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32 Seemingly Normal Things About American Schools That Confuse The Hell Out Of Non-Americans
Growing up in a European country and never witnessing what it's like to go to an American school, watching American high school comedies, to me, has always been a pretty surreal experience. I'm sure that most of you fellow non-Americans reading this article could relate to me on this.
There are so many things about American schools that have always seemed utterly fascinating to me. For instance, you get letter grades instead of number ones, schools have swimming pools inside them, there's a club for almost anything, you have to get a hall pass to go to the bathroom during class, and lunch meals are usually pretty bizarre. The list goes on. With that being said, Bored Panda invites you to look through this list of tweets from non-American Twitter users in which they share things that they find the strangest about American schools. Feel free to explain to us the things we don't understand or add your own in the comment section!
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Yes, but the cheerleaders were just normal students, not stuck up and they didn't wear their uniforms in class.
In Sweden it starts in august and ends in june. Nothing odd about it, to me.
They used to have E as a failing grade, but people thought it meant Excellent, so they changed it to an F.
Some of them. Those are Scantron tests (or a version of that) and they make it easier on the teacher for grading. You are given a separate sheet of paper with all the questions on it and you answer on the Scantron sheet. Then the teacher ran it through a machine and it graded it. But in my experience those are usually used for finals or important tests, otherwise the teachers made and graded their own tests
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Only the really big tests, usually given by the state, not the school.
Standard tests (state official) yeah, other than that, not really
Never seen tests like these, I'm English. Are they multiple choice questions? If so, I wish I had them
Now they are online, with stupid directions like "Choose the best answer."
Depends where and which schools. Some places use the scantron and some do not. The purpose of the scantron it the teacher feeds the scantron into the machine, the machine checks it agains the computer where the teacher had the answers in and autogrades it. Makes grading multiple choice easier on teachers
Yes conserving paper so that not ever student gets a massive packet for a test
Yes, it’s true. It is done to automate test scoring, so teachers don’t have to grade exams.
One teacher deuces it would be funny to many 4 versions of a test but each test you got you got all A’s or all B’s and so on depending on test version you got.
yeah..... if you didn't fill the bubble correctly, it was marked wrong
in my canadian experience, we only use them for PAT's
Being given a set range of options doesn’t encourage analytical thinking.
I wished my tests were like that. I don't have to waist limited suply of brain energy
Not like normal school tests, but like big, end-of-school tests yeah
Yes. And you have to hope you don't go cross eyed while taking it. Accidently skip one line and ALL your following answers will be wrong! Teachers have hundreds of papers to grade and often don't have the time to commit to it. This was done to make grading tests more efficient since you just program a machine with the answers and let it do all the grading.
Those are called Standardized Tests, here in México we called Open Book tests :D
This is usually only for standardized tests. That way, a machine can score them quickly.
They are now. When I was in school about a thousand years ago, we only had major tests on rare occasions that were like that -- the SAT, for example, which is a test most students going to college have to take because the numerical grade you get determines a lot about where you can get into college. By the time my kids were in school, they had fill-in-the-circle tests for EVERYTHING. And the ballots I fill out are like that, too, in my county, so I filled in a circle to vote for president last month. I felt like I was back in school!
Australia has multiple choice tests like that too. Usually state given tests. Do other countries not?
This method is widely used in other countries too, as it's good for machine evaluation.
Yes, the "standardized" tests which are supposed to see if students are meeting benchmarks for their grade levels. Sadly, when my own kids were in school, I noticed they were only being taught to pass those tests. Their education was much narrower than mine, so I made sure to round it out at home. Other parents may not have the time, money, energy or education themselves to do that. So lots of kids grow up missing out on how to learn because they've only ever been fed facts to remember. I hope that made sense.
That’s an easier way of scoring for teachers when you have multiple answer test but most test also include the essay questions which have to be scored differently. A New York State regents testing is graded by a multitude of teachers from different schools in the area. That is the highest level of testing we do.
The sheets are placed into a machine called a Scantron machine which then grades the papers at a rapid rate based on the Teachers predetermined answer key. No I did not make that up... we used them in Canada too.
These are the kind of tests you take once a year to gauge your knowledge. They are given by the state your school is in. These tests will determine the school's grade, where tax monies should go, teacher reviews and all sorts of stuff. They are read by computers.
Yes, and they are the absolute worst. I envy anyone who never took one of these types of tests.
yeah, and you fail the thing if you put the smallest mark outside of it
yes, when you have 4 of the same letter in a row then something is off.
My f*****g teacher made every single f*****g answer B once.
