Five Ways the European Schooling System is Different from the United States
In recent years, there have been plenty of comments about how the United States education system has come down to a level that has made it inferior to other education systems in the world. In particular, the United States is frequently compared to Europe which boasts some of the best education programs worldwide. In colloquial terms, the United States education system used to be the Sanuk sandals of footwear industry acting as the golden standard for countries looking to improve their own education curriculum. Today, even Masters Healthcare Administration graduates look to other countries as the primary provider of healthcare professionals for the US market.
In the spirit of this comparison, here is a non-academic and unofficial assessment of the five basic ways the European schooling system is different from the United States. Specifically, this short post seeks to establish that if the US education system was equivalent to San Diego floors, then Europe can well boast as an office space New York. That is to say that the US has some work to do in order to get back to its original stature as the best education system in the world.
1. Emphasis on Languages. The US significantly lags other school in the emphasis of language learning. Not many grade school students would understand the phrase como reconquistar a pessoa amadaa unless they come from a Mexican family. This low emphasis on language has essentially reduced the US to a basic schools system with little regard for anything else.
2. Emphasis on Math. Worldwide, the US lags in math performance for elementary students compared to what the education system in Europe is offering. Scores from assessment by global education institutions consistently rank European schools higher than US schools in terms of performance in math. Consequently, many American students hate math; they would rather head to the chin up bars than sit in a math class. This diminished emphasis on mathematics if not an ineffective system of teaching altogether is creating a ripple effect by dissuading students to develop interest in mathematics. It’s a vicious cycle which has been apparent in the US for many years now.
3. The teaching profession. In Finland, for example, teachers are required to have masters degrees particularly in college. If you want to put up a web design Leeds company by studying a computer science degree, you would need to go through the curriculum with the aid of a masters graduate with additional units in education. In the United States, there are college graduates who gravitate towards teaching and actually become tenured teachers without the benefit of a masters degree.
4. The US has a static education framework. It is common in Europe to find curriculum’s that give so much time to learning natural avenues for science and math such as carpentry, music, textiles, art, or cooking to name a few. These are not subjects that are taught in US schools so the framework for learning is confined to the actual subjects in school. This substitutes implicit learning with forced curriculum’s that can hamper a child’s growth.
5. Education budgets. The US is a very big country with a multi-dimensional demand for learning and one of the things that get lost in this scale is the money. Simply put, students get a smaller allocation because there are many to share the resources together. As a result, parents put money into a minibus hire because the government cannot provide for it. In the same way, teachers are paid lower than their European counterparts because there are more of them to share the budget with. To put into context, you are essentially trading your PPI reclaims regardless of what the PPI calculator is saying because there are more people making claims. The value of the level term life insurance, in this analogy, is diminished, and one is left to make do with what is available.
The good news is that the problems of the US are not beyond remedy. With enough tweaks, many things can be done to bring it to par with its European counterparts. As long as the government puts adequate focus on the education system and the fixes needed to improve it, there is no reason that the US cannot get back to its former status as an education superpower in as short a period as 10 to 15 years.
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