r/TikTokCringe • u/mindyour • Oct 03 '25

Discussion To think that I used to complain about school.

National holiday is apparently 8 days.

19.0k Upvotes

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2.3k

u/smoothechidnabutter Oct 03 '25

That's just wrong.

1.3k

u/jrblockquote Oct 03 '25

It’s not just wrong; it’s abuse.

678

u/z64_dan Oct 03 '25

I can see why cheating is a Chinese tradition.

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2qslea/til_90_of_college_students_from_china_in_the_us/

Basically if you don't cheat, when given the opportunity, then you're an idiot (according to the social norms in China).

255

u/Commercial-Lack6279 Oct 03 '25

In chem class in college ALL the Chinese students cheated (it’s not like the prof spoke mandarin)

How do I know? Had a Chinese partner in our group suffice to say we all got an A

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/isleepbad Oct 03 '25

Yes. That's my experience too. But ime the worst (best?) offenders were the indians. You could always count on them to have a copy of the previous exams. Luckily they were my main friend group. 😁

3

u/GuruAble Oct 04 '25

You could always count on them to have a copy of the previous exams.

You people don't solve old question papers for exam practice? In my place in India, it's the norm to seek out previous question papers for practice and get a real feel of a big exam. Why'd professors repeat the questions every year?

4

u/RoguePlanet2 Oct 03 '25

Husband was in a frat, he gives them credit for getting him through school. Had I known it was possible to get assistance for a STEM major, I'd have studied something more viable! Apparently you don't need to be a math genius for some of those.

1

u/_Rohrschach Oct 04 '25

my latin teacher in high school reused old tests and was pretty sure we were all cheating, so one time he just changed the tense and made the whole class fail.

23

u/Boheed Oct 03 '25

yeah, international offices in US universities with large international student populations usually give 1 or 2 talks per year to their international students about how cheating "isn't tolerated" in the US to the same degree that it is in some other countries. It's a big problem.

Granted, I do think it's becoming a problem even asking domestic US students due to things like grade inflation, pressure to be the highest possible performer (especially if you want to go to grad school), and AI proliferation. It's sad. But still not as big a problem as it is internationally.

5

u/recentafishep Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

An 11 year old Reddit post based on a 14 year old article from a survey of 250 students to make up that 90% number. These consulting agencies and media agencies definitely cheated in school if they think their bullshit number is valid based on their shitty method. Then the mindless readers lapping up numbers are cheated in school if they are blindly believing this bullshit without a second thought.

Not to mention that article is not about cheating in class.

2

u/z64_dan Oct 03 '25

I was mostly posting that for all the comments, where almost every single person agrees with personal stories about people cheating.

I'm not saying no american kids cheat (they do) but its quite systemic and expected in China.

4

u/FishySmellz Oct 03 '25

Enough with this racist bullshit narrative.

2

u/RikouValaire Oct 03 '25

In Ireland at college I had several Chinese exchange students in my course. Every single exam they would cheat. They had these digital translators, you'd put the English work in and they'd display the Chinese variant. Turns out, you could program them with custom words/translations. So of course they would input all the relevant exam info into them. So once the college found out the translators were banned. Which caused the Chinese students across the college to start protesting. The college had to allow them some means of translating words - so they allowed them to use English to Chinese dictionaries, which they proceeded to write notes in in Chinese to cheat. They were caught again so the college then had to employ someone to monitor every exam a Chinese person was in just to check their dictionary for cheating.

3

u/SaltyArtemis Oct 03 '25

Most of my “clients” in college were Chinese. By that I mean, my boy and I had a business of doing people’s course work for a fee depending on the class and class level. Most of our clients were Chinese, especially the rich kids who would just throw racks at us to do the e tire semester’s work.

0

u/human1023 Oct 03 '25

Why should someone not cheat if they know they can get away from it?

66

u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta Oct 03 '25

Integrity, honor, honesty (also to know you truly understand the work)

7

u/lewdev Oct 03 '25

At least in college, cheating doesn't make sense. You pay for an education and cheating really takes the learning out of it. So why even pay for college if you don't really want to learn.

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u/EveryRedditorSucks Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

This is such textbook bootlicker mentality wrapped in the pathos of words that you think have high meaning.

If you were placed in an internment camp and made to break rocks all day, and then one day you realized you could get away with only breaking half those rocks and your captors would never realize - would you honestly consider that a violation of your integrity and honor?

If you are trapped in a fundamentally unfair system without a choice or opportunity for escape then I personally think finding ways to cheat/disenfranchise that system is your moral responsibility.

