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Classes In a Chinese university students are often placed in the same class level for each subject. Students who excel at math but are weak in language classes, for example, will either be placed in the top classes due to their math scores, or lower ranked classes due to their foreign language skills. In my university, relationships were even taken into consideration for class placement, as in the case of Duke, a friendly, bright student with a good sense of humor and a willingness to participate in class, who nevertheless understood very little, struggled with the advanced pace of the class, and probably generally missed out on the advantage that would have been presented to him by taking a class that moved more to his skill level. Duke was, however, involved in a long-term relationship with an outgoing, clever girl named CiCi who competently handled the coursework, and thus Duke was placed in one of the top classes out of consideration for their relationship status. Students are grouped together in one class unit, often of 30-60 students, and each day they attend the same classes together, often for the entire two to five years of their undergraduate college career. Classes are often held in the same classroom all day, where teachers instead rotate from class to class. In a University such as I taught at, students were mostly local, if not from within Xiangtan County then Hunan province. Several students came from as far away as neighboring provinces, but generally all were the Han ethnicity that dominates modern China. This provides a somewhat homogenized University experience, in which all of one’s peers come from the same cultural background. In my University, classes are grouped in two hour chunks per subject, each class comprising of two lessons of forty-five minutes each with a ten minute break between lessons. Classes run from 8am to noon, and 2pm to 4pm, sometimes running as late as 6 on special days or if the class as a whole is deemed to need remedial classes. China does not have daylight savings time and the entire country, excepting a few special areas in the far west, operates on Beijing standard time. Classes are adjusted for the changing daylight hours by seasonally adding or subtracting thirty minutes to the two hour lunch break. Classrooms are equipped with the absolute minimum. Desks and chairs, chalkboards, chalk, ceiling fans, lights, windows, and locking doors are standard, though they may not be functional. (To my perpetual delight, the classrooms were nearly always stocked with a plethora of colored and white chalk. The dark pink and blue are my favorite.) The windows in my classrooms had no curtains or window coverings, and the windows themselves did not close properly, so during storms, which occur often during the Hunan springtime, parts of the classroom would be covered in water. When the winds picked up, windows which could not be secured often swung wildly in the wind, crashing against bars or the wall and causing a fountain of glass to spill onto the sidewalk below or into the classroom. Students had the same problems in their dormitories, and during storms the campus echoed with the sounds of shattering glass. Even the larger, richer institutions won’t have air conditioning or heat in the classrooms. Ceiling fans and open windows are used to deal with the heat, and full jackets, hats, gloves, and winter gear are simply worn all day to fend off the cold. The course schedule is strictly regimented and completely out of control of the students, who receive their schedules at the beginning of the year and have little or no options of changing classes, teachers, or schedules. Transferring to another program within the University or to another school is as much or more of a viable recourse for potential issues than simply changing classes. 2007 © alarana.net |