Today in the United States we have plenty of time for hanging out, reading, playing video game and having to play a sport, instrument or some kind of form of art. But is that free time use wisely among teenagers? Do we use this time as a play time or are we actually  doing some real work?
      Now compare the United States to other countries such as China. The United States give students a lot of free time. The purpose of that is to let students have time for their extra curriculum. Expect students to have more time to socialize with friends. Or even just stay at home and read, after finishing homework that teachers assigned. But most of the time was wasted among playing video games, watching nonsense TV or just sitting and staring out the window (that is usually what I did). But are the Chinese students using these time wisely? They are using it as taking AP courses. Or joining a Mathematical Olympiad club to learn more profound math. Sometimes students from that country even studies for a test till midnight.
But this great amount of free time also shows that the United States is a country of liberty. We can do whatever we want to do. This also gives us space to develop our own natural talents, like an instrument, a kind of sport  or the talents of drawing.  Which in China the only purpose is to learn a bunch of “not-so-useful” stuff in order to get in to a good college. But I can not judge what the students in China learn, since it must be useful to someone, right? Maybe in the Chinese’s college view that is a big point to recruit students. And they thought the United States’ teaching method was useless.
So from both points of view both country thought their students were doing a good job managing their spare time.