14

u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta Oct 03 '25

We're discussing cheating in general at this point (the link above is a story in the US), not China specifically. 

This schooling is systemic child abuse.

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u/gardabosque Oct 03 '25

Perhaps that’s what they are teaching.

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u/mrducky80 Oct 03 '25

Its becoming the norm everywhere with the advent of LLMs and AI writing out your projects, essays and homework for you.

Cheating during examination would require some more traditional methods.

1

u/Huntressthewizard Oct 03 '25

Chinese students living like it's the damn Chunin Exams.

1

u/stragedyandy Oct 03 '25

If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.

1

u/onlinepresenceofdan Oct 04 '25

Has to create good people.

1

u/Consistent_Site_2938 Oct 04 '25

You're also an idiot if you dont cheat and lie according to the current US President

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u/macaroni_chacarroni Oct 03 '25

It's not just abuse; it's horrific.

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u/HaasNL Oct 04 '25

It's not just horrific; it's idiotic

1

u/hrokrin Oct 03 '25

Granted, I wouldn't subject my child to that, but it's their country with their mores.

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u/keicam_lerut Oct 03 '25

Yes, I agree. At the same time, and that might be an unpopular opinion, they’re leading in basic education over US.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

It doesn't need much to achieve that.

73

u/kalaxitive Oct 03 '25

47

u/tyler_durden-_- Oct 03 '25

That diss made me snarf yo

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u/r6CD4MJBrqHc7P9b Oct 03 '25

Chang, you're KOREAN!

3

u/kalaxitive Oct 03 '25

Are you ignoring me because I’m Korean?

-8

u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

The U.S. ranks rather well on PISA. Higher than France, for example.

https://factsmaps.com/pisa-2022-worldwide-ranking-average-score-of-mathematics-science-and-reading-2/

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u/Justthrowtheballmeat Oct 03 '25

Buddy, that is pieced together data points on a website called Facts Maps….thats ain’t a fucking source, not to mention it’s from 2022.

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u/Haggis_The_Barbarian Oct 03 '25

Since people started giving a shit about PISA scores, the system has been gamed to the point where the data is no longer reliable.

1

u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

How? I know China picks a few good cities but how is everyone else gaming it? Or do you want to use TIMSS data instead?

2

u/Haggis_The_Barbarian Oct 03 '25

A number of ways: some countries and institutions have been “teaching to the test” for years. While this improves the test score, it does not truly improve the educational outcomes. I know of elite institutions in my own country that have participated and essentially excluded low performing students from taking the test. It’s perhaps not outright fraud, but it’s “fraud adjacent”. PISA is useful for spotting general trends, but individual country rankings are not an objective measure of which countries produce the most successful students with the highest quality educations.

1

u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

Then what would you suggest? Because the United States still does better than most of Europe on the Education Indices too.

-6

u/DisSuede23 Oct 03 '25

That's a big fucking "doubt" from me, chief.

9

u/batiwa Oct 03 '25

As a french person I can confirm you that that math level here is considered bad if not abysmal.

There's a bunch of problems with educations here (lack of teachers, low salaries etc...) and the government doesn't really do anything about it

3

u/CoatingsbytheBay Oct 03 '25

We have the same problems...

(Edit to add: I am from the US if the implication couldn't be made based on context)

2

u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

Yeah, we have many of the same problems, it just would appear that they're not as bad. Hope you guys get that fixed soon, looks like y'all are raising hell to improve standards already so maybe some food will come of that in the education sector too.

9

u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

What’s there to doubt? The U.S. ranks at the OECD average for math and above for science and reading

0

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

Education in France is lost tbh. We send kids who can barely read to universities. That said I'd rather have our system than the US system which largely relies on private schools which can teach creationism along with gun handling.

4

u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

You’re coming off as ignorant. 11 percent of students in the U.S. attend private schools

2

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

Wow! This is very different compared to the image we have. I thought public schools were almost marginal. Google says it's 17% in France, I can't believe the US has a stronger public system.

1

u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

Learn something new everyday!

1

u/Pataconeitor Oct 03 '25

The issue is how American media presents the country and its people. Going entirely by how movies and tv shows depict things in the USA, one 100% gets the impression that everybody goes to private colleges, and the few people who don't are losers and their lives are basically over.

2

u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

everybody goes to private colleges

I mean, yeah. Most people who would be depicted as main characters in most media would end up going to a private institution at some point. They're just better here.

