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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!

#1

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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GC
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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#3

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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Caitlin Davenport
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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#4

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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Jamziee
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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#5

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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Charlotte A.
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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#8

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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Caitlin Davenport
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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#10

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Juniper
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wait, don't all schools have cafeterias? Where do you eat your lunch?

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#12

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Aunt Messy
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Canadian here. They don't close schools in Canada unless it's been colder than -40C for three days in a row.

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#18

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Eva Bryson
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes, teachers want you in class to learn, not loitering in the bathroom.

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#21

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The Zooble
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Troux
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Word count is more common in the US. Page count comes from the days of non-digital submissions where the teachers would just use the page count to roughly estimate word count anyways.

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Johnny
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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.

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rgr8
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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.

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Flare
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Citizen Josie
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Who cares? This sounds like a petty problem. Yo can fit 500 word single spaced on a page and 250 double spaced. So there you go. If someone ask you write a work in two pages double spaced now you know how many words you are writing.

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AnInrovert
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Ian Bartels
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't know. I've noticed that teachers are starting to do word count because with page count, it's very easy for students to adjust things like font size or spacing to make their essay appear longer.

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Marianne Kraus
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Word count makes sense if you type the essay. Page count makes more sense if you handwrite.

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Samantha Lomb
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Sanguinius
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm Aussie but attending an American online school. I just set text size to max and double space, essay done in 1 min.

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Randy Volz
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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)

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Paul Eiken
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Nightshade1972
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I prefer having a page count--I always freaked out that I'd get in trouble if the word count was supposed to be, say, 10K words and I only managed 9998.

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Celtic Pirate Queen
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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.

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Kimberly Reetz
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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ExasperatedSigh
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My school had page count for the earlier years and word count in high school. Not sure about anyone else though

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Eliyahu Rooff
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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elfin
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's a lot easier and much quicker for teachers to count pages than to count words. They can call out a student if the pages have way too much white space.

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Jane Alexander
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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.

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Peter Kelly
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's not 'amount' of pages, it's 'number'. Amount relates to uncountable solids, such as an amount of flour, an amount of concrete, etc. For anything that you can count, use number. For liquids, use volume.

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Emily Smith
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Counting pages is easier than counting words for the poor teachers that have to grade them.

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Lord Mysticlaw
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Petey the Foo
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Bc when we wrote a paper before computers it was a pain in the ass to count all the words

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aj B
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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.

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Seth Linn
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That honestly depends on the teacher, I always refused to do any kind of reports or essays because 15 years ago they were economically biased and if your family didn’t have money you weren’t getting a good grade.

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Big
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My school does both. It's usually word count, but sometimes, I'll be required to write 3 pages, etc

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Nia Loves Art
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Brandon Collinsworth
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't know if it is this way everywhere but I went to school pretty much as work was moving from being done with a pencil and paper and on a computer. The truth is if you are handwriting something it is much easier to count the pages than to try and count the words and alot of teachers were still from the days of paper and think in terms of pages. Most new teachers I have seen are pretty much about word count.

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Bunzilla
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Kim
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I’m European and I’ve never experienced “word count”. We get a minimum number of pages and keep the font at 12p to fit the necessary amount of words.

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Robin Childers
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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.

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Gwenda Christenson
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This often depends on the teacher. Pages are easier to count instead of words I'm betting. Especially when you have to grade 50 essays or more.

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Demetri
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Helen Haley
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For those who don't have computers at home, either extremely religious or too poor to have a computer. For them, it will likely be hand-written.

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theoneand_only
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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LJ Robinson
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We always had word count. That way you couldn't write extra large or write the same word over and over to make the paper longer, (teachers didn't do page count in my day).

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Random Person
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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Sean Harrison
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Because if you go by word count, you can fill the bottom of a page with nonsense words, and change the font color to white so they don't show up on the page. That way you can easily meet a word count. Some teachers know about this trick and check, but many don't.

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ArtistinResidence
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You must’ve had some very lazy teachers because we all know about that and we can do a count in about a minute without using the computer.

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Morgan Olson
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

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

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#25

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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Caitlin Davenport
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So we aren't "distracted". Even rooms with windows usually had the blinds closed.

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#26

American-Schools-Weird-Things-Non-Americans

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Caitlin Davenport
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not really. We have nearby schools we compete against in sports, but any rivalry is very light-hearted.

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#32

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Caitlin Davenport
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Candy was usually a very tiny part, if it was there at all. But it was the most exciting part!

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