Chinese Schools VS. U.S. Schools Part 2 Universities and Discipline 

I personally believe that we should follow the Finnish!! They are in school for less hours per day, and there are no gradings, but they score the highest in the world. Why can't we copy their system??! Oh oh, and their schools are free. Oh oh, and they are one of the happiest people.

中考 is the one you take to go from middle school to high school, 高考 is the one you take to go from high school to college. There is no 大考. And if you want to know more terms, 小升初 is the one from elementary school to middle school, but this is not as big as the other two.

That part about being more able to learn about China outside of China is very true. The current Chinese government has many restrictions for political reasons.

Having spent 16 years in Chinese education system. Now i come out and look back, it really sucks and wasted much of my precious youth time.

My school got exchange students from China a few weeks ago, they've went back already but now I see how weird it must have been for them! It's way different than over there. I was also talking to a few kids from there and they said their favorite part about America was the sky/air. Apparently in China it's so polluted you can't even see the sky..

Hearing you guys speak about chinese schools brings back so many memories! I have done primary school in china but I can totally relate! Good times!

There's no such Dakao thing in China. Gaokao is the standardized test that can send you to colleges or universities, and at the mean time, Zhongkao is the test between middle school and high school.

I'm asian and I experienced different system of education too. all systems has pros and cons of course. we can't deny that. But the thing that most outsiders see as ridiculous in Asia system which is the strictness or discipline, is what I'm grateful for :) the bonding with classmates too

I worked with the English Learning Center at my university where we had a veeery large population of students from China. At the start of every year we had to give them a lesson about bribery and inappropriate gift giving, because apparently in Chinese universities it is very common to buy your teachers very expensive gifts with the expectation that they'll boost your grade, and every year without fail, some students would attempt that while here in the US.

i'm from Brazil (but living in the U.S. right now) and i definitely have to agree with the homeroom thing. i found that u get to bond with ur classmates much more than in the american school system. one semester i might be close to some people and the next semester i'll be close to other people. u get to meet more people, but know less people than in the Brazilian/Chinese school system

I wouldn't say that people can "take their time" to figure out a major and pathway in universities in the U.S. Universities may say that, but there is already that underlying pressure to have a major and career pathway from the start of college, or soon after. If one goes to a university and has no idea of a major, you'd better pick real quick since there are usually course pre-requisites that take time for a major and general university requirements. If you wait until the last possible moment to choose your major, you will probably end up needing to stay an extra year at a university. =\

My junior high homeroom class still have reunions at least once every year - it's been 10 years! Over half of my classmates are now in the US, Canada, or Australia, and the rest stay in China mostly in Beijing or Shanghai. We try to organize reunions whenever any of us goes back to China to visit. Sometimes we invite teachers too. It was a nice memory :)

This sounds like my elementary experience in the Philippines. Except that part where two very important tests decide your future. As long as you have the grades, (and money), you can go to any school that you want to go to.

... I kind of like American schooling now

learned a lot....I spent five months in Shenyang, China and it sparked my interest in learning about the Chinese school system

i really agree with the bonding part. When i went to school in China, the classmates in our homeroom were all sooo close with each other. Everyone knew each other so well because not only do you stay in the same class during the whole day and school year but usually throughout let's say elementary school. I stayed with the same group of kids for the 4 years of elementary school I went to and they became my closest friends. That's the one thing I enjoyed lol

this make me realize something, in my experience during high school at CA/USA; I think the most strict teachers were actually asian woman; those teachers reminded me of my mom when they were yelling at there students for a reason. but I like them

I want part 3 so bad,I really love to hear you guys talk about all this interesting things that are unknown to non-asian people like me. This is better than any show on tv.

One thing I was hoping to hear about: I have heard from other American college educators that they have had difficulty with Chinese students (students who have come from China) because the Chinese students that they have had don't understand that plagiarism is wrong, their thought being that if an idea is right, who cares if it's an original idea or not, whereas the American educators have an opposing viewpoint, that a student should take other people's ideas and synthesize them into the student's own personal ideas. I have no idea if this is a correct assessment of Chinese students or not.

Schools in China are not like that now. They actually change a lot.

Great 2nd part. I hope there's a 3rd part talking about History on this topic.

I really enjoy watching your videos and learning about Asian, specially chinese, culture. I totally agree with the your opinions that the severe methods in school are not as productive as they wish they were and honestly something is gotta change because all those kids are going through a very rough time!