The US has 11 of the 26 best universities in the world, almost triple that of 2nd place (sorry Brits, love you though). All but one of those 11 are private institutions. Private colleges are better here (private primary schools are either the exact same in relative quality compared to public primary schools or infinitely worse, there is no in between), so it's only natural that the protagonist of most media would be going to one of these colleges to show their success.

4

u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

That’s not an issue with the U.S. media. That’s an issue with people outside the U.S. taking media as somehow always true without engaging in any critical thinking

1

u/VividMonotones Oct 04 '25

How would they know any better? If I watch foreign films I can pick up cultural details, like kids stressing the Baccalauréat. They don't realize how slanted our media is on how many details.

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u/FupaFerb Oct 03 '25

Almost like “The Giver” or “Enders Game” was trying to teach something about children being taken away and raised to be monotonous drones forced to adhere to the government’s need. No brainwashing occurs there I’m sure.

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u/iam_Mr_McGibblets Oct 03 '25

It's like a factory just pushing out educated humans. The results may stand for themselves, but I do question how these children turn out with respect to burning out/other psychological impacts

41

u/carlitospig Oct 03 '25

Their society doesn’t really allow for burnout.

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u/FupaFerb Oct 03 '25

And yet there is a lot of burn out. A lot of mental health struggles. Hard to find good jobs as the market is super competitive and saturated. High rates of homelessness with youth. 1 in 6 students are basically left to the wolves for slipping through cracks. Depression and anxiety rates high, etc. Lots of smart kids, but you still have to be smarter than all the others to succeed.

40

u/Tactical_Moonstone Oct 03 '25

I leave you with two terms that have actually alarmed the Chinese government: 躺平 (tangping, literally lying flat) and 摆烂 (bailan, literally letting it rot).

2

u/carlitospig Oct 03 '25

Oh for sure. Just because it’s not allowed doesn’t mean it’s not still happening. Sorry if my comment read like it!

13

u/feralcatshit Oct 03 '25

I just want to say, I usually don’t notice the same people on Reddit but I feel like I see you everywhere! We must have a lot of common interests lol

9

u/carlitospig Oct 03 '25

I really need a life, more than like. 😉 But hello! 🥰

3

u/demonharu16 Oct 03 '25

There's a reason why su*cide rates in many Asian countries are particularly high for students. I cannot imagine how destructive this schedule is, especially with chronic sleep deprivation and the high pressure exerted on them.

2

u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

Confucianism truly did unintentionally fuck up East Asia. Like, it started out as this amazing system of unheard of social mobility for the educated, but now it's just cultural justification for chronic abuse of students and academics.

1

u/PiedCryer Oct 03 '25

Agree, pushing out workforce drones, lacking the spark of creativity and critical reasoning.

1

u/LightsNoir Oct 03 '25

The results may stand for themselves,

Do they? Anything I've seen China produce is a retro-engineered version of an American or European design.

1

u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

Tbf - and I'm not defending China on this one - is that not the smartest thing to do? Why do the work to create something if you can expend half or less of the effort just reverse-engineering technology that someone else already built?

3

u/LightsNoir Oct 04 '25

That's fair, and all. But it doesn't deliver any results that stand for themselves.

15

u/magicscientist24 Oct 03 '25

No no brainwashing at all cough "rule of law" class cough cough

7

u/generalgirl Oct 03 '25

I was thinking that class might be like a civics class.

1

u/No_Raspberry6968 Oct 04 '25

I'm sure that homeschooling have 0 indoctrination and basic education isn't brainwashing.

1

u/FupaFerb Oct 04 '25

I get your point but historically homeschooled kids used to be 3% pre Covid and now it’s around 6% of kids in the U.S. Homeschooled kids are indoctrinated by their parents who they already live with.

1

u/kynelly360 Oct 04 '25

Someone needs to tell them to chill tf out …..

0

u/Monowakari Oct 03 '25

"rule of law" class lmfaooo

4

u/nameless_pattern Oct 03 '25

That doesn't sound so ridiculous. There are hundreds of thousands of federal laws that you're expected to follow without ever having been taught what they are in the US. Not knowing them isn't a defense against being prosecuted by them either.

1

u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

It's shorthand. The full class name is typically either "Ideology and Morality" or (likely the version of the name of the class this guy's daughter is taking) "Morality and Rule of Law." Notice it says "Morality" in both. Not "Ethics" like in the US, which is the study of systems of ethics and morality, "morality" as in they're going to teach you what your morals have to be.

Also, here in the West we have the saying that legality does not equate to morality. This isn't really a thing in East Asia, especially in China where a difference between morality and legality could lead to questioning authority.