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Only the super official ones, and even then I only took those in lower elementary school. Still slightly traumatized from obsessing over filling in the dot perfectly.
Canadian here. They don't close schools in Canada unless it's been colder than -40C for three days in a row.
Because we put all our budget into our announcements and lockers
Yes, teachers want you in class to learn, not loitering in the bathroom.
yep...at least in the suburbs because most of us start driving at 16
To be very honest, I'm English and I usually do page count rather than word count
So we aren't "distracted". Even rooms with windows usually had the blinds closed.
Not really. We have nearby schools we compete against in sports, but any rivalry is very light-hearted.
Candy was usually a very tiny part, if it was there at all. But it was the most exciting part!
I'm European and I read each one of these facts thinking "wait... they do *what*??!"
im american and reading these were like: wait other schools dont do that. its pretty cool to read this post and see other people's perspectives
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I have no idea what anyone does outside exactly three countries, one of them US, and I think it's a case of "whatever is unfamiliar is weird" here. BTW, clubs at US schools were a great way to pad your CV to get into college/uni, and to not go home to shi**y circumstances. So I'm for the clubs. That 7 AM thing, eh, I grew up in farm country. We were up anyway!
Some of the questions were odd even to me in the UK. In most instances, in many countries, we all have various versions of similar things. Pools in some schools, water fountains in some, after school activities are common place (but not called clubs), ditto lockers. The only thing that stuck out for me was the time of day lessons started and that has pros and cons. Younger children are (usually) naturally earlier risers but there are studies that show older children benefit from later starts. I like hearing how other countries do things but I'd really like another country to take a turn. Bored Panda - why not take the focus OFF the US, just for a moment, and pick countries that are less known and maybe we can share info from them?
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but how is having a parking lot wierd ??????????????????
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Jeezzz relax!! Just because things are done differently here doesn't necessarily mean it's weird. I had the opportunity to go to schoo in different countries because of the nature of my parents work. I can tell you with great assurance that every one had their own way of doing things and that's all okay.
A lot of the questions are "do American schools ___?". Which is a fair question... since these people's perception of American schools is from TV. Take cheerleaders for example. Do all American schools have cheerleaders? Or is it just a few of them, but cheerleaders make a good character for a TV show or a movie, so they get over-represented. Same with cafeterias, maybe only like 30% of schools have one, but since it makes such a convenient set, 100% of schools on TV have one.
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One trend I'm noticing, which is a frequent thing on 'People in the U.S. *insert here*' is that a lot of people posting don't seem to understand just how BIG the U.S. is. Cars are a culture here but of necessity. Public transportation may work in major cities but we have vast areas where you need a car. There is so much diversity in even what is available. I went to a K-12 school once where there were 22 of us my freshman class and we were one of the largest classes they'd had in years, and I've been to a school where my graduating class was over 2,000 people. Both those schools were in the same State just opposite ends of it. Canada gets it, but still, it's something people keep forgetting.
Australia - nearly the same size as the USA and public transport does work for students - dedicated school buses.One school I taught at (P-12) had the first student picked up before 7:30 and dropped off by around 5 - a long day if you're 5! All except three students came by bus (those three lived next to the school and were always late!) Our catchment area was well over a thousand square kilometres. In suburban areas where, especially in primary school (P-6) most parents will drop off and pick up, traffic is horrendous at those times and far more dangerous. Walking, riding or public transport is far safer for everyone.
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im not from the States but think this is super silly. Ofcourse Sweden doesnt cancel school when it snows, pretty sure they wont in Alaska either, pretty sure not only schools close, but all hell breaks lose if it will ever snow on Hawaii.... :-D
You can say that again. If you are FORCED to pledge allegiance, then are you really "free"?
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I live in Canada... we do some of these. Some of these just seem... plain weird...
I don't live in the USA, but I would wager that most of the people here aren't comparing "US schools vs other schools in the world" so much as "US schools vs THE SCHOOLS IN MY OWN COUNTRY because actually I have no goddamn clue what schools in other countries/continents are like". Some of the posts are true for Germany, or at least not totally unseen, and I definitely know of other countries that do some things in schools differently than we do... different countries are different, who'd have thought.
Here's one that they didn't list: SROs (Student Resource Officer) at high schools. We had a police officer assigned to my high school, hypothetically to help students out. In reality, he harrassed some students and was basically useless (I literally reported being threatened by another student with a gun, and he didn't take a statement, register a complaint... nothing).
This just makes me think the U.S. is the only normal country and European countries are weird.
This is weirdly,assuming that all European schools are exactly the same and we all find the exact same things about American schools strange.
