For the past four and a half (crazy how much time its been!) weeks we’ve all been attending classes with our host siblings whenever we don’t have classes of our own. Before coming to China I’d heard about how focused the kids are in a Chinese classroom and how well behaved they are and while that is a fine observation the factors that create such a dynamic are what’s really interesting. But- before I go any further I’d like to clarify that just because I say the students are well behaved does not mean that I feel like I’m sitting in a classroom full of robots. Highschoolers are still highschoolers wherever they live so in class here kids do still crack jokes, or text discretely under the desk or even fall asleep but overall the class seems to be a lot more orderly than I would expect a room full of 46 sixteen year olds to be. While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly, in my opinion, it seems that there are three main reasons for this different class atmosphere.
