Interesting Cultural Differences in Global Education

You might think that around the world, schools operate in roughly the same way, though the classic “9-ish til’ 3-ish” timetable Monday to Friday isn’t always true!

Working at various schools around the world can really open up your eyes to what these differences are, even down to what they teach. Even though online tutors seem to have a superpower for understanding students, some of these experiences from around the world would surprise even the most experienced tutor!

School Lunches

One of the staples of school life around the world. Arguably the best “lesson” that many students will attest to before the end of the day and that they can boast excellent grades in!

In Sweden, all school lunches are free right up to the age of 18 and it has done for over 50 years. They’re served on a daily basis and hot food is always provided. Most consist of a meat option, a vegetarian and a fully stocked salad bar too and served in a buffet style so if you want a second helping, you’re more than welcome to do so!

Japan makes school lunch more of a rite of passage, students (Even the smallest ones) serve the food out to their classmates and students take this role very seriously. 

Once everyone is finished, their plates are collected up by a student and taken away to get cleaned. Their schools find it a vital job for them to do as it builds up their independence and vital skills elsewhere in their education such as spatial awareness. Japan has a strong emphasis on moral education at school compared to other parts of the world.

Local Life Skills

Schools are there to teach us important things about where we live and that also includes safety. You may be familiar with the annual visit from the Fire Brigade to teach you about the dangers of fireworks in the buildup to the 5th of November and maybe even the Police for Halloween.

Finland doesn’t have an evening filled with fireworks but with its hundreds of thousands of lakes which freeze over, there’s always the opportunity to go walking over the lake in Winter!

As you can imagine, this can sometimes go wrong and schools make it compulsory for students to quite literally “take the plunge” into a frozen lake with a hole in it. These lessons are typically run by a local volunteer group and show the students how to use the various equipment to escape if the ice breaks.

Australia teaches students from an early age to leave all wildlife alone and naturally, what to do if someone gets bitten by a snake or spider. Thankfully the schools are well-equipped if such a thing happens on their grounds but this is quite rare. There was an episode of Peppa Pig a few years ago which wasn’t shown in Australia because Peppa was playing with a spider that she found in her house, not exactly the best example to give to preschoolers!

Japan also has its own interesting differences in teaching safety. Earthquakes being common means that earthquake drills happen rather often and at any time of the school day. Both students and staff have to get under their desks and grab the desk’s legs to avoid anything from the ceiling falling onto them. 

They even go as far as designing their backpacks (Known as Randoseru) of reinforced materials so even these can provide adequate protection, there are even bags today which double up as floatation devices in the event of a subsequent tsunami!

The School Week

You may be familiar with the school week being Monday to Friday in most cases, though some parts of the world run differently because of tradition or for religious reasons.

Up until 2009, France used to have classes on half of Saturday for students. This was borne out of tradition but as the years passed by, this was becoming an inconvenience for both parents and students! French students often have a much longer school week, starting at 8.30 and ending at 4.30 in the afternoon 5 days a week. They do, however, have a rather long lunch break as you might expect which usually lasts about 90 minutes which is nearly double what you may experience in many other parts of the world.

In Orthodox Judaism, Shabbat is designated as a day of rest and the rules around it are very strict where no work must be done. This even goes as far as not even turning any lights on or off and requires a lot of preparation before sunset on a Friday. 

Because of this, many Orthodox Jewish schools let their students finish quite early on a Friday to help their parents prepare for cooking and other household tasks. Some even run with a 4-day week and give their students a hefty amount of homework, though with Judaism being a religion with a heavy emphasis of reading and study, for some this is not seen as a problem!

Graduation Time

Celebrating in style when all exams matters, it’s something you can only do once or a handful of times!

The USA and Britain have exquisite proms with a few joke awards thrown in for good measure followed by a dance, but this isn’t always the case. The Netherlands has a tradition where the Dutch flag will fly on a flagpole sticking out of a student’s house and on the end will be the student’s backpack! It really is quite a way to show to your neighbours that your exams are quite literally “out the window”...

Source: DennisM2

Sweden’s usually begins with all of the graduating students running out of the school building for one last time, with confetti being thrown and the entrance being decorated with plenty of flowers. After this, students usually get in the back of a big truck and drive around town with handmade banners on the truck’s sides with some rather “colourful” messages about their honest opinions of the subjects they’ve studied…

The trucks usually have a big speaker so the party is truly “on the move” and they go around town dancing and singing to celebrate the end of their years of school.

Source: Wikimedia

Homework

It’s not always fun and games, sadly. South Korea uses the opportunity to give its students a mountain of homework!

The Banghak Homework usually has a multitude of tasks to motivate students to be independent learners and vary in what they ask students to do. Many tasks go beyond the classroom and can consist of writing a diary or even a daily set of drawings about what they did. 

Teachers review their work when they get back after the summer break so there’s no escape. This is part of South Korea’s strong emphasis on education and the notoriously difficult Suneung exams that determine what university students go to. The whole country effectively shuts down for the duration of the tests held on the third Thursday in November - no escape from summer revision over there!

I hope you found this blog an interesting insight into the world of school students around the globe. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how things could be any different - for better or worse! For all academic roadblocks that you need help with - contact a qualified online tutor on Sherpa today. For help with spider bites and earthquakes, you might need to look elsewhere!