The following guest entry comes
from a student currently in her first year at a highly ranked research
university.
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Xi’an Gaoxin No.1 High School
People have always
been nostalgic about the schools they attended, even years after their graduation.
Well, it’s the same for me. It has not been years, but I still miss my
exhausting school days, my humorous teachers, and my smart, hard working
friends. While I was in high school, I was eager to go to college and it never
occurred to me that one day I would miss those challenging days back in high
school. In Xian Gao Xin No.1 High School, I had the opportunity to get to know
some incredibly brilliant, talented, and hard working people. Meanwhile, I
learned how to survive in this extremely competitive world and found a way to
develop my personal interests by participating in school activities.
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| Gaoxin Principal creates exchange Uiwang HS Principal (Korea) |
Though Gao Xin High
School has been famous for as long as I can remember (I am still a teenager),
it only has 15 years of history. In just 15 years, my High School has emerged
from nothing to become a renowned high school and is now described as one of
the best schools in Xi’an, one of the most historic cities in China.
Fifteen years ago, there was nothing in the Gao
Xin District but endless fields. In
1991, the government decided to develop a new area of Xi’an into a place with a
concentration of high-tech companies. Then, when well-educated people came to Gao
Xin and devoted their lives for the prosperity of Gao Xin District, they
expected a high quality of education for their children. Therefore, the government
of this new booming area started building schools, from primary schools to high
schools to meet these expectations. That is the beginning of the prestigious Gao
Xin No.1 high school.
However, it was still nameless at that time
and thus most of the smart and hard working students did not want to risk their
future by going to this new high school- even when it had a brilliant
principal. When the school began, it recruited the worst students in Xi’an, but
the government had appointed probably the best high school principal to the new
school. Still, it was not easy to convince the parents. The first three years were
the toughest and the most significant-- the school had to build a reputation.
In three years, some students got into the best universities in China and 80% of
the students got into universities in first tier. It was an amazing result, because
the when students came into the school, they were far from the best.
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| Gaoxin HS student now at Oxford |
During these three years, the teachers
almost lived in the school and devoted their whole life to teaching. Each week,
the students had classes the whole day. Teachers strictly supervised the
performance of each student. If any of them showed signs of distractions from
studying, the teachers would think up all kinds of ways to encourage students
to work hard. Sometimes teachers would be so devoted that they even forgot
their own families. There is a story of a teacher who worked during Sunday
classes. One day her 4-year-old daughter was ill, so she had to take her
daughter with her to school. When she had to go the classroom to begin
teaching, she had to lock her daughter in her office. She became so focused on
teaching that she forgot her daughter was still locked in her office and ill.
It was the cleaning lady who heard crying in the office and reached the child
before the teacher realized. Although the teacher was being an irresponsible
mother, she was passionate about teaching and invested huge efforts into her
students. That is why Gao Xin High School became well known in only three years
after its establishment.
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| Gaoxin HS student now at Cambridge |
Later, from 2006~2012, there was always
someone who achieved the highest grades in the Gaokao, the extremely
competitive examination to colleges in China that only takes place once every
year. In 2010, there was one student who received the highest score in the
country in Art and two reached the highest score in Science. To achieve these
scores requires years of extremely hard work and the right attitude. If a
student fails to get a reasonable grade that reflects his or her ability, the
poor student has to wait until next year and go through the exhausting and
endless practice once more in order to take the Gaokao again. Every year there
would be excellent students failing because of their anxiety. It is the
rigorous studying and devoted teachers that enable the students to finally
conquer the exam.
As for my own experience, school days were filled
with hour-long classes, endless homework and countless exams. Though I probably
didn’t enjoy those days, it was at this time that I started to know the true
meaning of hard work. I had classes from almost 7:40am to 7:00pm in the evening
and a two hour lunch break from Monday through Friday. On the weekend, there
would be classes from Saturday morning to the afternoon. The classes on
Saturday afternoon were usually higher level of math, physics, chemistry, or
biology. These were very hard and mostly for the brightest students in school.
Students who devoted a lot time and energy in these gifted classes were usually
expected to compete in national competitions. If they did well in these
competitions they were selected by Tsinghua or Peking University (the equivalent
of MIT and Harvard in the US), without even taking the Gaokao. Yet most
students would still go to these classes because they were eager to learn more.
Moreover, Gao Xin High School is an
extremely competitive place, where everyone is learning new things and no one
wants to lose by not attending the extra classes. Having a lot of classes
usually meant that Sunday was for homework. I still remember how hard my math
homework was. It might take me a whole day to figure out the problem sets. Studying
in this way made sure that virtually all the students who were enrolled in
these classes scored 800 on the math SAT. The expectations for mathematics
proficiency in China are much higher than in the US. The smartest students
never worried about homework. They would finish all the homework on Friday
because they were already advanced in the subject or extremely smart and
devoted to studying. But for most of us, Gao Xin High School was a really
competitive place and you had to work hard constantly in order to survive.
However, high school is not only about
studying, but also about participating in different activities and creating
memories. For me personally, I joined the school track team, and had to train
almost every day. Training was intensive, but also a way for me to discover my
potential. Since my training time was at the same time as my morning class, I
had to work harder to make up for missing part of class. After training, I was
always exhausted and so sometimes it was hard to concentrate on the class. Yet
somehow I became used to this situation and enjoyed the challenge. Besides the track
team, there are other activities and clubs for students, such as the art
festival, student council, etc.
When I was a freshman in high school I also
joined a small traditional Chinese art club. We met every Wednesday at noon and
we cut red paper into beautiful shapes. We were so creative and bold. I
remember a girl who actually created a beautiful paper cut of Marilyn Monroe,
although this traditional art is more often about flowers, birds, or anything
related to Chinese culture.
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| Xi'an |
In high school, people grew up together by
being in the same classroom every day. In China, we don’t run around to
different classrooms. The teachers would be the ones to run around. So facing
the same challenges every day, we shared a lot of things and spent a lot time
together in this one room. Most of the
classes in the school were larger than those in the US. Typically in China
class sizes range from 30 to 60 students.
A great class is not about size; instead, it is about the great teachers
and motivated students. I still remember those days where we would write down
slogans to encourage each other on the blackboard, the times we hung out enjoying
the days and ourselves that we tried to be rebellious by escaping exercises in
the afternoon. I would never imagine that one day I would miss all the hard
days of high school, but now I miss this precious time. Though we always wished
for more time, time to spend with friends, for extra activities, for those
perfect moments, nothing is perfect and we made the most of our high school
lives. Those hard days were also joyous
too and prepared us well for future success.
I would like to thank Abby for sharing her experiences and thoughts
about her school. For me, I have learned from visiting schools like hers, that
the expectations of teachers are very high. They instill a love of learning as
well as a routine for hard work. Teachers in China are valued in ways that they
often are not in some schools in other countries. Respect and admiration for
teachers is part of the formula for success for students and schools.
The empty fields that occupied the space of this school not all that
long ago has been replaced by a school that has brought honor and success to
the Principal, the teachers, and the students. Each time I visit a school like
this I wish that educational leaders from the US could come and sit in on
classes, eat in the cafeteria, and talk to the faculty and students. I think
the education they would receive would help them to implement some useful
changes when they returned home. The secrets of success are not secrets: the
formula is fairly simple—create a culture of learning in which high achievement
is recognized and rewarded. And, at the same time, create opportunities outside
of class that will develop the students in other ways too. But mouthing
abstractions is never a substitute for feeling the creative energy in the
classes, on the track, and in the minds and hearts of the students and faculty.
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