成人快手

英国中学生张川

	张川：英国的中学也会象高压锅

Hi my name is Chuan Zhang(张川). I go to Newstead Wood School in Orpington about 20 miles South East of London. I do speak Chinese, but prefer writing in English.

When I do eventually get up at seven o’clock every morning, I realise that it is the beginning of another school day. I rush to my secondary school as it starts at twenty five to nine, with our form tutor taking the register(点名).

Every lesson starts with the pupils rising to their feet(起立), showing respect to their experienced teachers. After everyone is seated, the lesson begins. The end of a challenging one hour lesson is signalled by the sound of the bell(打铃). This sound is very much to the relief of pupils and the annoyance of teachers.

The relationship between teacher and pupil is usually shown before Christmas when all the pupils in a class come together to buy their form tutor a Christmas gift(圣诞礼物). Depending on the teacher, they too will buy over twenty little gifts for every pupil in the class. In addition, if the teacher is very popular, then on their birthday, the pupils will bring in a cake for them. (Them? Or him/her? Do I have to be politically correct?) Bringing in a cake on someone’s birthday is very much a tradition in Newstead Wood School.

However, Christmas gifts and birthday cakes (生日蛋糕) don’t ever stop the teachers from giving us loads of essays and unnecessary homework as they attempt to push us to our limits(撑到极限). Not only do they insist that they are only setting a ‘small’ amount of work, they also somehow believe that we will thank them later on in our lives for cutting down our limited spare time. Having said this, we often do feel thankful after taking an exam. We find it much easier because of the amount of work set by our committed teachers, or should I call them园丁 (‘gardeners’)?

The thing that everyone in school dreads the most are the meaningless, mind numbing, cramped assemblies (集合). Every afternoon, the school would pack together certain year groups (年级) and three times in a week, I will follow my year group into the hall, where we are forced to sit cross legged on the floor. The assembly leader then starts her speech on a special topic such as ‘overcoming difficulties’ (克服困难) whilst the docile audience try very hard not to fall asleep.

The part of the school day that I most look forward to is lunch time. During lunch, there are many extra curricula clubs (课外活动俱乐部) available for pupils. I can buy my lunch first, and then go to the club of my choice. Newstead Wood provides everything from tennis clubs to Chinese lessons. However, most pupils spend their lunch time queuing up (排队) to buy a plate of weird and wonderful (千奇百怪) food from the school canteen, although many have enough sense to bring their own lunches. After five long and demanding lessons, we are finally allowed out of the pressure cooker (高压锅), formally known as Newstead Wood.