Mom's experience: what impressed me about American school

Фото: Depositphotos

I personally attended school for the last time in 2002, and the school was in the Central district of Minsk - the capital of the Republic of Belarus. All of the following takes place in the southern state of California, USA, in the city of Irvine.

Before moving to America, I had never come across real people who attended school in the United States, and the media in post-Soviet states love to tell what illiterate idiots are in America. All this was a bit scary, before I first saw a school textbook. My opinion, in short, today is this: compare a village or a deprived region of the United States with the best gymnasium in Minsk - of course, in the missing place of America, people are taught very poorly; compare any school in the city where I live now (Irvine) with any school in Minsk - I doubt that the average Belarusian will be more savvy in terms of education than the average American.

During 2 of the past month of study, I noticed a few very positive points:

• help children fall in love with reading, precisely to fall in love, and not to leave the duty for the obligatory school program. Once a week the whole class goes to the library - this is such a lesson, and everyone chooses an interesting book for themselves. This may be fiction or non-fiction books (space, animals, ocean, mathematics, etc.), all sorts of publications for hobbies (construction from Lego, sewing, computers, etc.). There is such a lesson, starting from the first days of school, and children go to the library with great joy. I personally see all this when I go there as a volunteer.
• already in elementary school explain the solution of the same problem in different waysso that everyone will find an option that suits him and understand how this is done.
• teacher encourages independent work at homeespecially when doing projects. The task to the project emphasizes that the child should do all the information search himself, and parents are asked to help only place the results on a huge sheet (see 50х70 cm).
• add pieces of one item to another. For example, in mathematics, the problem is asked to compare the height of mountains or the area of ​​lakes, and in language lessons they work with text that teaches something.

For interest, I attach some school work and lesson schedule. I look at the timetable and it seems that the compilers know that children are nine years old and they want the school to be a joy, not a boring duty. I am glad that my child studies in this city in the most ordinary school.

Some facts about the educational process

At school, phones, tablets, toys are forbidden - anything that distracts from the main purpose of visiting this institution. Therefore, children in breaks play with balls, jump, talk. Between lessons they have a lot of time to eat (2 times) and really escape from the lessons in outdoor games.

And when they finished the assignment in class, they themselves rather open their books to read (those books they took in the library). At the lessons everyone is always busy and they are in a hurry to finish the task quickly and correctly so that they do not have to redo it and have time to read.

In a general education computer lesson in elementary school, they learn to use the keyboard without looking at it, which is useful for 85% of students in further studies and work, unlike algorithms and Excel, which are imposed on in Belarus, which will be touched well after school if 10% of people, and in a lesson half rolls up from a neighbor. Children learn to work with computers and tablets, begin to invent, memorize, use the login and password.

Every year in class is a new teacher. For my taste, this is wonderful: there are no injuries with excessive attachment and parting, but there is an opportunity to try different approaches to learning.

What impressed me most was the first school project in the 4 classroom. In my school, something like this before the 7 – 8 class, I don’t remember. Children do work about the state in which they study.

On a large sheet, you need to place a map with the largest rivers, write when California became a state, how many people live here, what area, what states and countries borders, California symbols, draw what is grown, where, well, continue in the same spirit. All this business was given a month. During this time, the children in the lessons find the necessary information, mark it in their homes, and at home they collect all this on the design sheet.

Even in physical education do not change clothes. They go to do right in what they came. This is both strange and convenient.

There is no school uniform. There are 3 requirements: shoes with a closed nose are always, clothes should be lower than the fingers on the hands, ambiguous writing on clothes that can offend gays, blacks / Spaniards, actively religious, just people or call for violence is prohibited.

Blog published with permission Author.

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