With August drawing to a close, so does everyone’s holiday. Some parts of the world start and ends their school year in January in December (looking at you, Australia). Others, like my country and from what I see in the media, U.S., start and ends their school year in Summer. It’s a little bit different in my country since it’s tropical country so having a 3 months summer holidays are just pointless and we start school year in July. But the premise is the same: it’s the middle of the year, but it’s a start of new school year.
Not to mention it’s almost September, which means another new school year shenanigans in Hogwarts!
However, I also see a lot of differences between schools in the U.S. and Indonesia. Some are good and some are bad. So today I’ve compiled some of the differences that I found and observed. Let me know what you think of them on the comments below.
😱First day of school😱
It seems like the day all students dreaded the most in the U.S. For some reason, everyone just deeply hated school. Another reason is because they’re afraid their friends and “cliques” already change due to the 3 months separation.
In my country, we also dread the first day of school. Not because we hated school or we’re afraid our friends have change, no. It’s mainly due to a fact that we have to get back to wake up at 5 or just basically earlier than 7 AM because that’s when the bell rings.
📚The classes and curriculum📚
In the U.S., you moved class and choose your own classes. So each class you will have different classes and potentially different teachers. In my country, we wait in the class and the teachers are the one who will come to us. Some school still use this system, and others have adopted the “moving class” system. But one thing for use, our curriculum is already decided by the Ministry of Education so there’s no changing or skipping that physics or chemistry class. You failed, then you failed your grade.
💁The stereotypes💁
The mean and popular girl aka the queen bee, the hot jock, the nerd, the bully, the outcast… These stereotypes are present in every media I’ve ever encountered about U.S. high school and it makes me wonder whether if they are true. My country, though having those stereotypes too, are not that extreme on them. The jock, the nerd and the bully can be a same person. I’ve known someone who’s basically a whole package: he’s popular, he’s the 2nd (sometimes 1st) smartest in our year, he’s sometimes a bully, and he can do any sports you thrown at him. People can be the bully one moment, and being bullied the next second, there’s no inbetween.
🎷The extra🎷
I find that extracurricular activities in the U.S. highschools are more diverse than in Indonesian school. I never encountered an Indonesian high school who has marching band, or wrestling, or swimming as its extracurricular. And no, we rarely have theater, so no high school musical for us.
🎓The uniform🎓
I see that most of the school in the U.S has no uniform, but they still have follow dress codes? Except for maybe private school and absolutely Catholic school? 😂 About 99% school in Indonesia use uniform, the only ones who don’t are some international schools. And the uniforms generally follow the same rule: white top red skirt for elementary, white top navy blue skirt for junior high, and white top grey skirt for senior high. Most schools also have rules about belt, shoes, and socks.
⛪Catholic school⛪
I see this is kind of an inside joke of how crazy and ridiculous the rules are and how it made the students actually sinned?😂😂😂 I went to a Catholic school from my kinderganten to junior high and while it’s true the rules make us sneakier, the rules aren’t as crazy or ridiculous as the U.S. ones😂😂😂 My junior high school has this rule that everyone has to wear belt, so every morning there were be belt-check at the front gate. We all went through the back gate for a while until we were discovered, in which the teachers also have a belt-check at the back gate😂
Catholic memes are definitely my favorite bc I can relate so much, albeit on a more low-key level.
Talk to me U.S. people: are what I write true or are they just from the media? And for non-U.S. non Indonesian people, how are the schools in your country?
The Literary Huntress 
I went to public school in the US so thankfully no uniforms, but a lot of the stereotypes (especially with cliques) were definitely true. I almost went to Catholic school but my parents changed their mind at the last minute, for which I am grateful for because public school allowed me more freedom and self expression, and it was also larger and more diverse than the smaller Catholic schools in my area.
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Ooh that’s interesting, because in my country usually public school is the ones usually less diverse than the private school; at least most of them usually are.
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