School

[Amalthea]

I've always been a terrible morning person, plus I had to take the bus so was late quite a bit xD I think we've only ever used combination locks around here, and they were always a pain.

[Mr EliteL]

Think I was late once or twice, but can't remember how long for, or punishment if any. There was a Master Key if you forgot a key, however the lockers we had were susceptible to being kicked in. Both for idiotic students' fun or to steal. Had the misfortune happen to me a few times, and once my pencil case was stolen. Wish I did something about that, but didn't. Not fighting back, but something. Even knew who did it. Eh, whatever though. Had too many Simpsons stuff back then.

[Moonface]

Surprisingly I never had something stolen from my locker despite it being an obvious thing to do to me back then to get a reaction out of me by bullies.

I also hate that in 2018 schools still seem to have very little clue how to properly handle bullying situations. I saw something recently where a kid who was an asylum seeker got mock waterboarded by a kid on a playground and the school only cared when the video they stupidly recorded of it went viral on the internet.

[Moonface]

So I'm going to share a few things that I've found to be different between US and UK schools:

1. In the UK, you do not pick your classes at any stage of education in the same manner you can in the US. For example, a US college lets you pick what classes you want to take down to the teachers and times. In the UK, the most you get is to decide what subjects you want after Year 9 of secondary school, but the school will still decide when and with whom those classes take place. With a degree, you just sign up for the degree, and the college/university sets the times, days, and teachers for you, although generally you'll find there isn't multiple choices for teachers so if you don't like the teacher, you can't just drop the class and sign up next semester with a different one. You either stick with them or drop out of the course entirely and go find another institution to attend.

2. I don't know exactly when it occurs in the US education system, but according to a discussion I had with Shira the other night, US students will at some point do job shadowing, where they will shadow someone working in a career they want to pursue after graduation. In the UK, we have work experience in Year 10, where you spend two weeks doing a 9-5 job Monday through Friday in a job that anyone could get upon leaving secondary school. You don't attend school for the two weeks, you don't get paid, and while you can get a bus/train pass for the two weeks at a discount you still have to pay to get to the job. Job shadowing is likely only going to happen within a degree program during the second year at the earliest.

Now I don't know if things are different in other states of the US, so if what I've written doesn't sound accurate to you it's either because I'm basing my observations off of Florida's education system, or there are aspects of even that which I'm not properly informed about.

[Mr EliteL]

Shadowing in Year 10 would've been so much better than going for a random job. Forgot how we chose what job we got then. Was it selecting from a number of places, or one the student could find themselves, then just call for a spot? I went to a Library HQ, which is no longer around now.

Getting more choice would've been a bit better I suppose. How would they manage the amount of students choosing a popular teacher and stuff like that?

[Moonface]

Shadowing in Year 10 would've been so much better than going for a random job. Forgot how we chose what job we got then. Was it selecting from a number of places, or one the student could find themselves, then just call for a spot?

We had a list of jobs that opted in to work experience. I think even our secondary school was offering a spot as a janitor.

Getting more choice would've been a bit better I suppose. How would they manage the amount of students choosing a popular teacher and stuff like that?

Similar to buying tickets for something like Comic Con. Limited number of seats per class, first come first served basis. It's why you should sign up for your next semester of classes as soon as they go live so you don't end up with a teacher or class slot you don't want. At worst you can't even get that class because they're all full.

[Kyng]

Ah yes, school work experience . The value of that seemed to vary greatly, depending on where people went and what they got to do.

I think I was one of the lucky ones, though. I spent the first week in the offices where my dad works. I didn't have a fixed set of responsibilities; instead, I did odd jobs around the place as and when people needed an extra pair of hands. I'm not sure I learned too much from doing this (most of the tasks were repetitive and easy to explain), but it was pretty enjoyable, and everyone was very friendly and accommodating.

Then, my second week was spent with the International Union of Crystallography, who were setting up a new storage system for some of their data, and I was working with the people who did that. It wasn't done by the end of the week, due to delays and setbacks completely beyond our control; however, it did get me acquainted with Linux for the first time, so there was certainly some value in it !

[Moonface]

Did everyone in your school/class get a different job for the second week Kyng?

[Moonface]

Just saw this on Twitter, anyone else remember having these in school?

[Mr EliteL]

Ah, overhead projectors and VCR with a blocky television set. I always liked it when they came out as it meant the curtains will be pulled to make the room darker, and was time to sit back and relax for a bit.

[Moonface]

Ah, overhead projectors and VCR with a blocky television set. I always liked it when they came out as it meant the curtains will be pulled to make the room darker, and was time to sit back and relax for a bit.

My only memory for the overhead was in morning assembly in our primary school to read the lyrics for the songs we had to sing all the time. The VCR was better in secondary school because there it was an actual surprise. Primary school I think we had a dedicated class period for going into the AV room (surprised I remember it being called that) so although that was exciting too, nothing beats the surprise attached to it.

[Moonface]

@Mr EliteL: Does this bring back any fun memories for you?



Did anyone else ever have to sing songs in school against their will? XD

[Mr EliteL]

Oh no, not singing in the first assembly in primary school. I always remember we had to do Yellow Submarine a lot.

[ShiraNoMai]

Moony was telling me they were all "jesus bangers" but Yellow Submarine? A Beatles' song? :lol

The songs we sang in Chorus in elementary were either seasonal or America related, I think. Seasonal as in, songs that were relative to a holiday (like, Thanksgiving, Christmas... I actually don't think there were many more outside those holidays come to think of it..). America songs, well, shocker shocker. I think my favorite out of them was "Fifty Nifty", just cuz it actually helped you remember all the names of the states

[Mr EliteL]

Moony was telling me they were all "jesus bangers" but Yellow Submarine? A Beatles' song? :lol

Yeah there were a lot of them too, but I have happily blocked those out from my memory as in no idea what they were exactly or what er...lyrics there were. But I do distinctively remember Yellow Submarine. Actually it's the only song I remember of, yet know there were lots more.