So informative! I've always wondered about this. Thank you all for sharing :]

i'm a canadian/carribean lady i honestly find your culture fascinating always have your channel is awesome i can listen to this insightful information all day

I found this video and the last so interesting! Thanks for this.

I had a Chinese algebra teacher who was super strict and followed basically everything mentioned in these videos minus the hitting parts and she encouraged us to go to the schools tutoring center after school and study and gave us aloooott of hw, and when a student misbehaved she would give those shaming talks (a little watered down) and honestly she's my favorite teacher I LOVE MS LIN

Love you guys's videos loads! I can totally relate to it because I did my schooling up until University in China and I know exactly what you are talking about. I am now doing my uni in Australia and from time to time, I look back to my life in school, I really feel "We are in the same homeroom and we are so bonded to each other" XD. Thumbs up for you guys and please keep making these awesome videos!

If you want to become a lawyer, study law. If you want to become a cook, study cooking. If you want to become rich, study rich people and money. Attitude should be taught in school as a subject, because it is your attitude that determines what grades you get.

WOW! We, Americans, hear stories about Chinese education and schools but it was really great to get some info from people with some experience both inside and outside the Chinese system. Very interesting and thoughtful comments. You three make a great team and this is an example of the absolute best of what sharing online is all about. Thank you very much.

Really agree with u guys on the Chinese education system. I use to study in America for 1 year, China for 10 years, and now I'm currently studying in Australia (University). I really feel I have a closer relationship with my teachers in China comparing to the teachers in either the U.S. Or in Australia . There one thing tho...We usually call the two major exams zhong Kao中考(middle to high school) and gao Kao高考(high school to uni). Maybe it's called differently in where u studied? Anyways, I'm really glad I studied in the us, China, and Australia. Studying in these different environments really helps you bring out ur personality. Hope u guys can make more videos related to this one. Thanks!

Awesome video. I love these types of videos and Yi was super interesting. I would like to hear more about her experiences in Chinese schools as well as more about those homeroom rivalries.

I went up to 2nd grade in China, and I don't remember teachers ever disciplining students:/ and my school hours ended at 5. I think every province might have a slightly different system..

Great video! Let me realize I was viewing so much of my childhood in China through now the acquired Canadian lens. And living at these different places were just different, and had very different ways of dealing with things. Thanks for clarity. Keep the videos coming!

same here in India. There are thousands of engineers graduating from IIT(Indian Institute of Technology) who are either jobless or are small gears in a big company.

In the Philippines the home room thing is similar but instead of the teachers moving its the whole class that moves from classroom to classroom.

Here's my question: which part of China did you guys go to school in?

I am Vietnamese-born Chinese and I live in the US for 22 years. I pretty much went to school in the US since the end of 4th grade till finishing college. I can tell you that kids in the US (especially high school) are more spoiled than kids in Asia. As for crime rate, you guys should look more into it. One of my professors from college told me that there are 4 times more people in jail in the US than in China. And in fact, I hear shootings on news literally almost every week in the US, and sometimes homicide news are not reported publicly and only available within a district.

Loved your video!!! It was insightful and enjoyable to watch....thank you!.

It's also the same in the Philippines.. I went to school both in the Phil. And the US.. They have the midterm and finals but we call it "periodical exams" and they have these college entrance exams where the students are accepted based on their scores, and homeroom rivalries are too strong especially when the teachers start comparing between homerooms lmao

3:45 literally that's what my dad did: go to qin hua university and then the US. I'm so grateful, watching this video and the previous part.

Sure the government in China can be harsh same with the systems for school and stuff can be harsh, but think about it, Most of our stuff in America is from China and many other places import things from China. People in America complain about stuff made in China, but if China decided the stop exporting stuff to us and collected all of our debt, America would crash and burn, because America is feeding of of China. So my point is that, ya the government and systems in China can be harsh and have flaws, but China is ver important today and to America. And China is very cool and interesting place.

Great video guys! greetings from Chile!

Thank you guys did this awesome video to describe some part of important education system in China,this is the thing that I really care about.

Singapore is basically the mix of these systems which i really like the homeroom class, ppl really bond

I gained a lot of insight from this video. Thank you! ^^

Very interesting information! My Chinese friend was telling me about this. Thank you!

YESSSS I SOO agree that you don't know what to do when you get out of US college. It's only after you start to find your way

I live in England and we have a similar principle about the homeroom situation, the teacher doesn't come to us but we'll have the same people in every single class unless they are not achieving and they'll move down a group (up as well but in my situation I can only go down). So I consider myself to have a strong bond with my class mates because I've known them all for 4 years now.

