A Day in the Life of a Chinese High School Student
By Yan Luo / Fall 2019
The school system is established for people to climb. In China, from kindergarten to primary school, from high school to university to graduate school, it seems normal that everyone has to go through the system to achieve what is defined as success by the society. In this “common sense,” however, something is wrong here. If we focus on the test system in high school, we can see three main problems in detail.
To see the problems, let’s start with Chinese high school students’ daily life. We need to be at school before 7:20 am; 10 minutes for turning in homework, and we have reciting from 7:30 to 8:00. We have four classes in the morning and four classes in the afternoon, and the school ends around 6:00 pm. Most students are half-awake in the morning, so taking a nap during turning homework time is usual. During lunch break time from 12:00 to 2:00, some students choose to stay in school so that they can have more time doing homework or take a nap, and I was one of them. I usually studied 30 mins and took a nap for 1 hour, otherwise, I couldn’t concentrate on afternoon classes.
The school schedule looks normal, but when it combines with frequent tests and a great deal of homework, it’s hard for students to take care of both health and study. Every teacher would say that they only expect you to spend 2 hours per day to study on it, but we have six major subjects. Almost every day I was choosing if I need to finish homework first or get enough rest first. The thing is that if you don’t have enough rest, you get lost during class time, which means that you need to spend more time after class to keep up. Students in high school are like spinning tops, and what whips us is the test system. We try our best to keep up with it. We do homework during each 10 mins break and lunch break; we study for tests during less important classes like PE and art, and we sacrifice our sleep, fighting until 2 am (which is really normal for us) to keep up with the test system...
Because students need to keep up with the speed, everyone is in a hurry, which is the first problem with the test system. The result of it is that students care more about how to get a good grade, but not truly comprehend the knowledge. For students whipped by the crazy test system, being effective means to use the least amount of time to get the best grade, but not to study well. What most students learn are “patterns.” Similar questions all have fixed patterns, and because students spend much more time working on examples but not the knowledge itself, it’s easy to find a certain pattern without understanding the internal knowledge of it.
The reason the test system is wrong is because students are not learning. In the article “Teaching to the Test,” Popham asks a question: “If students' scores jump, is it because those students are really able to leap over higher hurdles, or have the students been surreptitiously given stepladders?” Either. Instead of knowledge, we memorize patterns, and instead of comprehending, we practice to memorize. Cutting corners is not because students are being lazy, it’s only because we don’t have time. Like what Henry Giroux says, schools have been “McDonalds-ized as knowledge is increasingly viewed as a commodity resulting in curricula that resemble a fast-food menu.” The test system in high school gives too many tests and too little time to students, so students have developed a way of memorizing patterns to adapt to the test system. The result of the adaptation is useful for frequent tests, but it does not help us survive in society.
To see what the society looks for, let’s take a step at what makes people different from each other. People are different because we use different methods to learn and have different interpretations. What makes everyone unique is the progress of learning, but not how much knowledge we can provide. Most of the knowledge we learn from school will not be used for our life (“when the Tang Dynasty was established” or “how to find the slope of a line” etc.), but the way of thinking that we have developed(from learning all knowledge), can help us solve problems that we may encounter in the future. The point becomes clear if we use a metaphor. Under the test system, students are like dictionaries. How many words one holds depends on how much time one spends on practicing and memorizing. We may know all the words from the dictionary, but without the process of comprehending every word, we cannot make a poem. In the test system, the progress of learning is eliminated, which means that the uniqueness of individuals is removed. The test system deprives the right of everyone being different poets and transforms us to be the same dictionary. In the end, all people will be washed blank by time, like how the words in a dictionary fade overtime.
The society looks for variety. It chooses different people to different fields. If everyone is the same, then how can the society work? Most people go to school for finding a job in the future, and the society has made this test system to do the selection. The selection would fail, because under this test system, everyone is someone, and you cannot choose the one from all someones. The contradiction is that, the result of the test system does not provide the values the society looks for, but the society chooses people from the system. The demand and the supply does not match.
The intensity of the test system does not only come from the scarcity of time of learning, but also comes from the pressure it puts on students. The second problem is the peer pressure. After an exam, a “rank sheet” will be posted, which contains students’ full names, total scores, and their specific scores in parts. Scores are ranked from No.1 to the last one; the highest ten scores are in red, and the lowest ten scores are in shadow. All shame and proud is in that little paper, and everyone could see it. Students either feel so proud or feel stripped off.
The purpose of posting the grades in public is to encourage students to get positive stimulation from other classmates. Now let’s take a look at what really happens. This year on June 7th, the first day of Gaokao, a student in Hebei province jumped from the top of a building because of the pressure. On June 8th, 2016, a girl commited suicide after taking the Chinese Gaokao test (the third subject in Gaokao). According to the research of 886 high school students in 2018, 8.1% students had the intention to suicide; 3.8% students had made plans to suicide, and 1.2% students had actually tired to suicide. The suicide rate of a year is the highest in the period before Gaokao and just after Gaokao. Grade 3 students in high school suffer the most from anxiety and depression than students in Grade 1 and Grade 2 because they are facing Gaokao.
I use the data of suicide rates about Gaokao, because the rank sheet is the most crucial way to represent peer competition, and Gaokao is the last considerably important rank sheet students get in high school. Look how many students collapse in front of Gaokao. If we think deeper behind these horrible numbers, how many students have accumulated the pressure from all kinds of exams and tests all the way to Gaokao? The data only reveals students who cannot take the pressure from Gaokao, but how many students collapse even before it? In China, it is hard to find data about the suicide rate among students in primary schools and middle schools because this topic is too sensitive. What if the suicide rate is even higher among younger students?
