To clarify\extend scablet’s explanation, the US eduation system is very “locally based”. The national government has very little say in the education process, states set general cirriculum guidelines and (in most states) local counties determine the actual set up and most of the actual content of the cirriculum. Because of this, there are many different types of school systems.
Scablet said that:
Grades 1-6 are “grade school.”: this is typically correct, but it might also be called “grammar school” or “elementary school” depending on your school system or part of the country.
Grades 7 and 8 are “junior high.”: This is where it gets confusing. Some school districts have “junior high” schools and others have “middle schools”. Originally, “junior high” was only for grades 7 and 8 while middle schools were only for grades 6, 7 and 8. This distinction has been lost over the years and the two are used somewhat interchangibly, although you’d always refer to a school by way of it’s proper name, i.e. if your child went to Cecil Adams Middle School, you wouldn’t ask “how was junior high today?”.
Grades 9-12 are “high school” or “senior high”: Yep. This is pretty much standard across the US.
There was a recent thread about the differences between a college and a university. I didn’t follow the thread to the bitter end, but I believe that the general consensus was that a college is a school that only offers degrees in one type of field (say, engineering) while a university is a group of colleges offering degrees in several different fields (say engineering and art history). To make matters more complicated, most “colleges” now offer master’s degrees in addition to BA or BS degrees.
In general usage, the terms “university” and “college” are basically interchangeable, however “college” generally refers to “a point in your life when you are attending an institution of higher learning” (as in, “are you in college?”) while “university” typically refers to the specific institution (as in “have you heard from the university about that funding yet?”).
Lastly, in the US there are also “vocational schools”. Also called “trade schools”, this is where someone with a less than stellar academic record can go after high school to learn to be an auto mechanic or hair dresser or what have you.
From my understanding it is the Canadian accent that gets us Aussie sheilas to buckle at the knees. Sorry to shatter your dreams Tristan.
And speaking of American accents, what IS the deal with all of the US exchange students over here at the moment? There seems to be a sudden overabundance of Pretty Young Gals from Wisconsin in all of my classes…far, FAR more than I’ve ever encountered in any of my other years at uni. Has the exchange program taken off recently for some reason?
If I were from Wisconsin I’d be tying my undies in knots trying to get out, too. Even if that entailed shipping myself off to Australia.
Truly, Wisconsinites tend to migrate a lot, at least from what I can tell. There are a ton here in Cali anyways. Probably those horrific “It’s the Cheese!” commercials.
I went to school in Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh. The breakdown described above is close to what ours was, but not quite the same. My husband, who went to school in upstate New York, had a sysyem slightly different from both mine and the one described. Set-ups vary from state-to-state. Here is the basic PA model:
Preschool (also called Daycare or Nursery School):
Can begin as early as age three (the decision lies with the parents) and may continue up to age five. Preschool is not compulsory. It is used mainly as a means of childcare, though children generally learn basic counting skills, ABCs, etc.
Kindergarten:
Also not compulsory. May begin at age 5 or 6, depending on the child’s birthdate. Basically an extension of Preschool.
Elementary or Primary School: First Grade may begin at age 6 or seven, again depending on the child’s birthdate. This is the first year of “formal” and compulsory education. Elementary School continues until Fifth Grade.
Junior High School or Junior High: Begins with Sixth Grade and is in a different building than Elementary School and High School. Continues through Ninth Grade. (Also called Freshman year.)
High School or Senior High: Begins with Tenth Grade and continues until graduation at the end of Twelfth Grade. (Tenth Grade= Sophmore year, Eleventh Grade= Junior year, Twelfth Grade= Senior year.) Most “children” graduate High School at age 17 or 18, although occasionally a child who skips Kindergarten (as I did) will graduate at 16.
The Jr. College, College and University explanations were the same.
Tristan, from what I understand, it is The Cowboy that women overseas find most captivating.
I grew up in Corpus Christi–which has a naval base–and lots of the guys who’d been sent overseas said that they always took Wranglers and cowboy hats and boots with them, just to “mop up” the European women. Even though most of them never wore the stuff here. (I myself can’t stand a guy in Wranglers and a cowboy hat. Poser. Ugh. Real ranchers wear baseball caps and Levi’s.)
And I work at a tourist bar here in San Antonio, and I will say that a lot of Europeans know far too much about John Wayne and the Old West. Far more than I do, anyway. A Scotsman I met said that it’s like Americans loving Grease. They just love our old spaghetti Westerns…it’s part of the reason we get so many vacationing Brits, etc., in Texas. They want to find the Old West.
It’s very sad when they realize it doesn’t exist, and really never did.
As per American accents…sheesh. I’ve never met a European who found our accents particularly fascinating. Maybe because they’re overexposed to them via movies and TV shows.
Question no one has been able to answer: Why do most British singers sound American when they sing? Even the thickest speaking accents–like the Beatles, for instance–mellow considerably in song, to the point that they sound a lot more American than they do British.
Separate “English” out from “British”, and you’ve got part of the answer: singing in an English accent sounds stoopid. It’s too glottal and we don’t say our Rs correctly, so we have to steal someone else’s accent. Of course, some British people do - Mark Bolan and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, off the top of my head, and they sound odd. I theorize that the other reason must be rock’n’roll, and how trendy it was.