Awesome guys. keep it up!

its a huge topic well done guys as usual-

The audio on this video is poor.

great and informative video!! Thanks

Singapore is the same. Here you don't get to choose your path or career and work toward it. Instead, you try to get the best score possible and your future study and career is based on what score you get.

Wow its unbelievable how closely your descriptions of chinese schooling resembled mine in the Philippines. I went to school there from Kinder to 1st year high school. The differences?Yes Teachers there could hit you to discipline you. In at 7:30 am out at 5:30 pm 1 hour for lunch. 30 min for the afternoon break or morning depending on the school. I also found it weird here when I moved to the U.S. that all they did was pledge allegiance to the flag after assembling inside what they called "homeroom". In the PI, we actually had to do that and sing our national anthem when we assembled in the morning. Also had to do calisthenics for 20 min before our 1st class. In U.S. Highschool, students roamed the halls switching from class room to class room. In the PI its the teachers that had to switch rooms. Students stay put in their Homeroom. We only interacted with other home rooms during gym class or recess ( 30 min break to play or what ever this extended into Highschool also). Also in Highschool in the PI we didn't get to pick our subjects. Did you guys have to clean your classroom as well? We had alternate days in a week when certain rows were assigned to clean the room.

This was super interesting, thank you! I live and grew up in southern Europe and it's fascinating to see how school here has characteristics similar to both systems. For example, school where I live focuses mostly on education and much, much less on sports and clubs -- I feel like the interest in "extracurriculars" is a typically American thing, although I may be wrong. On the other hand, we definitely have fewer hours than Chinese schools as you describe them, and the rules are probably much less strict. (Then again, we didn't even have dress codes, so maybe even less strict than U.S. schools in some respects?) Also, we stayed in the same classroom all the time too! It definitely makes for a very different social experience than the one kids in American schools seem to have.

I have always wanted a homeroom like the ones in Asian schools where the teachers rotate but my homeroom from middle to high school was basically used to organize papers. everyone went to home room 4 times a year and it only lasted 15 minutes. everyone went to homeroom to receive schedules and report cards. In high school, everyone just awkwardly sat there playing on their phones since it had all 4 grade levels in one classroom.

Loved this episode! I went to a local Chinese school for a while and they had strict rules about how you are supposed to sit in class-.- It was absolutely ridiculous.

So much has changed. And education varies from place to place greatly.

This is really interesting! I’m reading a manhua called 19 Days by Old Xian and I wanted to know more about the Chinese school system because the story is based around school. Now I see why, lol.

Even though I'm turkish living in Europe/Germany this topic caught my attention, it's so interesting to hear your experiences in chinese schools (: I have to say I saw some similarities between turkish and chinese schools especially the dicipline part. Awesome video, take care!

Hahaha it is so interesting to hear all of these things that I can relate 100%. I moved to the U. S when I was 16, and I've experienced most of these, except the voluntary study sessions and never really prepared for gaokao. But the feeling of being there is surly different than staying here. I often miss China too. Good to watch your guys videos! Btw I found Yi and I look almost like twins hahaha😝

There are Chinese exchange students in my high school. Some that just graduated this year. Yes they may have more opportunities but they, from what I have seen, study around the clock. I hosted one girl that studied through lunch period instead of eating with friends and stayed in her room studying (and using Facebook) most of the time. Because of this constant studying, they are tired most of the time, though they come at the top of their class.

A chinese friend of mine told me that education in there is important. and that here in america is easier for them except when its english ( some of them dont understand english that well thats why ) ... I wish i could go to China and go to school in there even tho its hard. i would love to challenge myself in there 😭😭

Yayy new upload :)

also there are higher standards for 高考 if you are not from huge cities like beijing or shanghai... which means that people living in peripheral areas have to receive more points than others in order to go to college...

In Germany we spent five years with the same class and it never rotated. So that was a long time to bond with your classmates^^ So I spent like 9years in the same class as some of my best friends…

as a chinese american kid growing up in the us and hearing about all these chinese schooling stories, this is highly entertaining

Wow guys,you have opened my eyes

I was one of those kids who were plagued with the hardship of Chinese schooling when I grew up, until I later went overseas after gaokao. In retrospective thought , those years were truly tough, especially after I gained insight into the "lightness " of western schooling with comparison to the Chinese schooling. For one thing, I am very grateful for the toughness that my Chinese schooling experience had conditioned me; for another , I acknowledge that I am indeed not so grown as a person compared to my westerner counterparts. And life in western society has been a relentless catching up for me to train myself to be a more well-rounded person. Above all, after initially resented my past tortuous Chinese education, I now come to appreciate it, for it afford me a uniquely position to be able to view both Chinese and western culture from an outsider's point of view and see things clearer. :) just there is still a long way for me to overcome the language barriers to fully experience western culture.

