The mammoth Zhoushan campus, built to accommodate roughly 1,500 students, boarding and day, even had a planetarium. Construction cranes bordered two sides of the campus. Exploding dynamite, used to flatten the surrounding hills that inspired ancient emperors to call this island “the land of green dragons,” could occasionally be heard in the rapidly developing neighborhood.

I had come to China with the conviction that I could teach these young people to think independently, and that they would see how valuable a tool it could be in their education. But I would discover how aggressively China’s education system resists the notion of student-centric learning, as I watched students scramble for the simplest metrics of academic success.

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In China, cheating is a serious issue, and extreme measures are taken to prevent it. During the notorious gaokao, the all-important Chinese college entrance exam, our students had to pass through metal detectors that scanned for miniature transmission devices. A hulking yellow truck sat parked in the center of campus, bristling with antennas to detect and jam wireless communication. Test takers were sequestered in tape-sealed rooms all day, with police cordons at the campus gates to keep throngs of anxious parents out.

Because the gaokao score is what matters to Chinese colleges, grade-point average seemed a secondary concern to students and parents. Oral participation in the classroom and critical thinking were often lost in the test’s looming shadow.

One day, after dealing with rampant cheating and plagiarism, I felt it was time to have a serious talk with my students. I even had the lecture translated into Mandarin to avoid any claims of mistranslations from my English-proficient students. The lesson was obvious, I thought: If you wrote down an answer that you didn’t think up, and you wrote three or more words of it in a row, you must cite the source. Otherwise it’s stealing. Your work must be created by you. Just moments later, I noticed a girl gawking at another’s brazen attempt to grab a classmate’s work (which I’d just checked) and present it as her own. Clearly, my lecture was not hitting home.

I needed some backup. During a break, I explained to their head teacher what had happened. She dutifully explained to the guilty girls, as well as to the entire class, how this English class was different. “When Mr. Metz is here, this is an American classroom. I told you, cheating is not allowed in the American class.”

I began to understand an underlying difference in educational philosophy. China focuses on the end result; America cares about the process of getting there.