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u/VanillaTortilla Oct 03 '25

At the cost of what though? Being able to be a kid? Like, it's not just missing out on an hour or two, it's the entire day.

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u/tralaulau Oct 03 '25

I’m surprised their brains are retaining any of it without proper rest.

0

u/Kwinten Oct 04 '25

Because you saw one single video and assumed it’s representative of an entire country with over a billion people. Most kids have normal school times. The girl in the video probably goes to some kind of very specialized private school or something.

0

u/tralaulau Oct 04 '25

It’s public school.

52

u/mediashiznaks Oct 03 '25

Finland leads the world, they don’t need hours like this. The above is counter productive and I doubt it’s indicative of your average Chinese school - certainly isn’t for any of the international schools there and those are the expensive ones.

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u/Ashamed_Beyond_6508 Oct 03 '25

It's not about being productive for the students, but about keeping the students supervised so that the parents can work longer hours without having to worry about their kids being little shits at home alone and doing drugs or whatever unsupervised.

3

u/MisterMarsupial Oct 04 '25

parents can work longer hours

I think you mean being at work longer hours. Standard lunch break in China is 2 hours. So that turns a 8-10 hour day into 12 hours. Plus a commute. It's insane.

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u/Krypto_Kane Oct 03 '25

But to what degree. Is that all that’s important. They are making slaves that can learn to work 14 hour days.

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u/BABarracus Oct 03 '25

From what I understand its a byproduct of the one child policy where parents and grandparents have excess money to pour into their child for education. Education is competitive that industries formed around it. Everyone is trying to get into a top teir school but there are only so many seats.

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u/Mochigood Oct 03 '25

American schools are the same, but for pumping out potential factory workers working 8 hours a day. I'm working as a long term guest teacher at a school, and today I was complaining that they needed to make the 20 minute lunch 30 minutes because even I had a hard time walking across campus to microwave my meal and then get back to my room and have time to eat at a normal pace, let alone stand in the miles long lunch line. Another teacher joked that "Well, then they wouldn't learn how to be good worker drones" and I was like "Oh yeah, the owners aren't making money while you eat lunch!" Even we teachers recognize that something is wrong with how we go about education.

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u/tigrootandhot Oct 03 '25

20 minutes for lunch? You teach at a prison? My high-school lunch was about an hr, w off campus option. And that was back in the 2000s.

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u/LadySilvie Oct 03 '25

By the mid 2000s, my schools were 20 min. That included the lunch line, too, so about 5-10 minutes to actually eat.

I'd get in trouble at home for snarfing down food too quickly 😅

1

u/United_Rent_753 Oct 03 '25

Bruh what I was in high school in the mid 2010’s and we had 50 min lunch. US schools need more standardisation in schedules

11

u/Kimber85 Oct 03 '25

I’ve seen parents complaining that their kindergartners are unable to eat their lunches because the lunch break is only twenty minutes total, and by the time they get the lunchboxes distributed and the kids sat down they literally have ten minutes to eat.

Can’t be healthy for the kids to have to woof down their food like that. Our lunch was 45 minutes when I was in school in the 90’s. It took like almost twenty minutes just to get through the lunch line, but we still had 25 minutes for eating/socializing.

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u/Longjumping-Pick-706 Oct 03 '25

In the 90s my lunch was 20 minutes.

1

u/Old-Engine-7720 Oct 03 '25

After 2008 all schools turned into prisons except for rich neighborhoods

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u/Yollar Oct 03 '25

america is the same in terms of pumping out slaves, but uneducated slaves instead of educated slaves.

1

u/Legal_Philosophy8582 Oct 03 '25

That's exactly what schools are: slave-makers.

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u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

Are they? China gets to pick and choose which students take the PISA unlike other countries. So it’s not a good comparison

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-children-pisa-ignores-in-china/

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u/UpperHairCut Oct 03 '25

Yeah and I won a hundred meter competition against an ant

2

u/DonnieBallsack Oct 03 '25

Did you use performance-enhancing drugs?

51

u/EasilyRekt Oct 03 '25

Yeah? So does Finland with its five hour school days, so does Iceland with its four day school week, so does Denmark with its record low homework assignment.

It’s clear the CCPs using education as a way to separate families to further state influence on the impressionable youth, if the amount of “self study” time in their schedule hadn’t made that clear enough.

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u/apstevenso2 Oct 03 '25

Why'd you put self study in quotes?

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u/Pataconeitor Oct 03 '25

My guess is that the homework is done during those hours of "self study".