Loved this video! Can you guys talk about those rivalries and social interactions in the Chinese school system, like how you make friends and how its different than in america, how you make friends??? :)

OMG those two videos are gold. Although I was born and raised in Spain, I have suffered the pressure that chinese parents, families and teacher gave me. Actually rn I'm at that point in my life that I feel so average, nothing special and like, I'm gonna hava a shitty job. Just because like, I didn't went to Harvard or something. Those vid really kinda changed my perspective. Good stuff!!

0:54 Correction: Gaokao is not the high school entrance test, it's university entrance test, Dakao is a generic term for important exams like midterms and finals. Zhongkao is actually the high school entrance test.

for me ...it depend on what type of school you went to. we have public charter and private school. I went to a public school til the end of elementary school, went to a charter school(college prep) and it started from 7:18-5 and if you wanted to do sport you can or study...and once it was my 2nd year of high school I went back to public and it was so different...but it actually influence me so much that I did slack of and some credit from my freshman year didn't count so I had to take extra classes and did grad lab (online classes) and I some how graduated within 3 years... but I'm saying that it depend where you live and what type of school you went to

In the Philippines,, especially if you are in a private school, you go to school at 7:00 am for flag ceremony, announcements and etc. then at around 8:00 am classes would start then we have two, 30 mins break then our classes ends at 4:00 pm, when you reach 3rd and 4th year HS or 9th and 10th grade, you'll need to have an additional class, Trigo and Journ in our case, then after that, you need to clean the room, and after that you need to go to to your CAT class, which ends at around 6:00pm, then every other week, we have club meetings and some extracurricular activities which ends at around 7:00 pm depending on your club activities. teh t

I didn't realize how "unconventional" my Chinese high school experience was until I left China. I went to a public high school in Beijing in the late 90s. Even though school was tough and had VERY long hours, we had proper arts and music classes, school bands, soccer and basketball teams (class based and school based), dances, fairs, clubs, field trips, radio, newspaper and TV station ran by the students, and even a student committee that was nominated and voted by all students every year (with campaigns and everything)!

Why is it Dakao XD literarily the funniest thing I heard our tests were called ZHOUKAO...and the periodic exams were called YUEKAO(monthly test)

How does college work in the U.S. ? Do you select your courses or do you select subjects? For Polytechnics and ITE we select by courses such as tourism, product designs etc while Junior College selects a series of subjects such as different levels of chemistry and geography and stuffs. So how does the system works?

I live in Beijing, while the hours of school are true for the older kids, the younger ones have a lot to do outside of school. The elementary kids have dance class, drawing class, singing class, they play one (a lot of times more than one) instruments, art class, english class, on top of their school and at least 5-7 hours of homework. And a lot of them take all of these classes at once.

Not Asian but loving your videos, the struggle when it comes to school is real!

Fuuuuuck!! that was really fascinating and eye opening! i see the world in a new light! :oo

If you didn't do well in Elementary, you probably won't go into a good middle school. If you didn't go to a good middle school, the chances of you having good scores and going into a good high school is way lower than a good middle school. If you didn't go to a good high school, there is barely any chances that you will get into good college because colleges take more students in the cities' good high schools than normal or high schools in small cities.

Homerooms! In my county we have them too, and it's something I loved about school. c:

my parents were born in China and they admit some of this is true. but they went to different schools so... also, I know someone who went to a bad Chinese college but is now really successful and has a big house in America. I am really glad my parents moved to America

for me in asia especially china korea n such the schools have a really strict rules. thats what i love about asian schools. american high schools have a really weak (?) rules. a discipline that was created when u r studying in a asian school actually make u grow as a person. no offense but i am an asian too but sometimes i reaaallly hate my school, but from the strictness, i will learn who to respect the older one n work hard for something that i want too. for me american schools r so much "fun". u can have boyfriends/bring phone to school/bring makeup/ and the schools end so quickk.this freedom actually make a lot of students in american stumble.. but tbh i love asian school MORE than american... (tbh i hate all kind of school) n pls ignore my weird english

Btw, there's no such thing as "Dakao". Gaokao is the one for entering the college