If we relate this phenomenon to the test system, we can see the problem more clearly. The quote that “Every snowflake takes responsibility in an avalanche” can explain. Although Gaokao is a bigger piece, other exams that lead to the pressure to accumulate are also to blame. The test system forces students to accumulate the pressure, and assumes them to get “positive stimulation” and overcome it. However, the pressure is much more severe than the test system considered. Students who have low confidence cannot overcome it; students who are sensitive about the grades shown to other people cannot overcome it, and students who are under too much pressure and now have to deal with more pressure from the rank sheet cannot overcome it either. Not all people can get “positive” stimulation from peer competition, and not all people can improve by putting pressure on them. Every time the test system expects students to spin faster, and it whips, it also hurts.
Let’s see why the test system gives this pressure on students and why it does not work. The test system idealizes all students to be tough, confident, and highly pressure capable, and it kicks out students who are not like that, which leads to severe mental health problems or suicide. The test system uses the rank sheet to build a hierarchy, expecting students to climb up, but because of it, people who are on the top are getting higher and higher, and people who are in the middle and on the bottom are getting lower and lower. All students worry about the rank sheet, and no matter which place one is at, there are always people ready to take the place of him. The pressure would follow students all the way through the entire semester.
We may say that all exams build up the snow mountain, but it is because the test system let it be built. As long as the snow mountain is built, it comes one day to an avalanche. McCaskell demonstrates how the economic system falls apart because of neoliberalism in his video “Neoliberalism As Water Balloon,” and it is the same in the test system. The test system gives expectations on students that cannot be satisfied, and keep telling them if you study hard, you success. However, students who cannot take the pressure exploded just like the balloon.
I would like to start the third problem in test system with my own experience. I got a grade that I was satisfied with (not my parents) in Gaokao . I admit that under the test system, I learned how to deal with all the pressure and how to quickly adapt to an environment. I learned how to fight, and how to get used to something that may not make sense to me. I appreciate it that the test system has made a stronger me. The only thing that I cannot let go is, is it really because I think the test system has helped me to some extent, or is it because I cannot prevent it to happen, so I try my best to find something good in it? Or is it because I am forgetting how painful and how tired I explained to my parents that I did try my best during one exam when they were disappointed, so here I am, saying that I am the beneficiary of the test system? Or worse, is it because the test system has changed my mind, and taught me how to accept, and find an excuse to feel better? I doubt.
Here comes the third problem of the test system. The test system values who you are. It keeps pushing you. I did not think about all of it until I was out of the test system. For me, the test system was so perfect and so right as “common sense” at that time, and I blamed all problems on either myself or my parents. I believe there are many people like me, or used to be like me, but as a matter of fact, the test system is the problem. It’s choosing and choosing, eliminating and eliminating, and it makes people who are eliminated feel guilty and worthless of not trying their best.
The contradiction of the test system lies here. The purpose of the test system is to select people, but it does not give people who don’t want to be selected by the society, but only want to be needed by other people a chance to be “right.” The test system links “being successful” to their scores on the rank sheet, and does not allow people with other dreams to be successful. The test system forces students to be loyal to their student character and be score-oriented, but not to be life-oriented.
In conclusion, the test system has three main problems that need to be corrected. It stops students from learning but makes them machines. It gives too much pressure on students, which does not help students learn or be selected by the society, and it leads to severe mental health problems. The test system also limits the definition of success in the rank sheet, and denies people who cannot survive it or people who do not want to be selected by the system.
For people who are in the test system, I want to give some advice. If you are suffering from peer competition or doubting yourself, concentrate more on yourself, compare the grades of yourself but not other people. If you still find it hard to handle the frequent tests, think of it as a take-home homework and you will not be so stressful.
If you’re in the upper-class of the test system hierarchy and have some influence or power on the test system, try to whip the string less harshly and make it slower. Although problems are grave, please be positive and hopeful of it. The more upper-class people can see these problems in the test system, the more chance that it can be better. The test system has its advantages, and how to make it more proper and more student-oriented is what you can do.
For people in my generation, no matter if you are suffering or doing okay yourselves, we need to take it as our responsibility. This is our country and we are part of it. If the young generation does not have the desire to change and improve our country, the future of the country is not bright. The test system only teaches students how to adapt and how to follow, but it does not provide students with the free thinking of changing and unfollowing, and it is killing the hope of a country. If you see my words, and if you also think that there is room to be corrected in the test system, let us make a change.
Works Cited
Yang, Min; Chen, Angang. “The Analysis of Suicide Phenomena among Students in High Schools,” sohu.com, June 13th, 2018, Web, Dec. 12th, 2019.
Lee, Xinling, “Data of Suicided Students in Primary Schools and Middle Schools Should Not Be a Taboo in Research Area,” people.cn, May. 30th, 2014, Web, Dec. 12th, 2019.
Popham, W. James, “Teaching to the test.” {Helping All Students to Achieve} ,Educational Leadership, Volume 58, Number 6, P16-20, Mar. 2001.
Giroux, Henry, “The Language of Neoliberal Education,” counterpunch.org, Dec. 15th, 2018, Web, Dec. 12th, 2019.
McCksell, Tom, “Neoliberalism As Water Balloon,”vimeo.com, 2009, Web, Dec. 12th, 2019.