I’m American and I am just now learning some of these things. My school did not have hall passes, a cafeteria, dances, vending machines, buses, and whatnot.
US here. What your school has also depends on the wealth of your school district. These can be extremely different from school to school. My elementary-Jr High was in a very well funded system and we had a lot of opportunities and resources in school. Breakfast and lunch was provided and both were awesome. In High School, I moved states and was in poorer district. The school was small, over crowded and underfunded. We had "open lunch" because not all the students could fit in the caf, so we could leave campus for lunch hour. This school was in the mountains so yes the bus took me from home 27 miles to school everyday. If it was too cold, the diesel in the bus would gel and half the kids who lived on the other side of the pass got a snow day because the bus couldn't go.
So true! If you lived in a very prosperous district, your school benefitted from that. If you own a house in that district, it's worth more because the schools are usually a cut above the rest, and most Americans want their children to go to the best school possible even if the taxes there are higher.
Load More Replies... Maybe it's just my state of mind this morning but it seemed like most of those were "look what dumbf*cks they are in America" statement and not really "you do this and it's different from us. Why?" And a lot of the questions were just strange. Lockers? Water fountains? Lunch rooms?
Well in my school in Germany we really didn't have lockers, lunchrooms or waterfountains. Everyone brought thier food and water and just ate in the hall or outside. Also I don't think the questions are meant menacingly. It's more of a "wait, it's really like that and not just a clichee we see in movies?!"
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I'd like to know, how often do they 'pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America'?
My elementary school did it occasionally, my middle school never did it, my high school did it every single day. It just depends.
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The most terrifying thing is lessons from 7 a.m!! )) some other things made me jealous... but not nurse: we have medical rooms and nurses at schools and pediatrician + nurse are in kindergardens . In my childhood there were even weeks of dentist's care, not any more. But still first aid and some vaccination like against flue can be done there
I have never been or heard of a school that had classes starting at 7:00 am most have it start at 8:00 - 8:30 am.
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Most of these are just due to the fact that american schools are usually huuuge. I went to a big business school in Europe when I was 16 and we had almost all of the same "anomalies" listed above. When you have 5000+ students you need to organize stuff on another scale.
I did a placement in a US school about 10 years ago. I was so shocked by how old fashioned the teaching was. All the classrooms were just grim lines of individual desks facing front, and it was pretty common for kids to just sit there in total silence while a teacher lectured at the front. The schools were absolutely obsessed with quantative assessments (such as useless multiple choice tests). A lot of teachers were very poorly qualified and not really learning specialists in any modern sense. That sort of treat-everyone-the-same "talk and chalk" teaching style disappeared in the 1980s in my home country. It was a real shock.
As an Australian, our public schools don't supply lunches or cafeterias (although some country schools have them). Our students eat their lunch sitting in the yard, or if very young, in the classroom before being allowed out to play. I did work in a private school where staff had a room to eat lunch and had soup supplied if wanted. Swimming pools? Only in private or similar schools. Clubs? Voluntary and in everyone's own time (staff and students). Bathroom passes? We expect our students to wash themselves outside school time. Toilet visits? Usually up to the individual teacher, and refused when too frequent with no reason. Buses to school? I worked at one school where all except three students came to school by bus. The furthest boarded the bus at 7:30 and got home around 4:45 - a long day for a 5 y.o. in Prep. Many students in suburban schools are driven by their (usually) mother - resulting in traffic jams around 8:30 to 9 a.m. and the equivalent in the afternoon.
It all comes down to money and government. All of it. I used to have a difficult time understanding why my parents put me in private schools. Turns out public schools are, at best, just weak.
Deja vu. You guys had basically the same post (most of the same entries) last week. And two weeks ago. And a month ago.
I don’t miss those school lunches but I feel like everyone would always get super excited when it was chicken strip day. Those weren’t bad. I like the mini breakfast pizza it was tasty. But that’s about it. As a kid I absolutely loved snow days and when there was no school. Kids today won’t be able to experience it because there’s virtual learning. Anyways I’m so glad to be finished with school. I hate getting up so early.
Some of these I found odd. Is it really only America that has buses, lockers and clubs?
Canada has all three! My school even had a D&D club, before Covid.
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i live in nh i go to kersharge we have nurses mental health people mostly women and lots of over teachers that help the kids its a very ice school with also has many groupes and clubs and a black market for pokymon cards
yes we have a black market becuse the cards arnt allowed but we dont care right now they have in and at home learning
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America's number 1 export is "media". TV shows, movies, etc. People from other countries watch it, and form their ideas of what "America" is from that... considering that TV & Movies are designed to be entertaining, it is understandable that foreigners see America as being an entertaining place.