This is so interesting, I wish there was a part 3! From watching anime and korean dramas I've gotten to see a bit of how schools in asian countries work, but I wasn't sure how accurate it was. It still really interested me though, since it is a lot different than American schools. Teachers seem to be very involved in students lives, and they have actual relationships with the students. In America the teachers are there simply to teach the subject, that's it. In asian schools they seem to have a lot more responsibilities, like, it seems like they are responsible for teaching students to become good people and keeping them in line and stuff like that. And even outside of school, it's not like in America where once school is out of session, it doesn't matter if you're a teacher, in Asian countries it's like you're a teacher and you have to watch over your students 24/7. And it seems like the bonds between students are a lot different as well. Because of the homerooms and how you are spending so much time together with the same people, you are connected to them. It doesn't matter if you like them or not, there's some sort of bond there. In America, if you don't like the kids in your class, you just ignore them and find friends elsewhere. They mean nothing to you. And it definitely seems like school is basically your entire life in Asian countries. Even when school is not in session, you're still just a student, and everyone knows it and will treat you differently then an actual human being who has freedom. It's like, you're a student, so you must always be doing things related to school. It's kinda hard to explain what I mean by this. It's like, you're always wearing your uniform, even when you have free time and can technically do whatever you want with it, people will always want to tell you what to do and expect you to simply do things students do, and nothing else. haha its hard to explain. But yeah, I could be wrong about a lot of this since this is just what I've interpreted based on my observations. I just think it's very interesting, that's all.

you said that your parents made you go to china and you ended up liking it.. would you do the same for your kids? send them to china in high school?

Audio is a little messed up ? On this one does anyone else think

Discipline is such a big thing, I personally think so. Since American schools don't really exercise a lot of discipline, kids are all rampant and blah blah blah, rebellious, bullies, etc. But, from my experience in an Asian school, bullies, rebellious kids were non-existent. There are still kids who goof around and get punished by the teacher, but it really trains them to become such nice kids. It's okay to cry over not solving a single math question, we understand that you are being publicly shamed by standing with your arms up with books on it. We understand the pain and pressure! So it's really awesome how, at least some, schools have exercise discipline that makes their students a good person for their future. It's also great how being exposed to pressure and discipline prepares you for high school and college where it gets harder unlike where I live (Canada), they're just like, "okay, elementary, whatever," but then high school "OMYGOODNESS I've never been exposed to such pressure!" I can also really relate about the strict teachers thing. There was time when my teacher threw chalk at me and my classmates had even been shamed by the teacher yelling right in front of them, but at my old school in Asia, it was easily overlooked in the future because my classmates could relate.

some part of what they are saying is how it is in Haiti and I'm Haitian so I know how they discipline kids there which is the same as Chinese schools

The sound is odd in this video, is there a way to fix it?

I NEED HELP! I'm planning to make a student exange in translation studies for six months in Xingtai Polytechnic College, but I don't really know how the educational system is besides from what I've heard (in this videos, for example) Do you think it is a good idea? I really want to get involved into the Chinese culture, but I too want my academic experience to be very outstanding as well.

Love it!

So basically the Gaokao and Dakao is like the ACT and SCT but they choose your grande which determines your future

looool! 8m49s. This got me really hard haha. This kind of stuff literally happens in our Chinese School in the Philippines! Now I know where they adopted that form of "punishment" from. :))

that's the same case in India we too have 2 exams that determines our careers.

So for what I've heard in this video and the previous one, Chinese education system bears several simmilarities with Spanish one (of course, being much harder the former) in the fact that there are a lot of tests, with finals every trimester that test more the memorizing ability than your comprehension of the task, and the way of entering university, as in Spain there's this exam called "Selectividad" which is the most important of all the exams and will decide your future, as each grade or major (I don't know if they are synonims in english) is determined by a minimum score you have to get, and not getting it means you wouldn't be able to do the career you wanted to and have to do another instead or not do any if you fail. Also, the discipline aspect seems to be the same as was used in Spain during Franco's dictatorship. And also, in Spain there are also homerooms to where the teachers from different subjects go, specially during primary.

Singaporean education is one of the best in the world in my opinion, along with the Finnish and Scandinavian education systems, because we mix the strict tests and the moral values. We are bilingual, we are top in maths, but we also have fun and we grow as people.

actually，"GAokao" is the test to get in university, the test you take to get into high school is called "zhong kao"

Hello guys! I really enjoyed the video it made me learn a lot. Can you please make a new Q&A video please? Also can you make videos to teach Mandarin Chinese?