In China there’s a lot in the face of the College Entrance Examination. I’m in Beijing, which is much, much better than the rest of the country but it’s still streessful. My school starts at 7:30, is over at 17:30, but most of us attend night study until 21:30 or 22:30. Most of the day is spent in academic classes, workloads are heavy, and we have exams constantly, results of which are often taken seriously. Many of my classmates are anxious and some of them lack of sleep.
I’ve heard my cousin in the US is even busier than me, but not all of her time are devoted in academic affairs and probably there’s less mental pressure.
Another cousin of mine in Taiwan, who is one of the best in his city, still seems less stressful than us in Beijing. (which means he is immensely less streessful than the rest of China)
​
What’s the life of a common/outstanding high school student like? Daily routines? Common activities? States of minds?
Are there much pressure (from self, family or society)? What are their worries (if there’s a shared one)?
10 comments
There’s more pressure than 30 years ago, but definitely not that much pressure at all. Your high school grades determine what you can study to a large degree, although there’s tons of leeway around this: you can take the subjects again, you can try to get into a field of study not based on grades alone (which most do) but rather a personal interview and sometimes a test, some universities offer the same subject of study but one is easier to get into, etc etc.
The Chinese education system is seen as kind of scary with how much pressure there is for most Danes. I remember as a kid a teacher told us something like, “this is how it is in China, don’t be ungrateful for what you have now!” and us kids were so fascinated haha.
Anyway, I’m a high school (whatever you want to call it, the education system is kind of complex) student right now. School usually ends at 15, sometimes 16, but a lot of the time 13 – it’s super flexible. Plenty of times there’ll only be two lessons or even just one in an entire day. Yes there’s some homework, yes there’s tests, but not nearly like you’re describing. There is something called “homework cafe” at most schools where you can get help with your work, but 99% of people don’t attend regularly. I think I’ve used it once or twice and I’m graduating this year, and I think that’s pretty average. Most days I don’t do any homework, others I do maybe three hours, or one hour, or 20 minutes. If I *really* did all my homework (which few Danish students do), it would be two hours a day, maybe, with some days off still.
Most Danish high school students party a lot, hang out with friends, play sports and other hobbies and have part time work in cafes and the like.
The amount of pressure put on Chinese students is unimaginable for an average European student. Sure, we get some pressure but having night study until 22:30 is not the norm and forcing a kid to study so much would be seen as toxic parenting. At least in my country, kids attend afternoon clubs because they enjoy them, and those are things like drama or musical instrument) but that’s not everyone and plenty of kids enjoy some time off after school. I think if you tried to force high school students to study every day, from morning to night, they would rebel. Having time off and spending it with your friends or on your hobbies is kind of important.
To give you an example, I went to a really good high school. I started school at 8, finished at 14. I had an afternoon club for 1-2 hours (swimming or drama) and the rest was my time off. When it comes to studying, there were days when I didn’t have to do anything and had time off and there were days when I studies for 1-3 hours depending on what was going on at school at the time. I still had time to sit down and relax, watch some tv or meet with friends.
When it comes to family pressure, it really depends on family. While expectation of decent grades is common, the amount of pressure to be the best is nowhere near Chinese level of expectation. Many parents are perfectly fine with their kids having average grades and going to average university (or not at all) because what matters is kid’s happiness. Of course, we have toxic parents who are overly ambitious but they’re not the majority and it’s not a cultural phenomenon.
​
I can’t speak for other countries but in mine, apart from normal high school, you have vocational schools for those who aren’t academically inclined and they teach you things like carpentry or bakery with the small addition of academic hours. And even when you go to traditional high school, they will vary in how good they are and how much study students need to do. But even in the best of the best high schools, students don’t work as much as Chinese students do. It’s more about efficient study rather than memorization of everything.
No definently not. I barely did any homework in high school, only the bare minimum required. It’s not recommended but I was definently not the only one. Your high school diploma matters only if you have high grades. If your grades are low, you could take an entrance exam for university. That is the route I took as do many others. Nowadays the quotas for entrance exam and for high school diploma have changed more in favor of diploma so students are under pressure more but the entrance exam route still exists.
Compared to China, schools in Scotland are like a holiday, or a dream or whatever. High school for me was 0855-1545, with very limited homework. Some teachers did offer an extra hour or so at the end of the day to help people in the later years of school but I never took them up on it. There are low level exams/assessments throughout the school year, but most of them are just pass/fail, your grade is usually determined by a final exam (some subjects are different though).
This is based on the state school system of the early/mid 2000s, private schools will probably be different.
Pressure varies from person to person/family to family. Some parents will put their children under an obscene level of pressure, others are happy as long as their children are happy. I knew some people who really struggled with the stress, having full on breakdowns, but most people didn’t mind as much.
I finished highschool about ten years ago.. I knew I was gonna go study physics, which doesn’t have filled available spots, so there is no entry requirement for grades, only that you finish highschool or equivalent middle school.
There is some pressure for people who want to go study medicine, law, psychology etc, because those are popular, but it’s still just regular school from 8:00 to about 14:00 or 15:00. Then it’s up to you, how much you study at home or at libraries
It’s stressful if you are struggling in school or want to study something that is very popular, so you need good grades. Otherwise it’s pretty chill imo. Universities are publicly funded so there is no pressure for scholarships. The real struggle is deciding what you want to go study.
I will say no. There is a nation level exam in several subjects and students study for it, but I cant say there is overall pressure. In the end, usually most people get in college. Only top few occupations get competitive (medicine, law, pharmacy…)
Not really, it depends on the school and the parents mostly. There is no systemic pressure on high school students tho. There aren’t constant exams or tests, not all results are taken seriously. Very few students lack sleep because of school. The pressure has started to increase tho, because more effort is put on students having to do a lot more work themselves in High school. That students have to seek out information themselves and what not which is also the reason we’ve done worse in PISA these past decades.
My high school always started at 8:20 in the morning unless you had no class in the morning then you got to sleep in. The day usually ended around 14:00 only one day was longer to like 15:30. Depending on the courses you had for the year you might even get to go home before lunch. There is no thing as “night study” but there was after school help from around 15:00-16:30 2 days a week if you wanted to or had to because you failed a test.
I went to a private boarding school in Ireland, school ran from 09:00-16:30, then extra-curricular and dinner until 18:00, then study hall from 18:00-21:00.
I had nightmares about the final exams until my late 20’s…but I did get into a top 100 university, so the pressure I felt was probably higher than the average, but it was all pressure I put on myself.
No. I’ve met my fair share of Chinese people through exchange programs, both in China and in Norway, and I have never met anyone in my life whose lives were even remotely as centred around studies and work as them. They came across as very boring people for that reason.
I graduated from high school quite a few years ago now, and then went to university to study law. I spent very little time on studies either in high school or in university — no more than I had to, which during my university years meant almost nothing before an exam was a couple of weeks away.
There was no external pressure on me, neither for what I was going to do or how well I was going to do it. The pressure is what you make of it yourself.
Here in France, when I was in High school, my days started at 8 am and finished between 16:30 and 18:00. School days are considered long here compared to other European countries from what I’ve heard from my foreign friends. But appart from long school days, I personally didn’t feel a lot of pressure (especially compared to university now), sure there were tests and mock exams which did stress me out, but for example we would almost always have time to hang out after school or during lunch breaks which in my school at least were quite long. And to finish, our final exam (the Baccalauréat) is kind of difficult, but nowhere near impossible (average pass rate is between 89%-96% depending on the year). So no, I would say that school in China is much morr stressful and it definitely seems like there is a lot more pressure put on chinese students than French students.