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This is a flag of China

In China, there are six years of elementary school, three years of middle school, and three years of high school.

School begins around 7:30 with a flag raising ceremony and a lecture from the principal who speaks through a bullhorn. Describing the first day of school in a small town school, Peter Hessler wrote in The New Yorker, “The loudspeakers crackle, and music came on for the flag- raising. The older children, wearing the red kerchiefs of the Young Pioneers, marched in place while the national anthem played."

Only 30 percent of middle school students go on to high school.

A typical school has few academic and athletic facilities other than a chalkboard, some desks, chairs and a Chinese flag and courtyard where children play. Better schools have a dirt soccer field. Few schools have air conditioning or heating. In the winter, teachers and students are often bundled up in heavy coats and gloves in the classrooms, their breath forming clouds.

Middle class children fill the hours after school with homework, music lesson and other enrichment programs. English classes and math Olympics are popular. Parents spend sizable chunks of money on classes at computer schools and language academies. Children often have lots of homework, which they often do in copybooks in front of their parents.

They studied in China

Some famous people

And some very smart people

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