As a newly developing country in Asia, China opens its door to the world, and they send exchange students to schools in other countries.Nazareth happens to be one of the schools, which makes students want to know the differences between American and Chinese high schools.

First of all,one major difference is that in China,there are three years in both middle school and high school. In addition, school schedules differ from provinces to provinces and from schools to schools.

In more developed cities like Beijing or Shanghai,high schools are more similar to the high schools in America. But in some provinces that are famous for education such as Hubei province, they run a very strict schedule.

Evangelina Gutierrez, a freshman at Nazareth, said,”I think there is more education and fewer activities in Chinese high schools.”  This is very true. For example, the number four high school in Xiangyang, Hubei province,school starts at 6:00 am and ends at 10:00 pm. During the day, they have two and a half hours to go home or stay at school to have lunch and get some sleep. Some of the students are so diligent that they even stay in the classroom to study during the two and half hours.During the whole week, they have one night off–Saturday night–so students hardly ever have time to do activities.

Another difference is that unlike in American high schools where students walk from class to class everyday,in Chinese high schools, students stay at the same classroom and teachers walk from classroom to classroom.Since the population is huge, there may be 60 or 70 students in one class.

As for the admission to universities, it’s all determined by how students score on the University Entrance Exam, which means even if they did well during high school but didn’t do well in this final exam,nothing they have done during high school counts.

 Since the rules and schedules are so strict,students in China are very academic and competitive in the world. These are just some of the major differences between American and Chinese high schools. Both have similar goals, but they certainly have different ways of accomplishing them.