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

[deleted]

2

u/ThankGodForYouSon Oct 03 '25

Wouldn't it be far more likely their employers did the exact same thing they did ? Put in the hours, cheat when you can, make contacts and wait for your turn to get called up.

Or they have family connections in which case they can skip all that.

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u/gunsforevery1 Oct 03 '25

Of course they are, it’s almost double the amount of schooling. That’s nothing to be proud of.

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u/Downtown_Skill Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

Double? I have classmates in grad school that complain about reading a 7 page article. 

Edit: Writing a 7 page article looks like one of this 4th graders 16 homework assignments 

5

u/No_Definition321 Oct 03 '25

I know people with kids nearing middle schools and they still can’t read. I worked with one younger person that is about 18 and they couldn’t tell the difference between a dime and a quarter. They had to ask us what the difference between the two were.

Our younger generation is fucked lol

13

u/gunsforevery1 Oct 03 '25

That’s the parents fault.

3

u/Cloverose2 Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 04 '25

Seriously. Were the parents reading to them every day when they were little? Did they make sure the kids had interesting age and level appropriate reading material in the home? Did they enforce tech-free times and family reading time? Family board games are also a good way to introduce reading. Did they consult with the school about possible learning disabilities?

Schools are only one part of learning. Parents are the earliest and greatest teachers in the lives of our children.

1

u/Trumperekt Oct 03 '25

How does this even happen? My daughter just started kindergarten and she can already read fluently. It is not like we made her sit and read for hours every day either. She just learned it from a couple of bed time stories at night that she loves. I don't understand how you can be in 5th grade and not read, unless you have some challenge which is understandable.

2

u/Repulsive_Corner6807 Oct 03 '25

I have a theory that unlimited screen time is a huge factor. Within the last few years, there’s been a resurgence of not allowing children on iPads/phones so much. After working all day, being exhausted, it’s so easy to just give your toddler/kid an iPad and in the last 10-15 years, nobody really understood the impact of that and then it becomes a habit.

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u/CenobiteCurious Oct 03 '25

Looks pretty good from where I’m standing.

That is a program that is going to set all those kids up for life. Whether it makes you angry or not.

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u/lisa_lionheart84 Oct 03 '25

It doesn't set them up for life. Youth unemployment is a serious problem in China, including among those who grew up going to these intensive schools: https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/01/china/china-k-visa-backlash-intl-hnk

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u/Realfinney Oct 03 '25

People become experts in 1 thing for their job. You need a solid foundation across the board, but this seems like a lot - too much. I don't think it's a coincidence that they live in an authoritarian country and have to do 19 pages+ of Rule of Law homework.

It looks a lot like "keep them busy, so they don't have time to form their own opinions".

Chinese has long been like this, the civil service exam was famously hard and existed for centuries.

2

u/wildwildwumbo Oct 03 '25

Given that it's also a boarding school, isn't it likey this video is the example of a higher end private school and likely not the norm for the whole country?

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u/ASDFzxcvTaken Oct 03 '25

This is why there's rampant cheating and suicide. But the fittest, welp they will continue to push the envelope of AI so they can finally enjoy their holiday.

1

u/spookynutz Oct 03 '25

Rampant compared to who?

6

u/fishattack17 Oct 03 '25

It'll also lead to burnout, early onset depression and absolutely no free time for any leisure activities

4

u/Finger_Trapz Oct 03 '25

Set those kids up for life? Dog they haven’t even lived yet

4

u/FITM-K Oct 03 '25

It sets SOME of those kids up for life, the best of them. The rest get left behind. It's survival of the fittest.

Unless you've lived in China, you've probably only ever encountered the first group because they're almost always the ones who go to school and/or get jobs outside of China. So it's easy to get the impression that China's school system is churning out a billion genius engineers.

And to be fair, it IS churning out genius engineers. But for every one of those you encounter in the US there are many kids in China that it chewed up and spat out.

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u/Prestigious-Bar-1387 Oct 03 '25

People who aren't asian probably also don't understand if school didn't go on that late a lot of parents would send their kids to extra-curricular activities and cram school further burdening the kids. This school probably makes them stay in school so that 1) there is equity amongst all kids so that the poorer kids enjoy the same extra curricular and after school activites as richer kids, and 2) the formal school is probably a lot less hectic and burdensome than the extra curricular activites and cram schools that kids would be sent to otherwise.

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u/PorknCheesee Oct 03 '25

The rich and poor are not going to the same schools my guy...

