Homework In China

Released in July, the report is based on a survey of 572,314 fourth and eighth grade students between 20 by the ministry’s National Assessment Centre for Education Quality.

Released in July, the report is based on a survey of 572,314 fourth and eighth grade students between 20 by the ministry’s National Assessment Centre for Education Quality.Over 30% of fourth graders and 50.2% of eighth graders said they spent more than 30 minutes doing mathematics homework each day, reported .Last year, the ministry released guidelines that urge families and schools to cooperate to guarantee 10 hours of sleep for primary students and nine hours of sleep for middle school students.

A netizen wrote that the incident reminded him of his most embarrassing moment as a schoolkid.

Asked to bring a rectangular object to school, he came the next day with a carton of cigarettes.

The rest showed up with small tanks with ornamental fish swimming in them.

The odd one out must have misheard the instructions.

The teacher, known only as Su, explained that she was hoping the pupils would “think critically, analyse the problem and work smart” instead of actually counting the rice grain by grain.

“I have never expected my students to count the grains one by one.“I don’t have that much rice at home,” says one netizen in response to the post.Some parents have calculated that it would take a year to count 100 million grains, based on a rate of three grains per second.I hope they will count the first 100 grains and then multiply the figure by 10 or 100 until it reaches 100 million,” she said. In another episode, a kindergarten teacher asked children to draw the shape of the moon each night for 30 consecutive days.One mother complained that due to lack of sleep, she has lost 4kg since her child was handed that assignment.“Why can’t the mother ask her kid to draw at an earlier hour instead of at midnight? Apart from accounts of odd homework, stories on the Internet about miscommunication between teachers and students (or the students’ parents) also make for interesting reading.One post that has been making the rounds is a picture of a group of children sitting at a table and looking at the fish they have brought to school.In front of one boy was a steel basin containing a large dead river fish.Apparently, the teacher wanted them to bring a pet fish.Many teachers are keen to exercise their power through these digital channels, asking parents to help students with problem sets and even grade their homework.The regional call to action follows a set of national guidelines released by the Ministry of Education in October directing teachers and schools to take more responsibilities rather than shift the load onto parents.