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oh no i have a nurse in case someone has an asthma attack oh no i have clubs were i can expand my social circle....save me lol
Load More Replies... I'm European and I read each one of these facts thinking "wait... they do *what*??!"
im american and reading these were like: wait other schools dont do that. its pretty cool to read this post and see other people's perspectives
Load More Replies... I have no idea what anyone does outside exactly three countries, one of them US, and I think it's a case of "whatever is unfamiliar is weird" here. BTW, clubs at US schools were a great way to pad your CV to get into college/uni, and to not go home to shi**y circumstances. So I'm for the clubs. That 7 AM thing, eh, I grew up in farm country. We were up anyway!
Some of the questions were odd even to me in the UK. In most instances, in many countries, we all have various versions of similar things. Pools in some schools, water fountains in some, after school activities are common place (but not called clubs), ditto lockers. The only thing that stuck out for me was the time of day lessons started and that has pros and cons. Younger children are (usually) naturally earlier risers but there are studies that show older children benefit from later starts. I like hearing how other countries do things but I'd really like another country to take a turn. Bored Panda - why not take the focus OFF the US, just for a moment, and pick countries that are less known and maybe we can share info from them?
Load More Replies... but how is having a parking lot wierd ??????????????????
Load More Replies... Jeezzz relax!! Just because things are done differently here doesn't necessarily mean it's weird. I had the opportunity to go to schoo in different countries because of the nature of my parents work. I can tell you with great assurance that every one had their own way of doing things and that's all okay.
A lot of the questions are "do American schools ___?". Which is a fair question... since these people's perception of American schools is from TV. Take cheerleaders for example. Do all American schools have cheerleaders? Or is it just a few of them, but cheerleaders make a good character for a TV show or a movie, so they get over-represented. Same with cafeterias, maybe only like 30% of schools have one, but since it makes such a convenient set, 100% of schools on TV have one.
Load More Replies... One trend I'm noticing, which is a frequent thing on 'People in the U.S. *insert here*' is that a lot of people posting don't seem to understand just how BIG the U.S. is. Cars are a culture here but of necessity. Public transportation may work in major cities but we have vast areas where you need a car. There is so much diversity in even what is available. I went to a K-12 school once where there were 22 of us my freshman class and we were one of the largest classes they'd had in years, and I've been to a school where my graduating class was over 2,000 people. Both those schools were in the same State just opposite ends of it. Canada gets it, but still, it's something people keep forgetting.
Australia - nearly the same size as the USA and public transport does work for students - dedicated school buses.One school I taught at (P-12) had the first student picked up before 7:30 and dropped off by around 5 - a long day if you're 5! All except three students came by bus (those three lived next to the school and were always late!) Our catchment area was well over a thousand square kilometres. In suburban areas where, especially in primary school (P-6) most parents will drop off and pick up, traffic is horrendous at those times and far more dangerous. Walking, riding or public transport is far safer for everyone.
Load More Replies... im not from the States but think this is super silly. Ofcourse Sweden doesnt cancel school when it snows, pretty sure they wont in Alaska either, pretty sure not only schools close, but all hell breaks lose if it will ever snow on Hawaii.... :-D
You can say that again. If you are FORCED to pledge allegiance, then are you really "free"?
Load More Replies... I live in Canada... we do some of these. Some of these just seem... plain weird...
I don't live in the USA, but I would wager that most of the people here aren't comparing "US schools vs other schools in the world" so much as "US schools vs THE SCHOOLS IN MY OWN COUNTRY because actually I have no goddamn clue what schools in other countries/continents are like". Some of the posts are true for Germany, or at least not totally unseen, and I definitely know of other countries that do some things in schools differently than we do... different countries are different, who'd have thought.
Here's one that they didn't list: SROs (Student Resource Officer) at high schools. We had a police officer assigned to my high school, hypothetically to help students out. In reality, he harrassed some students and was basically useless (I literally reported being threatened by another student with a gun, and he didn't take a statement, register a complaint... nothing).
This just makes me think the U.S. is the only normal country and European countries are weird.
This is weirdly,assuming that all European schools are exactly the same and we all find the exact same things about American schools strange.
I’m American and I am just now learning some of these things. My school did not have hall passes, a cafeteria, dances, vending machines, buses, and whatnot.
