Magic dance: Chinese teacher leads students in lively daily classroom routine to decompress and make learning fun, delighting social media

A teacher encouraging her students to dance to decompress and improve focus before starting class has trended on mainland Chinese social media.

A video of the lively dance showed secondary school students coordinating closely with each other and smiling happily in Maanshan in eastern China’s Anhui province, The Paper reported.

Their teacher, surnamed Zhou, said it’s part of her routine for students to perform rhythmic dances before class.

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“I love sports, so I want my students to do more physical exercises,” she said. “Before each of my classes, especially in the afternoon, I will enter the classroom five minutes earlier than scheduled and get students to dance, hoping it will prevent drowsiness and relieve some of the academic pressure on the students.”

Zhou said the students feel joyful and energetic after they dance.

“As a result, my class atmosphere is always quite active, and the students can absorb what they learn quickly,” she said.

Zhou leads her students to dance in the classroom, in the school’s playground, and on the bus when students go on school field trips, according to her Douyin account.

“None of my students have had a negative response or feel stressed. Unlike most of their peers, they are all optimistic and upbeat,” said Zhou.

Mainland internet users have praised the teacher for her unorthodox teaching methods.

“Her students are lucky!” said one person on Douyin.

Another person said: “Thumbs up to this teacher! I like the class atmosphere.”

Primary and younger secondary school students in mainland China have a heavy academic workload as they prepare for challenging entrance examinations for places at better schools and in top university courses.

According to a white paper on sleep health released by the China Sleep Research Society last year, primary students in the country sleep 7.65 hours a day on average. In comparison, the Beijing News reported that junior secondary students get 7.48 hours, with an average of 6.5 hours for senior secondary students.

All are far lower than the minimum sleep hours set by China’s state education authority of 10 hours for primary students, and eight to nine hours for secondary students.

As a result, more teachers in China are trying new ways to motivate students. Earlier this month, a secondary school physics teacher in northern China went viral in a video of him performing a Dai ethnic minority dance as a treat to encourage his students to work hard.

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