32 Seemingly Normal Things About American Schools That Confuse The Hell Out Of Non-Americans

I don’t ever know what A levels etc. are. One of these days I need to look it up.

mine starts at 8:00 till 3:00

Yes, but the cheerleaders were just normal students, not stuck up and they didn't wear their uniforms in class.

Yes, because if you're in the hall without one, then you MUST be commiting murder (Sarcasm lads)

In Sweden it starts in august and ends in june. Nothing odd about it, to me.

Yep and we decorate them too!

Yes, don't you?

They used to have E as a failing grade, but people thought it meant Excellent, so they changed it to an F.

Yep, even a snowboard & skiing club in the Midwest.

huge, loud, head-ache inducing cafeterias.

Yes sadly

Aunt Messy

Aunt Messy

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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

Because a gallon would be too heavy on the lunch tray.

They aren't cool it sucks

I wish I had school lunch that good

Yep. ours was awesome!

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

one word to answer this- ICE

To be very honest, I'm English and I usually do page count rather than word count

I thought the page count went out when writing on computers because common place. The page count made more sense when people wrote by hand since it's much easier to count pages than words, but now when you (and the teacher) can see the world count with one click, word count is easier.

I hate page limits. Once we had to write a short story in 3 pages. Using MLA formatting. I spent more time shortening my story to fit the limit then I actually did writing it.

I'm from America, and I hate the page count! I have to add random words and sentences just to get the minimum. In fact, my teacher sometimes does not give a page limit because she wants us to express our feelings without worrying about the page count

I don't know... you could just write in font size 60, and BOOM!

Basically proof of Time and effort, and easy to catch plagiarism for those procrastinators

Because the sneaky little buggers figured out how to beat the word count with white text

id rather do word count

With students now using computers for studies, most, if not all have shifted to word count. Page counts were really only for back in my day when all papers were hand written. (or typed on a typewriter by the fastidious and/or brown-nose student)

It’s easier to count pages than words. 🤷‍♂️

Counting three pages is easier than counting up to a hundred!!!

Most don't. Many teachers will assign a 3 page essay, but it must have certain page margins, be in a certain sized font (and specific font) have page headers & footers, etc. When all is said & done it will meet a certain word count, but it makes it easier for the teacher to read.

Some teachers think quantity is better than quality. I blame the teacher’s unions.

beats me ask the damn teacher

It's a leftover from pre-computer days when counting words would have been a real bother.

We were taught to get it said clearly in as few words as possible. I find the currant practice of 'use as many words as you can cram in there' to be tedious.

our counting skills aren't always up to par

Because the teachers are just as lazy as the students (it's a joke, please don't kill me)

A variety of reasons but one big one is that not everyone owns a computer, and making a child count their handwritten words seems both excessive and cruel.

If margins, font & font size are standardized, why does it matter?

easier to count pages than number of word in an essay

They always did word count when I was in school. I’m American.

ugggghh I hate word counts. If you write too much, it's impossible to know which things to cut and which things to keep, and if you write too little, you have to stall and use BiG wOrdS and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh

Usually a page has X amount of words on it so you still get your word count, but it sounds better to say 5 pages than 5k words.

It helps to develop and sharpen originality and ingenuity when formatting essays.

That way we could only write one word per page and still have the correct amount of pages. *loophole...

Because then kids would just make their wording really bad and fill up their words.

I dunno, its dumb cuz there are those people always that put a huge font/write huge so they don't have to do much work

yeah i wondered this and are the woman stale or something lol

my elementry did

No they force students to do it

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.

we had an apple machine...for $0.20 you got an apple.

The high school I’m going to does

We don't, dances are usually 4 times a year.