networking cloud computing thingy he's working on as part of a team at NanDa.

[gato]

3) monetary resources are different between Western countries and China but I think money can only be a small fraction of the explanation, if a factor at all, for the culture of cheating and indifference that permeates the Chinese education system. I believe that if China were suddenly granted the monetary resources of Western countries, that mindset wouldn't change overnight, over a year, or even a few years. It'd take a long time because it's become an engrained cultural thing.

The cheating, I think, is mostly in "humanities" classes like history and politics (i.e. Communism studies). These subject are so politically-oriented and dry, it's hard not to want to cheat. For math and hard sciences like physics, I think cheating is probably much less prevalent, and much less tolerated.

[ipsi()]

Problem with Math and Physics is they're far more likely to have the 'one right answer'. If you find two essays which are identical, chances are someone's been cheating. EDITED: If you find two people have given the same answer to a math question, you'd be asking yourself "why only two? Was it too hard?"...

Edited October 30, 2008 at 02:57 AM by ipsi()
Clarification

[simonlaing]

Hi Guys,

I taught in a middle school/ Highschool for one year in Suzhou. (It was a private school but this just meant the teachers had less say in anything the principal did or rules he made. Public school teachers can oust the principal if he is too extreme at the end of each year supposedly).

Anyway I wanted to support most of Entropy's statements. At my school for Senior 3 (the last year of high school) everything was dedicated to the Gao Kao. Their Gym classes were canceled. Most of them were forced to become boarding school students going back home only once every 3 months . (Most senior students were every weekend, and most other students every night).

I think if you picked the specialisation there was a an English part to the Gaokao but there was a sense that foreign teachers didn't know how to teach to the test, and thus were only good for marketing reasons.

There was a class invented at the end of the the day for the 6 western teachers to sit around an have an english corner or play games with the kids as this was the time when the parents and other VIPs would come to school to visit.

Students had to struggle to have time to do things they wanted to . My Junior 2 students would eat cold lunch in 5 minutes at the end of the period so they could have 35 minutes to play soccer on the field. There was big sense that girls and boys shouldn't play sports together. Certain students also got in trouble for dating as they were seen taking walks around the grounds holding hands (dating is forbidden in Highschool as it distracts from the gaokao). Some of these were Taiwan Chinese and Korean students who didn't care as much but it was big deal in the school as they risked expulsion. I aided and abetted the romance by inviting the boyfriend and a friend to his girlfriend's birthday party I had in my class.

Other things you should know is that twice a day they whole school does eye exercises to refresh the eyes as even the teachers realize the material is boring.

A couple of the science classes the chinese teacher were trying to teach using english and english books. But this was basically explain things in Chinese and make the students learn the english word for the chinese. (Not really explaining things in english or learning in English. I was there in 2002 this might have changed).

Some thoughts on Cheating. Unlike US Big school classes which you have different subjects with different composition of students. In the Chinese school you are put in a class in Grade 1 and you stay with the same 30-40 students all the way up to Senior 3 at the end of high school. So everyone knows who everyone is and knows they have to get along with them the whole way through school. (There is no running away from the bully or popular clique you will be with them the whole way through High School).

It is this group identity that makes the idea of cheating or helping your classmates or letting you classmate copy your paper normal. Also the teachers usually turn a blind eye to cheating, sometimes even leaving the room in a test. (I think that is definitely asking for people to cheat). The GaoKao test is strictly enforced often done in a big hall with outside proctors.

But even there one of my students in college mentioned that her head teacher convinced her to write down another students id number and take the test for her , (since she was a second year in college if I had revealed this she would have been expelled while probably nothing would have happened to the guilty teacher.) Generally though the GaoKao is so important that there is very little cheating allowed.

Other things there were PE classes twice a week for all but senior 3 students plus 5 minutes of nationalistic aerobics most mornings. (fortunately the westerners didn't have to partake in them.)

Once a year there was an outing to a park. Sometimes used to advertise that the school had foreigners but usually just to have an outing.

Science classes didn't do experiments though sometimes they showed videos of them. There was a computer room and students did have computer class. There was no coporal punishment but mental abuse yelling and writing lines were common punishments. The younger students often wore red pioneer scarves (Communist boy scouts) but took them off by grade 5.

Most of the time the Chinese teachers were annoyed at the principal and admin over stupid penny pinching issues. If you were 5 minutes late to work you were docked 50 yuan if you were 1/2 hour late the teachers lost 1/2 a day's salary evern if they didn't have morning classes.

They cheated me out of half of my plane ticket back to the US. So the next year I went to Nanjing which treated me much better.

I knew a Swedish student who came here for one year in high school. Lonely and placed with bad host parents and school. He had a terrible time. I knew two swiss one's who went an experimental school in Nanjing and did better though they still found it tough.

I hope this helps,

have fun,

Simon:)

P.S. When I have kids they may go to elementary and middle school here but I will definitely send them to high school in Europe or the US.