The principal of Guangzhou No. 80 Middle School, Yuan Minxiang, has announced a new policy of allowing students to talk for 30 minutes of their 40 minute lessons, China Youth Daily reported Wednesday.

Since taking the job in 2007, Yuan has sought a range of methods to make lessons more interactive and foster students’ enthusiasm. As a result, students sit facing each other and there is much more emphasis on pair work and group work, which is in contrast with the traditional teaching method of treating lessons like lectures.

The school is located on the outskirts of Guangzhou and most students are from impoverished farming families. One netizen argued that such methods would only work with students who had more initiative, but Yuan insists that he will make the students “as confident as their urban counterparts.”

In May 2012, Guangzhou Baiyun District Educational Development Centre sent a delegation to the school and their survey showed that 97% of students felt their enthusiasm to learn had increased and both their grades and social skills had improved.

But Yuan still has plenty of challenges to overcome. Teachers at the school must get students who come from traditional families to think independently, something that most of their parents are neither used to nor encourage. But most of the complaints that land on Yuan’s desk are of a more practical nature.

Recent complaints include: “There are red ants coming out of the taps in the dormitory;” “the projector in the classroom is bad;” and “the warm water in the showers is not warm enough in winter.”

In spite of these problems, Yuan enjoys popular support by most accounts.

A typical Chinese classroom will see the teacher stand on a platform and students sitting in rows facing the teacher in a layout that makes it clear who’s boss. This BRILL study introduces more information about education in traditional China.

Meanwhile Susan Cain’s “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” which was one of last year’s most talked about non-fiction books, praised the traditional Asian education system for not placing too much emphasis on interaction.