A Day in the Life of PING: One Chinese Student’s Story—Part One

In honor of the current Lunar New Year, MOTAL hopes you will find the following insights about Chinese education interesting. This article is based on information detailed in Two Roads, One Journey, the MOTAL exhibition that features a day in the life of Ping (in China) and Sam (in the U.S.). They are fourth graders who live in mid-sized cities, attend middle-of-the-road, similar-sized schools, and are good students. The story below shines the spotlight on Ping, and it will take readers through the first half of a school day.

Ping gets up at 6:30 am in her family’s fifth floor apartment. Ping is an only child and lives with her parents who are what we would call middle-class if this were the U.S. Her mother works as a professor and her father is a businessman. Everyone in China is on the same time zone with Beijing even though, technically, the country covers 5 time zones. Across the nation (about the same size as the United States), everyone is getting ready for school or work together at the same time—400 million schoolchildren in a nation of 1.4 billion people. The U.S. has about 55 million in a nation of 332 million.


Ping puts on her school uniform, typical for most students in China’s urban schools. The jacket keeps her warm, for in her part of China (below the 33rd parallel of latitude), schools and homes do not have central heating. Her family’s apartment is heated by a small space heater. She must not forget to put on her bright red Young Pioneer Scarf. These red scarves are worn by elementary school children across the nation. If she gets to school without it, she can purchase a substitute scarf at a stall near her school.

Note: Young Pioneers, for ages 6 to 14, began in 1949, stalled in 1966, and restarted after Mao era ended in Oct 1978. Students pledge to love the Communist Party of China and honor the motherland and the people as well as keep themselves fit through exercise.
 
Time for breakfast. Today it’s congee (rice porridge) an egg (boiled), an apple (whole), and a glass of milk (soy). Some days it might be a steamed bun filled with meat and a banana with milk. It would never be cold, boxed cereal.


Ping fills her backpack and it gets heavy (10 to 12 pounds), not because the individual books are heavy but from SO MANY books—texts and practice workbooks—even though each paperback book is quite slim, much like a young child’s paperback picture book in the U.S. Our U.S. textbooks are like almost as heavy as a coffee table book.


In addition to her books:

• A fountain pen
• white correction tape, for writing of characters must be perfect
• 2 pencils with no erasers
• 5 (yes) math tools for math
• A good art eraser (not the pink Pearl so common in the U.S.)
• A glue stick

Mother and daughter walk down many stairs from the fifth floor, for Chinese apartment buildings have no elevator unless there are eight or more floors. Then Ping rides to school on the back of an electric bicycle behind her mother. Where once the streets were crowded by bicycles only, cars and other motorized vehicles have taken over. In some cities large Buick SUVs are particularly popular.


Once Ping gets to her school at 7:30, she says good morning to the supervising teacher and then stands around on the asphalt playground to talk with friends. Some of her classmates spend this time working with a math tutor who earns extra pay.


When the buzzer sounds at 8:00, Ping climbs to her classroom on the third floor where she stays all day for almost all her classes. She will eat lunch there as well. The only time she goes outside is for exercise and Physical Education, for she is not one of the children who goes home for lunch with grandparents. For each subject, a different teacher comes to their room.


At first, the class is under the direction of a special teacher called the Banzhuren, who takes care of non-instructional tasks like attendance, collecting money and notes, and responding to parents about conduct and reminding students about a variety of things. It is an honor to be a Banzhuren and each one earns substantial extra pay.
Then, at 8:10 the first class, Chinese, begins. It is the first of two 40-minute periods of Chinese lessons each day. The teacher waits outside until the class is settled. Then she strides in announcing “Class has now begun.” The student leader directs her fellow students to stand and they all say, “Good Morning, Teacher.” And she says, “Good morning, you may be seated.” Every 40-minute class all day long begins with this ritual, so it happens at least 6 times a day!


During Chinese class, students practice reading. They are at wooden desks, sitting two by two and the teacher is at the front of the room—which is almost always. Students read aloud individually and then read aloud in unison with the entire class. In contrast, silent reading typical in U.S. fourth grade classes. The Chinese students must also study poetry—classical poetry, especially from the Tang Dynasty. By ninth grade, each student must memorize 240 poems, ready to recite. The pressure is on!


At 8:50 a ten-minute break is just long enough to go the bathroom and talk with friends. Absolutely NO bathroom permissions are granted during class. For that matter, no loudspeaker announcements or other interruptions are permitted.


9:00 Math. This time the teacher waiting by the door is a male. “Class has now begun!” He teaches math and only math, for teachers do NOT teach multiple subjects. Even in the elementary grades, all are single subject teachers, similar to our junior high and high school teachers. Also, each person teaches one subject for only three classes a day instead of many periods (6 or 7) or teaching many subjects the way our multiple subject teachers do. American elementary teachers are responsible for Reading, Language Arts (writing, grammar), Math, Social Studies, Science, PE, Health, and Art—seven or eight subjects.
Teachers’ desks are clustered in offices, usually by subject, where they work and discuss lessons with each other. When they are not teaching, they are perfecting their lessons and are expected to observe one another to provide peer critique. There is enough time to call or email parents and correct student papers. Teachers in China do not carry heavy bags of homework home. Homework is for students. Educators from China visit U.S. schools frequently and common comments indicate that they feel sorry for American teachers: “Too much work! So many responsibilities!”


Math class moves rapidly. No calculators allowed. Students are expected to memorize formulas and do calculations in their heads. When the teacher calls on students, each must stand to answer and sit down only when the teacher says to. Right answers are expected, and wrong answers often receive a rebuke and an order to sit down. Students do not ask questions. The teacher is the one who asks questions. Hard work, repetition, and memorization are expected. Our student, Ping, confided that she thinks their homework problems repeat a lot.


9:40 Ping’s class goes out for schoolwide exercises. They are conducted out on the sports area. The group exercises include stretching, bending, and calisthenics today, all together in unison. Some days students jog or are allowed to play games.


10:00 Fine Arts – Today the students are studying painting. The topic is how paint old buildings with emphasis on the tile roofs. Observation and precision, skill and mastery are expected over creativity. It is part of ongoing expectation for each student: Hard work, repetition, and memorization. The teacher does move around the room in order to hold up students’ paintings, indicating those that are successful . . . and those that are not.

10:40 Another short break! Ping and a friend decide to play a short game in the hallway outside their room


10:50 English – Ping started learning English in third grade but now more and more schools are starting English learning in the first grade. They use a textbook and a workbook. Every class has a workbook. Conversations are actually from the book and are memorized and repeated.


11:30 Time for lunch.


So ends a busy morning for Ping, a student in China. MOTAL is glad to have offered insights about Chinese education through her story. Just as schools vary throughout cities in the United States, schools in China do have unique characteristics. Nevertheless, Ping’s story can give you an accurate gist of what goes on. An article about the afternoon’s classes and activities will be revealed in Part Two at another time.


References:
Fast Facts: Back-to-school statistics (372)
Education in China | Key Facts & Statistics by China Mike
 
Submitted by Greta Nagel, PhD
with thanks to Nancy Pine, PhD Lead Scholar for Two Roads, One Journey