Class this morning went well. I taught about the education system and we had a debate on affirmative action and vouchers and standardized tests. I told my students I got a higher SAT score than George Bush and they all thought that was funny. In China everything is based on exams, so I explained to them the different process that Americans go through to go to University. Not only SAT’s, but grades and recommendations and activities and essays and sometimes interviews all make a difference. They were all shocked.

Here is a little of what I learned about the Chinese education system or just student life in general from my students:
In a Chinese University, eight students live in one very small dorm room. They cannot choose their roommates, and they have them for all four years. Two of my Junior students have lived together for three years but never talk because they hate each other. The rooms have no air-condition or heating. During the winter icicles form on the windows and during the summer the mosquitoes and amount of people in each room make the heat unbearable. The students have a curfew and the electricity goes off at 11:30.

They study all day after 30 hours of class a week. The first two years of school they have to wake up before classes and run and the first month of school Freshmen year they have to undergo military training. My students were puzzled because if the USA is supposed to be the most powerful country in the world, the different lifestyles of students does not make sense to them (the lack of work we do in schools). Also, when I told them how much schools could cost in the US, everyone was very shocked and gasped. And yet most American students spend so much of their college lives not working very hard like the Chinese even though it is costing them a fortune.