US here. What your school has also depends on the wealth of your school district. These can be extremely different from school to school. My elementary-Jr High was in a very well funded system and we had a lot of opportunities and resources in school. Breakfast and lunch was provided and both were awesome. In High School, I moved states and was in poorer district. The school was small, over crowded and underfunded. We had "open lunch" because not all the students could fit in the caf, so we could leave campus for lunch hour. This school was in the mountains so yes the bus took me from home 27 miles to school everyday. If it was too cold, the diesel in the bus would gel and half the kids who lived on the other side of the pass got a snow day because the bus couldn't go.
So true! If you lived in a very prosperous district, your school benefitted from that. If you own a house in that district, it's worth more because the schools are usually a cut above the rest, and most Americans want their children to go to the best school possible even if the taxes there are higher.
Load More Replies... Maybe it's just my state of mind this morning but it seemed like most of those were "look what dumbf*cks they are in America" statement and not really "you do this and it's different from us. Why?" And a lot of the questions were just strange. Lockers? Water fountains? Lunch rooms?
Well in my school in Germany we really didn't have lockers, lunchrooms or waterfountains. Everyone brought thier food and water and just ate in the hall or outside. Also I don't think the questions are meant menacingly. It's more of a "wait, it's really like that and not just a clichee we see in movies?!"
Load More Replies... I'd like to know, how often do they 'pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America'?
My elementary school did it occasionally, my middle school never did it, my high school did it every single day. It just depends.
Load More Replies... The most terrifying thing is lessons from 7 a.m!! )) some other things made me jealous... but not nurse: we have medical rooms and nurses at schools and pediatrician + nurse are in kindergardens . In my childhood there were even weeks of dentist's care, not any more. But still first aid and some vaccination like against flue can be done there
I have never been or heard of a school that had classes starting at 7:00 am most have it start at 8:00 - 8:30 am.
Load More Replies... Most of these are just due to the fact that american schools are usually huuuge. I went to a big business school in Europe when I was 16 and we had almost all of the same "anomalies" listed above. When you have 5000+ students you need to organize stuff on another scale.
I did a placement in a US school about 10 years ago. I was so shocked by how old fashioned the teaching was. All the classrooms were just grim lines of individual desks facing front, and it was pretty common for kids to just sit there in total silence while a teacher lectured at the front. The schools were absolutely obsessed with quantative assessments (such as useless multiple choice tests). A lot of teachers were very poorly qualified and not really learning specialists in any modern sense. That sort of treat-everyone-the-same "talk and chalk" teaching style disappeared in the 1980s in my home country. It was a real shock.
As an Australian, our public schools don't supply lunches or cafeterias (although some country schools have them). Our students eat their lunch sitting in the yard, or if very young, in the classroom before being allowed out to play. I did work in a private school where staff had a room to eat lunch and had soup supplied if wanted. Swimming pools? Only in private or similar schools. Clubs? Voluntary and in everyone's own time (staff and students). Bathroom passes? We expect our students to wash themselves outside school time. Toilet visits? Usually up to the individual teacher, and refused when too frequent with no reason. Buses to school? I worked at one school where all except three students came to school by bus. The furthest boarded the bus at 7:30 and got home around 4:45 - a long day for a 5 y.o. in Prep. Many students in suburban schools are driven by their (usually) mother - resulting in traffic jams around 8:30 to 9 a.m. and the equivalent in the afternoon.
It all comes down to money and government. All of it. I used to have a difficult time understanding why my parents put me in private schools. Turns out public schools are, at best, just weak.
Deja vu. You guys had basically the same post (most of the same entries) last week. And two weeks ago. And a month ago.
I don’t miss those school lunches but I feel like everyone would always get super excited when it was chicken strip day. Those weren’t bad. I like the mini breakfast pizza it was tasty. But that’s about it. As a kid I absolutely loved snow days and when there was no school. Kids today won’t be able to experience it because there’s virtual learning. Anyways I’m so glad to be finished with school. I hate getting up so early.
Some of these I found odd. Is it really only America that has buses, lockers and clubs?
Canada has all three! My school even had a D&D club, before Covid.
Load More Replies... i live in nh i go to kersharge we have nurses mental health people mostly women and lots of over teachers that help the kids its a very ice school with also has many groupes and clubs and a black market for pokymon cards
yes we have a black market becuse the cards arnt allowed but we dont care right now they have in and at home learning
Load More Replies... America's number 1 export is "media". TV shows, movies, etc. People from other countries watch it, and form their ideas of what "America" is from that... considering that TV & Movies are designed to be entertaining, it is understandable that foreigners see America as being an entertaining place.
Load More Replies... oh no i have a nurse in case someone has an asthma attack oh no i have clubs were i can expand my social circle....save me lol
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