forum What are schools like/how do they work?

Started April 02, 2019 by @Darkblossom group

tune

I mostly just want to know in case I ever do decide to write something in a school in the future. I’m homeschooled, so I have absolutely no clue how the flip normal school works, so help me out(please).

I'm homeschooled now (this is my first year, before that I was public school)

Alrighty cracks knuckles school is basically a bunch of kids enjoying talking bad about the school system.
Classes: Most high schools have like 4-6 classes per day. lunch is somewhere in the middle. Usually, nobody pays attention, and the teachers have to literally spoon feed everybody except for like five genius kids in the grade.

Cliques: I've always been a nerd, and lemme tell you, I've never envied the popular kids at my school. I had no desire to be like them, and I genuinely enjoyed being a nerd. (we have good taste when it comes to humor). However, people tend to exaggerate when it comes to cliques, like popular kids don't all hate anybody that isn't like them. And people aren't super nervous talking to popular kids or anything. There are theater kids, popular kids, nerds, geeks, artsy kids, and lots of other groups. Some are small, some are big, it all just depends.

SCHOOL LUNCH FOOD IS GROSS

WAY TOO MUCH HOMEWORK

SOMEBODY IS MAD AT SOMEBODY ELSE ALL THE TIME

In my opinion, the bus rides home were the best parts, along with occasional free time and lunch.

As far as the layout of the school, some are one story, some are more than one story… there isn't really any set rule for how any of that goes. There are about 200 of each grade in my high school that i would attend if i was going to public school.

• How classes are organized often depends on the school district and where you are attending school.
• It's important to know whether you're calling them a 2nd-year or a sophomore; some terms depend on the country you live in.
• In my experience, as you get older you are given more freedom as to what you learn until high school where you plan out your schedule yourself.
• Understand what electives and extracurriculars are and how they affect your academic and social life.
• In some places, students are not permitted to skip a year, while in others advanced placement is encouraged. I've attended both such systems. The former often leans to assist inadequate and/or struggling students while the latter leans to assist and encourage gifted children.
• Some school districts value music and fine arts more while others value STEM subjects, often depending on where the school is located.
• Some school districts have a larger budget than others. A poorer school might be forced to frequently replace teachers, rely on volunteer work, and/or limit/abolish classes. Richer schools might have high-quality food, abundant extracurriculars/after-school activities, a fine arts lean, and highly qualified teachers. A low-budget school I attended had art for about 3/4 of the school year, an abandoned gardening program, and no stable science teacher as well as next to nothing along the lines of music. A high-budget school I attended, on the other hand, had a school band and orchestra, stable/qualified teachers, and plentiful language and music programs.
• Different places have different diversity statistics. Pay attention to this, as it's important. One school may have a large percentage of white and latinx kids and almost no black students, while another might be plentiful in black and asian children and nearly no latinx kids. Some places have a "patchwork" design regarding diversity, meaning a diversity graph doesn't summarize the entire area because certain parts of the place are abundant in one race while the neighboring town contains a large population of a different race. A lot of this is because of shared language/culture.
• Schools approach safety in different ways. Some places do not require fire/earthquake/tornado/lock-down drills. Others do. A school in California will need to practice for earthquakes. A school in Japan will need to practice for tsunamis. Some schools will completely ignore certain drills. The low-budget school district I attended for six years did not have a single lock-down drill, but during my fifth year had a lock-down because of a shooting across the street. A school in an urban or crime-ridden area will have lessons on street safety, which teach students not to wear certain colors as to not get targeted by gangs or what to do if you are attacked/kidnapped. This is unheard of in other places. Some schools have gates with locks, others are completely open.
• School shootings are a bigger problem in some places than others.
• Sex education occurs in different years depending on where you live/what school you attend. One year of sex education is required in high school, and you select the year. Nobody likes it, everybody is extremely immature about it.
• Substitute teachers are always and without exception hated on by students in my experiences.
• Bullying/cussing/social dynamics depend on where the school is. Contrary to popular belief, students with young parents (often in college towns) are often more likely to act in this manner, but it's all about the cultural environment.
• Every single public elementary school I have ever seen in my life has had that cheap required music program where everyone sort of kind of learns how to read sheet music and you have to play the recorder and ukulele and if you don't believe me look it up it's like this terrifying universal US school thing that will be referenced all the way into high school
• Some schools are great but others are absolute train wrecks so decide your dynamic because you can either be like this perfect little private school in the UK or on the verge of hell in Ohio

Hope this helped, I tried to include some things people often forget/don't acknowledge because of limited experience. The most important thing to focus on in my opinion is the budget of the school (often dependent on location).

Oh wow that’s a lot of information. Thanks!

*Lunches are usually around 30-35 minutes
*There's always class clowns in each class and there's always more than one

• Lockers are the worst to open (especially when they're old)
  *Some schools have a program where people from other towns (poorer town most of the time) come to schools when there grades are high
  *Most times there's always a fun teacher in your grade
  *My school has lots of kids in each grade so we have "teams" so there are 8 (with language teachers included ) teachers on each team so there are 4 on each team.
  *Most of the time the two languages you can take are: Spanish, French