Back to school around the world

He is a solid 3.0 student (the highest GPA is usually 4.0), but he admits to having developed poor study habits. "In elementary school, if you didn't do your homework, it didn't hurt you. Then all of a sudden middle school comes up, and high school, and it's getting harder and you're not doing a real good job on homework. This year, I'm trying to change all that."

This semester, he's taking world history, English, geometry, biology, Latin (which he says will help with the English portion of the SAT, a standardized college-aptitude test), photography (his only elective), and health.

The final bell at school merely signals the start of the rest of Eric's day. Several times a week, it's off to the local Dairy Queen restaurant, where he'll work the counter till 10:30 p.m. He'll get in a little bit of homework there - especially in the winter, when demand for ice cream drops off - and then finish it at home.

His parents, who own an embroidery business and work from home, don't mind his foray into fast food - as long as it doesn't distract from his homework. He's saving for a car, hoping to get his driver's license next June.

When he's not working, Eric goes home for a marathon computer session. He surfs the Internet, plays games, messages friends, listens to music. TV rarely enters the picture.

Easygoing by nature, he claims not to feel much pressure academically or socially. He says he's been offered marijuana, and there's plenty of drinking at parties, but it's not much of an issue in his circle of friends.

As for future plans: "I'm trying to decide what I want to do so I can start taking the classes I need to take, but I'm not, like, worried I'll freak out if I don't figure it out soon." he says. "It's more of a thing I'm going to look at next year or the year after."

- Craig Savoye

Beijing

Ding Xu, a fun-loving high school student in Beijing, loses some of her ebullience when she thinks about going back to school. "My head teacher is strict and doesn't care about us, and we have too much homework," she says, echoing a common sentiment, as tens of millions of Chinese students take up their notebooks again.

Teachers and parents are piling pressure and homework on Ding this year, because she's entering junior three, the final year of junior high school, when she must take the dreaded examination to qualify for senior high school. Officially, this is when the pressure starts, and it mounts until students test to enter university, which is the key to a good job in China. But parents start scheming much earlier, to get their children into good kindergartens.

"If I don't test into high school, then my parents will kill me," Ding says. "But if I test into a bad high school, then I wouldn't be able to test into university, and so that'll be a waste of three years."

She attends Beijing Railroad Number Three High School (which also houses junior-high students), an elite district magnet school; "magnet" signifies better teachers and facilities. Fifty percent of Chinese students qualify for public high school; the rest settle for vocational or private schools.

Ding complains about the ugly purple and white jumpsuit that is her uniform, and about how schools' promise of extracurricular activities is just for show. "The Ministry of Education asks schools to have extracurricular activities, but none of them do, because it takes time from studying," Ding says. "The ministry periodically does check-ups, so we have to pretend to be doing extracurricular activities. For example ... we went to the Forbidden Palace for a couple of minutes, and then used the gate ticket as proof."

Ding has a passion for drawing and calligraphy, and used to attend summer classes. But this summer, her parents - usually mellow, but now anxious because of the impending examination - made her attend physics and English cram courses.

"When my parents aren't home, I go out and play; when they're home, I study," she says. "My goal is to avoid talking to them, and hearing their lectures on how hard I have to study."

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