Elementary schools in our Beijing neighborhood reopen next Monday, and the new school year has me thinking about U.S. and Chinese attitudes toward education.

Here’s one huge difference: No daily recess.

Chinese do not believe that children have an inalienable right to take several breaks during the school day to run outside, fool around on monkey bars, or get one’s tongue frozen to a metal swing set, as one of my childhood friends did on a frigid morning at Glendale Elementary School in Madison, Wis. But I digress.

Our 10-year-old daughter goes to Fragrant Grass Elementary School, which is run by the Chinese government. She’ll be going into fourth grade. So far, she’s had the same teacher for first, second and third grade, which I think is rather unusual. Our daughter is very fond of Teacher Song, so she’s hoping that the administration will allow her to follow the class to a higher grade.

The Chinese school day is a little longer than in the United States. She leaves on the school bus at 7:15 a.m. and usually returns a little before 4 p.m.

Kids in her school eat lunch in their classrooms. They don’t go to a cafeteria. Those who buy a school lunch get it from a cart, and eat at their desks. After lunch, there is a quiet period. A few chosen kids are allowed to help clean up. This is a coveted assignment, connoting special status. Kids can read at their desks or play by themselves.

But there is no period where kids can go outside to yelp and scream and engage in the kind of recess mayhem that is common in the United States. Indeed, I don’t even think there is a playground at the school.

My elder brother is an elementary school teacher in Napa, California. He couldn’t believe his ears when I told him this in July. Recess is so ingrained as a right in the U.S. that it seems almost unimaginable not to have one. In fact, he said, his class gets a short morning recess, a break after lunch and a short afternoon recess. Basically, it is three breaks in one day. From his comments, I figure it is the teachers who most like recess. It gives them a break from the kids.

So I asked our daughter: Do you miss recess? She knows what recess is from kindergarten at a Virginia public school. This was her answer:

Nope.

Curious, huh?