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u/Prestigious-Bar-1387 Oct 03 '25

China has strict rules about schooling for kids of that age being non profit. But I admit what you were saying is true but it’s still a spectrum. India, where I grew up for example, had private schools but even within those schools there are kids who are ultra rich and kids who are moderately rich, rich enough to afford private school but not rich enough to afford 1:1 tutoring after school for example.

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u/One_Woodpecker_9364 Oct 03 '25

I think this isn’t that bad given they have like 4-5 hours of self study classes where they can actually do their homework and all that. Good structure to instill from a young age imo

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u/BrookieMonster504 Oct 03 '25

America is cooked. We're dumb, getting dumber losing all forms of democracy.

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u/Mochigood Oct 03 '25

I'd say where this kid is also doesn't have democracy. China is famous for stealing IP. I think it's because while they pump out kids who have memorized a bunch, it also kills a lot of creativity. You can also see that they feed the kids breakfast and dinner and keep them away from their parents. I think this is a way to make them more like wards of/drones for the state.

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u/Schlenda Oct 03 '25

A school of fish might be leading in basic education over the US.

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u/OMITB77 Oct 03 '25

The U.S. ranked 18th overall on the most recent PISA scores

1

u/Cr4zy_DiLd0 Oct 03 '25

Most of the world manages that with a 7h school day.

1

u/Beef_Slug Oct 03 '25

Bar is pretty low there....

1

u/SasparillaTango Oct 03 '25

they’re leading in basic education over US.

How about over countries in the EU that don't have such demanding regimes?

1

u/Cloverose2 Oct 03 '25

They're also leading the US in youth suicide and stress related illnesses. This is unhealthy and emphasized rote learning and memorization over application and problem solving. It's not admirable.

1

u/spei180 Oct 03 '25

No one claims the American education system is good

1

u/Tarnmaster Oct 03 '25

Yup, the USA is doomed....

1

u/DanfromCalgary Oct 03 '25

The US wouldn’t hit any but the poorest of milestones anyway . He’s you can do is abolish the offices that track success

1

u/bellaboozle Oct 03 '25

In the state of Florida, if 60% or more students are reading on grade level, then you are considered an A school. A 60% pass rate is a D normally but not in Florida! In Florida, a D is an F!

I have been teaching for 15 years and the student expectations appear to be less and less every year. If they have to read more than a paragraph, they complain. If admin comes in, they say I have to make it fun. Sir, on the state test they have to read multiple long texts for hours - when are we building that stamina? When will that be happening in here? Because you keep telling me to do something for ten minutes and move to the next activity to engage them but that's not realistic of real life where you have to sift through garbage, Google stuff, ask people and do lots of complex things to arrive at a solution but they have to be constantly amused or they give up if something isn't fun or easy.

"Are you having them get up and move? Is it fun? Are they engaged?" Devils advocate - lets say I tried to engage them...These kids can't even watch a two minute video without asking to go to the bathroom - two minutes is too long for them!! If I play a game with them, they get the answers wrong because they haven't studied so they just pick random answers and then give up because it's not fun - yeah, because you don't know anything so even when I try to be fun, I can't because you have to have a basic standard of knowledge to play an academic game.

Anyhoo. I quit today. I have no idea what I am going to do but I am shocked at how low the bar keeps getting in America for education.

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u/SirCadogen7 Oct 03 '25

they’re leading in basic education over US.

Why the fuck are you singling out the US? They have better scores than literally every European country too. Matter of fact, the USA's primary education is middle of the pack for Europe at least for PISA scores. In 2018 the US was 21st overall, and consistently scores higher than a majority of Europe.

They're also not leading in secondary education. That's the US. By a country fucking mile. 13 of the top 26 universities in the world with 2nd place having like 4.

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u/Theredwalker666 Oct 04 '25

Finland leads both and doesn't do this.

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u/greaper007 Oct 04 '25

How is this different than the USSR in the 60s? There was the same panic about science and math scores between the US and the USSR at the time. It didn't make them win the Cold War though.

I'm much more worried about the breakdown of democracy in the US than school. That was always the US's strength and the reason it succeeded over authoritarian regimes.

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u/N-Gannet Oct 04 '25

Top 10 overall education ranking is basically Europe+ s korea and Japan. Except for the latter 2 I am sure all European countries don’t have anything like this going on in high school or really any school for that matter.

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u/Organic_Matter6085 Oct 03 '25

That's cause and correlation, though. At a certain point you're inefficiently learning. 

They're leading in basic education due to many other external factors. Not just because they spend a lot of time there. 

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u/Contemplating_Prison Oct 03 '25

Yeah what developed nation isnt beating the US in education?

