You mean like comparison between the various schools I’ve been to?
In Guangzhou, the school I went to was a privately-run one, I wasn’t allowed to be in public school because everyone in my family had rural hukou. These school are said to be subpar compared to the public schools, as they lack the public funding, and parents had to pay for it out of pocket. Feels kinda run-down. There were zero shared textbooks, everyone has to get these like these small student handbooks, everything else is learned from the chalkboard. It’s around like 2008 to 2010. Like zero smartboards. Zero internet. Didn’t have internet at home either. There was a windows xp computer at home, but I that from a relative. My older brother used it to play music and some videos (its those old desktops with the DVD player thing).
And one distinct thing about it is. Every week (or month, not sure), they do this raising the flag ceremony where every student has to be in the school yard and they put on this whole performance and had students bring out the flag and then raise it with the national anthem being played, then afterwards, some stupid announcements. As an introvert and a non-conformist, that stuff was really weird. And I think they also played the national anthem every day, but without the whole raising the flag thing in the schoolyard.
And they had this weird thing, which I now learned its called the Young Pioneers of China, where everyone wears a red scarf to symbolize some “communist” stuff. They had upper classmen that were about to move on to middle school to put the red scarf on the 1st graders. Its like part of your uniform, kinda like in some US schools, you had to wear a tie.
Americans, does this raising the flag ceremony sound familiar?
Which brings me to the NYC. So when they first did the pledge of allegiance and the star spangled banner played on the PA system, I didn’t even feel strange, it was just another ritual to me. I stood for it to fit in, but just stayed silent for the pledge, I wasn’t a citizen and didn’t know english at the time so of course I didn’t do the pledge. Still didn’t do it even after I learned english, it was just sooo awkward to say it.
So, the NYC’s (Brooklyn) public school was much more “modern”, I see a lot of smartboards that I never saw before. Computers being used in class, projectors, and copying stuff from a windows document projected, instead of chalkboards. And well… they did have those dry-erase boards, so at least there aren’t chalk dust everywhere, those dusts were annoying. They had a computer room, still running XP in like what, 2010-2014? Lolol.
In Philadelphia, schools were less funded than in NYC’s. It feels kinda run-down again. Technology is definitely still part of class, but some class seem to be missing stuff, its like only half of the classrooms had projectors, didn’t see many smartboards that you could write on. In middle school, they had like one or two carts of computers, and a comouter room. These are all Macs. In highschool, they started to transition to Google Classroom, so I don’t think they even spend money on Smartboards anymore these days, they had full carts of chromebooks instead. After covid, everyone was issued one by the high school as part of a loaner program.
P.S. In middle school, they stopped doing the star spangle banner, and in highschool, they stoped doing the pledge all together.
You mean like comparison between the various schools I’ve been to?
In Guangzhou, the school I went to was a privately-run one, I wasn’t allowed to be in public school because everyone in my family had rural hukou. These school are said to be subpar compared to the public schools, as they lack the public funding, and parents had to pay for it out of pocket. Feels kinda run-down. There were zero shared textbooks, everyone has to get these like these small student handbooks, everything else is learned from the chalkboard. It’s around like 2008 to 2010. Like zero smartboards. Zero internet. Didn’t have internet at home either. There was a windows xp computer at home, but I that from a relative. My older brother used it to play music and some videos (its those old desktops with the DVD player thing).
And one distinct thing about it is. Every week (or month, not sure), they do this raising the flag ceremony where every student has to be in the school yard and they put on this whole performance and had students bring out the flag and then raise it with the national anthem being played, then afterwards, some stupid announcements. As an introvert and a non-conformist, that stuff was really weird. And I think they also played the national anthem every day, but without the whole raising the flag thing in the schoolyard.
And they had this weird thing, which I now learned its called the Young Pioneers of China, where everyone wears a red scarf to symbolize some “communist” stuff. They had upper classmen that were about to move on to middle school to put the red scarf on the 1st graders. Its like part of your uniform, kinda like in some US schools, you had to wear a tie.
Americans, does this raising the flag ceremony sound familiar?
Which brings me to the NYC. So when they first did the pledge of allegiance and the star spangled banner played on the PA system, I didn’t even feel strange, it was just another ritual to me. I stood for it to fit in, but just stayed silent for the pledge, I wasn’t a citizen and didn’t know english at the time so of course I didn’t do the pledge. Still didn’t do it even after I learned english, it was just sooo awkward to say it.
So, the NYC’s (Brooklyn) public school was much more “modern”, I see a lot of smartboards that I never saw before. Computers being used in class, projectors, and copying stuff from a windows document projected, instead of chalkboards. And well… they did have those dry-erase boards, so at least there aren’t chalk dust everywhere, those dusts were annoying. They had a computer room, still running XP in like what, 2010-2014? Lolol.
In Philadelphia, schools were less funded than in NYC’s. It feels kinda run-down again. Technology is definitely still part of class, but some class seem to be missing stuff, its like only half of the classrooms had projectors, didn’t see many smartboards that you could write on. In middle school, they had like one or two carts of computers, and a comouter room. These are all Macs. In highschool, they started to transition to Google Classroom, so I don’t think they even spend money on Smartboards anymore these days, they had full carts of chromebooks instead. After covid, everyone was issued one by the high school as part of a loaner program.
P.S. In middle school, they stopped doing the star spangle banner, and in highschool, they stoped doing the pledge all together.