For the rest of Britain, well you’ve got Travis and the Proclaimers singing in Scottish accents, which are rather nicer on the ear. And from Wales we have Cerys Matthews singing in a Welsh accent. Tom Jones, however, sold out years ago…
I’ve several times considered setting up a webpage which explains the differences between American, British, and whatever else educational systems. That way whenever someone starts a thread asking about such differences, I could just post a link to the page instead of writing a long explanation of the differences.
Money. It makes it easier to “break” America. Compare the Beatles early, very American sounding, work with their later efforts.
A lot of people end up with a neutral accent when they sing. For that reason an American thinks Brits sound American whereas a Brit may think Americans sound British.
Actually not that many do. There are plenty of singers out there who sing in very obviously British accents. Americans generally are used to the people who are trying to “break” America by singing like an American.
I’m partial to this explanation. As it was first explained to me, public schools received funding from the community rather than a specific institution. Traditionally, the “private” benefactors for schools were churches. The de facto result of this was that the local “private” school was only open to memebers of the church (or those willing be instructed according to their theistic beliefs). In contrast “public” schools, were free to design a ciriculum that wasn’t based on any particular dogma. As a result, these schools were open to all people regardless of creed (so long as your pockets were/are deep enough).
When I was in school, lo those many years ago, It was just 1-7 grade/elementary/grammar school, then 8-12 for High School. No Junior High, Middle School, etc. Very simple. This was in Atlanta, Georgia. I have a friend who now teaches in the area and they’ve added some of the elements which scablet mentions, although I couldn’t give particulars.
In the school district that my kids attend, near Cincinnati, Ohio, it’s broken down like this:
K-4 is Elementary School
5-6 is Middle School
7-9 is Junior High School (I think, it might only be 7-8) and
10-12 is High School
I think this has a bit to do with hormones and a bit to do with architecture. My wife works in the Cincinnati Public School district which is again different. At her particular school, which I’m not sure is representative, they have kids from Pre-K (three or four years old) until 8th grade. After that is High School. Her school is considered above average for urban schools in the CPS, but would be below average in our school district. It’s a labyrinth that I don’t even pretend to fully understand.
Someone asked for an explanation of what a “public school” is here in the U.S., and no one gave a sufficient answer. A public school is one that is funded by the government (taxpayers) and is open to all children, free of charge. Local governments manage and fund public school (that is, counties or townships or whatever.) The opposite of a public school is a private school, which the parents must pay a tuition. These are usually religious schools (Catholic schools, etc.) The majority of children attend public schools.
A while back in this thread, someone asked why Frenchmen didn’t shower regularly (they commented on businessmen in nice suits who stunk horribly). I have always wondered this too about Europeans. When I was in college German class, our teacher, who was from Germany, said that she could not understand why Americans took a shower everyday. She said she did not think it was necessary. This woman also wore the same outfit every two days in a row. (i.e. she’d wear the same dress Monday and Tuesday, then a different one Wednesday and Thursday, etc.) I thought that was odd too. So my question is, why don’t a lot of Europeans shower regularly? I could not go a day without a shower (unless I am camping of course.) If someone has access to indoor plumbing and a shower, WHY in the world would they not use it on a daily basis???
Well, quite frankly, it’s not necessary. It’s a social nicety that says you find bodily odour sufficiently offensive that you wish to be free of it. And that’s a relatively very recent concept.
It’s only necessary to wash to avoid disease, and if you wash less often, you’ll build up a better tolerance to most of the diseases you can get by not washing.
Once you realise that it’s only a social thing that some cultures are unusually fascist about body odour, it’s much easier to explain.
And, of course, welcome to the boards and so forth.
While I’m here, kambuckta, Australians in general see no difference between American and Canadian accents. It’s considered polite, on hearing an accent like that, to enquire if the speaker is Canadian for two reasons:
It’s considered polite to give someone you don’t know the benefit of the doubt, and
If they say they’re American, when you say “I’m sorry”, they’ll think that you’re apologising.
We DID do something about it. We colonised India, the East and West Indies, bits of Africa and Asia. They say we were building an empire, but we just did it to get their food, which we got in the middle of the 20th century when lots of former colonials emigrated to the U.K., bringing their cuisine with them.
Nobody eats British food anymore … we all just eat curry take away, kebabs, etc.
How important is caste over there, still? It’s amazing to think that in the world’s biggest democracy you can still be killed for talking to a girl from a “higher” birth than you. It sounds insane and I’m supposing it’s a really exaggerated thing that only affects certain poor subgroups, like American street gangs.
Question for the Brits:
How do you really feel about the Queen and Dukes and all that? If the country simply has to pay allegience to a person whose fate caused her to slither out of a womb that had a title to it (that said, I think Lizzie is a fine woman), why not modernize and downsize the monarchy, like Belgium’s?
I’ve never really heard anyone say anything about how I pronounce “about” (I’m a NoDakian). However, when I travel, I get a lot of funny looks concerning how I pronounce my “O’s” in general. When I say “about”, it comes out like a-BOWT. Or, sometimes, I’ll need to say it in a hurry and skip the “a” altogether (just BOWT).
However, I have never heard anyone (Canadian, NoDakian, or Minnesotan) pronounce it “a-BOOT”.