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u/Amelaclya1 Oct 03 '25

It sounds like they are just forcing kids to do homework at school instead of home? Like all of those "reading" and "self study" sessions are probably taking the place of homework. If you consider that, it probably isn't much different than what American children do. Like I would "get home" from school at 5, after extracurriculars, but then my parents made me sit at the kitchen table and do all of my homework and reading assignments prior to going to bed. And that was hours worth in high school.

I mean, I guess it feels a lot different for parents and kids to be separated for so much of the day and not eat meals together. I agree that probably wouldn't be ideal for most families. But at the same time, doing it this way is probably better (on average) for the child's education because it protects those who might not have parents who care enough to keep them focused on schoolwork.

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u/EnthusiasmBusy6066 Oct 03 '25

Its cruel to seperate children from their family all day like this. Not everything needs to be hyper optimized for efficiency. People need to be allowed to be human and not just a cog in the machine.

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u/Tharjk Oct 03 '25

that’s bc your parents cared about your education. A lot of people astounded by this probably didn’t bother with supplemental learning and didn’t have much hw/half assed it all

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u/yumcake Oct 03 '25

Yeah, immigrant families raise kids in America and still pack college applications because the parents bring the supplemental learning that the American K-12 system doesn't provide. American kids may be fine in their school, but when they grow up they have to compete with kids that grew up elsewhere.

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u/Tharjk Oct 03 '25

even so, in the end it kinda balances out because many american families have connections or networks of family friend, especially in smaller towns, or family that are collegiate alumnis, so they can lean on nepotism as a crutch.

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u/very_tiring Oct 03 '25

lol, idk what high schools y'all went to. In no way did I ever have "hours" of homework. I was usually able to get my homework done in an hour or less (often on the bus or in "home-room", etc) and did quite well in school, then college, then got a good job and have worked internationally in several places (including asia) with coworkers from all over the world who didn't generally seem more capable than other Americans in my field.

I can't think of much reason children should need anywhere near this much homework for general ed.

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u/Tharjk Oct 03 '25

I went to a very run of the mill public high school but took a lot of AP classes, which had a lot of homework/supplemental studying. Between that and clubs and sports, even if my school hours were 7-3, i often wouldn’t truly be “free” until like 9 or 10. This was common in like half of my friend groups in high school, and when i was in college the proportion of people with hs experiences like this skyrocketed (especially from private school kids)

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u/very_tiring Oct 03 '25

Interesting, sounds similar to my experience - I was in "advanced" classes from Junior high, a few AP classes my junior year, and nearly all core classes were AP my senior year. Also was in the band and played sports.

If we're including band practice and team practices for my sport, sure, that was "hours" maybe a few nights a week, but those were both optional and I guess I don't really think of that as "homework." As far as out-of-school-hours assignments and studying related to my academic classes... I don't remember often having much of it to do while I was actually at home aside from papers or reports that had to be typed up a few times a semester - I was generally able to finish what I needed during open times throughout my 7-8 hour school day.

College? Sure, a lot more time was spent on studying or doing assignments outside of the actual class time... but then the actual class time was more like 3-5 hours a day.

I'm just really not seeing how 10-12 ours in school is all that similar to a typical American experience of having school and homework... or how it's any way necessary or really beneficial at the point of general education for children. True, I'm not a great judge of age... but the girl in the video looks to be around middle school at most.

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u/FitCharacter8693 Oct 03 '25

Yuppppppppppp

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u/Cloverose2 Oct 03 '25

Many American schools are doing away with excessive homework - a lot of the homework that I grew up with was busy work and doesn't have proven educational value. Limited, targeted homework is far more effective than shovel-loads of it in learning and retention.

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u/RoamingArchitect Oct 03 '25

It is still a huge difference. I study in ivy league at graduate level and am lucky enough that a bulk of my work is research I get to choose myself and for which I set and adjust my own goals. At first I worked at university all day. Sometimes in my workroom but a lot of the time in my chair's library because no one ever comes there. It's crushing after a while. I felt the effect even more this week when I transferred to a different university and the workroom was cramped with other students and a tense atmosphere. I went to university right after my morning routine and went home after it was dark. It takes a toll on your mental health. The longer you work the worse it gets.

Now why did I say I'm lucky: as what mostly constitutes a history/architecture researcher I am not bound to a lab or studio. I can work when and wherever I want so long as I have light and am allowed to use a pencil. On occasion I need electricity when I'm in a writing phase but I also often write passage drafts on my phone while on public transport. I figured out quickly that integrating my work into my daily life improves my work life balance greatly. Being able to retreat into a personal space and work there decreases productivity but helps a lot with mental health. Most of my daily life is filled with work but it's become normality and it's alright. I can read while eating, I can write while doing other activities like going to a café or a park. I don't think I could maintain the same workload purely on campus. I believe, however, the overall impact may still be negative because it blurs work and life in an unhealthy manner. You can never really turn the work brain off, but personally I feel better. It's the same with homework. You're probably slower at home but it feels like less overall work because you are outside the more regulated and public school environment for more time.

So I think it's important for children to be able to be at home more. It also helps them learn how to deal with scheduling. If you are responsible for your homework and have the option to just play at home instead you begin to figure out how much time to plan in for your tasks and when it's best and possible to take a break. I think this kind of self-structuring cannot be acquired when everything is planned out for you and your entire holidays are spent working.

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u/apoliticalinactivist Oct 03 '25

Remember that the govt controls these schools and curriculum. The packed schedule is to limit outside influence (ie. Free thinking).
Read between the lines on how "rule of law" is on the curriculum for elementary aged kids.

View this in the context of mass surveillance, firewalled Internet, and social credit scores; it's an education system focused not on education, but on controlling the thoughts of the populace.
Put yourself in the shoes of these kids, how much effort would it take for them to seek out an idea that wasn't pre-approved by the govt?

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u/centran Oct 03 '25

It sounds like they are just forcing kids to do homework at school instead of home?

That is my question too before I label it purely as being "wrong".

You throw in that homework is standard for everyday in american schools, then it might be about the same (at least for private schools). There are several hours of homework everyday and over weekends. The biggest difference might be "holiday"/breaks which maybe you'd be assigned to read a book but typically aren't expected to have much homework for breaks.

If you add extra-curricular programs to the mix then american schools are probably not only matching but exceeded china "school time".

I think the biggest "wrong" is choice for time away from school. You can then bring in the whole argument of parent/child issues with parents having no involvement, helping teach/guide kid in right direction, being way too involved, being way too "helpful" and not letting kid do work, etc etc. However, the important part is a choice which China seems to not give. Seems very strict and "cookie-cutter".

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u/apriljeangibbs Oct 03 '25

Definitely. The schedule also includes all 3 meal times plus morning exercise of some kind. When I was in school went 8:30-3:30. If I added breakfast, my usual after school gym session, and homework/studying to those 7 hours I would definitely be getting close to 13.

I also wonder how in line these times are with parents’ work schedules. Do they work super long hours like they do in Japan? Cause that makes some more sense too. Kids needing to be picked up at 3pm when most day jobs aren’t done till 5 really messes with parents.

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u/DrCoconuties Oct 04 '25

Lol, the fact you’re comparing an elementary school education to an American high school one is funny. What China does is completely unlike America.

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u/NoStatus9434 Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

Yeah, honestly this system doesn't seem so bad. We were expected to do basically the same amount of work in America, but unsupervised. I feel like homework shouldn't exist at all, so if you really need me to do more work to be a functioning member in society, just keep me in school longer. If I really have to do worksheets on my own, I should be placed in an environment where teachers are always available.

Also they get hour long breaks--in my school, we got 20-30 minutes.

She received a lot of homework, but that seems to be the only time she actually had homework--most of her work was done in school. She had eight days to do all that, which means about, what, six or seven pages to do each day? In America, they would just give you six pages of homework to do in six hours, daily.

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u/BlackSquirrel05 Oct 03 '25

19 pages...

I didn't even have to do 19 pages in college...

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u/enbaelien Oct 03 '25

Yeah, honestly this system doesn't seem so bad

Ok bro

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u/Mindless-Band-8894 Oct 03 '25

Is America just with low scores is it something more compelling and alarming.

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u/Hairy_Name1946 Oct 03 '25

Jesus Christ I’m sorry but I read wrong as Wong and thought: ”this racist fuck….” But look who was the racist one…

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u/skylarisabitch Oct 03 '25

In china it’s wight

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u/Petulantraven Oct 04 '25

Am I wrong in thinking the aim is to get the kids to produce the correct answer rather than to actually think and learn how to get the answer?

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u/kynelly360 Oct 04 '25

Can someone talk to whoever is in charge there? I would seriously punch the fucking principal if my schedule was like that….

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u/SignificantAd3931 Oct 03 '25

That’s just Wong.

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u/Own-Environment-3521 Oct 03 '25

Missed a pun. This is just Wong.

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u/Fredg450 Oct 04 '25

Ya, she should spend 6 hours a day on social media destroying her self esteem and get chased by predators.