Lulu: Hello again, and welcome back to "The America under the microscope" Hello James
James: Hello everyone.
L: So last time we talked about raising a kid from… essentially starting from the pregnancy to toddler to preschool.
J: Yes, that's right.
L: So today let's continue. In this episode, let's talk about what they do after they finish their preschool. So that would be something called K12, right?
J: Yes, what we called K12 education.
L: What is K12?
J: Well, K12 is actually just the years. K meaning kindergarten and 12 meaning grade 12 for everything in between.
L: OK, hang on for a minute. Last time you said it's not called kindergarten, it's called preschool.
J: There are actually two different things in the United States.
L: OK.
J: Preschool in the United States is like Chinese kindergarten, but kindergarten in the America is the first year of elementary school.
L: And you call it elementary school.
J: Although some of Americans will say primary school, but generally we will say elementary school.
L: Most students they will go to public elementary school.
J: Yeah, almost all of them because private is expensive and public is completely free.
L: Completely free?
J: Yes.
L: I'm assuming they are good schools and bad schools, and how do you try to get into good schools?
J: Well, there's one factor and only one factor that decides which school you go to and it is where you live.
L: Do you have to own the place?
J: Thankfully no, all you have to do is to live in that area. So if you rent or if you live with family，grandparents or whatever, you can still go to the school in that district.
L: Oh, that's good, but I would assume that if the school is good enough, the rent will be high.
J: You are not wrong.
L: So same thing all over the world. So you said kindergarten is the first year of elementary school?
J: Yes, but it's not exactly the first grade, because it's a little bit different. In kindergarten, kids go to school only half a day, either morning or afternoon. It's to get the children used to a school life and classes, listen to teachers and things like that.
L: OK. So this is kind of easing them in into school life.
J: That's the same idea.
L: And you said they can go either in the morning or afternoon, they can choose?
J: The parents usually can choose. I was in the morning session because it was easier for my mother.
L: Huh. And did you have to go on a school bus? I did take a school bus, yes.
L: And after you finish kindergarten, you going to grade one?
J: Yeah, you start grade one.
L: What kind of subjects? Does it roughly the same as in China? Well, it would be fairly equivalent although they don't learn Chinese.
L: Some of them do now probably.
J: Maybe some of them do now. But in general, kids will learn math, English or what we called language arts, science, history, PE class, art classes, and music classes as well.
L: And how big are the classes in general?
J: About 20 to 30 kids. But it really will depend on the size of the town you're in.
L: So you go to different classroom or?
J: Not exactly. This is quite different from what a lot of people have in China. So in elementary school, kids spend most of the day with the same teacher.
L: Same teacher? Teaching all the subjects?
J: Not all the subjects, but the core subjects: Math, science, language arts, and history would all be one teacher, basically they are homeroom teacher; PE, music art would be different teachers.
L: That still sounds like a lot of work for that one teacher.
J: Well, it would be. But you have to think of it in this way. Elementary school, teachers teach kids small pieces of each of them, so it's not so bad for the teacher.
L: En, and do they learn foreign language at this stage?
J: That honestly depends from school to school. When I was growing up, there were Spanish classes that were offered but that's not always the norm.
L: That's not the norm. That's not what everyone does.
No.
L: So these classes are they more like the teachers teaching giving a lecture?
J: No, not really. It's more about the group work and cooperative learning, because they want the kids to work together and explore as they learn. There are some teacher-led lessons, but in general they try to make it more interactive for the students.
L: So they have group projects. Yes, starting from the first grade we do.
L: And what about the homework? I think a lot of people would want to know. How much homework?
J: What homework?
L: So no homework for that period.
J: For elementary school age, basically in first grade and second grade homework is fairly uncommon. As they go through the years, yes they study more and more homework, but in general it's not lots of homework. The most common thing would be spelling lists and reading assignments.
L: Or sometimes projects.

J: Sometimes, yeah.
L: And apart from academic these subjects, do they have any special events during this stage?
J: Oh yeah. All year the elementary schools has all kinds of events and projects going on for the students.
L: Huh, like?
J: So usually during the big holidays like around Christmas time they will do concerts replays for the children to take part in.
OK.
J: And spring when the weather is nice, there usually be a sports day, similar to China. They might do science fairs when the kids do a project and then they display them in the gym, parents will come and see them.
L: You see that in a lot of America TV shows. So then kids go to middle school?
J: Yeah, once they complete the fifth grade, they move on to middle school.
L: And that's still free in public education, right?
J: Absolutely.
L: They are not taught by the same teacher anymore, are they?
J: No. Middle school and elementary school are quite different. Studying in middle school, kids are moving from class to class and they have different teachers for every subject.
L: You know in Chinese schools, they always try to rank the kids. They give the kids No.1 No.2 No.3 ranking and some of the good kids they probably will go into a more advanced class. Is that the same? Do you have the same…
J: Not exactly the same. The school don't exactly rank the students as top and bottom students because that will make parents very upset if they did that. But at middle school they do start a sorting students based on ability. So the high achieving students will sometimes be moved into more advanced classes or maybe even if they are in grade six put into a grade seven or even grade eight classes if they are really advanced.
L: That's really not that different. And at this stage what about outside of the classrooms?
J: It still has some of the school events but become a lot more optional and there's a big emphasis studying now on sports, because some middle schools would have the school teams that the students can join and compete games at their schools.
L: And this is more serious sports, not just play for fun.
J: These are definitely serious. Kids can join the teams, they have class in the afternoons, they have sports to practice and usually one day a week they will have a sports meet, and they can even win championships.
L: Huh, OK. So then move on to high school, that will be grades nine to…?
J: Twelve.
L: Four years!
J: Oh yeah, America high schools are 4 years.
L: And is this still free compulsory?
J: Yup, still free.
L: That's a very long period of compulsory education. 13 years?
J: Yeah, kindergarten to grade 12, 13 years.
L: So what's the difference between high school and middle school?
J: So in middle school, we start to change classes for each subject and to change teachers for each subject; the step to high school, is now we choose those classes and we can even choose our teachers if there are options.
L: And how do they go into high school? Is it still based on where they live?
J: Yeah. Unless you live in a big city like NewYork or they can actually test you into different high schools based on a unique skill. For most Ameicans it's just based on again where you live.
L: So if you want your kids to get into a better school, you'll just have to move.
J: Yeah, or if you are from a small town like me, there was just one high school. So there was no choice.
L: OK, alright. So they will have required classes? And then optional?
J: So when we get to high school, we were told we were given a list of classes that we have to take and so we can choose when to take them. The grade twelve students have first priority on class choice, grade nine have the lowest priority. So although all the better choices you have, and you need to complete these classes within the four years.
L: And is it based on credit?
J: Not exactly. It's more or less based on completing a class, the classes don't have points of credits. You just try to get good grades.
L: Do all the students from high school, are they all aiming to get into university, to get into college?
J: Well the high school would like you to think that, but no, university is not the goal for all the high school students. In fact, fewer than 70 % of American high school students even go on to college.
L: By the way, here college in the American English college would be university another way of saying - university.
J: We say college in the America include university technical schools or anything proposed high school education.
L: Because in British English, college是另外的意思，college在英式英语里面有预科的意思。You just mentioned under 70% high school students will go into college, what about the rest?
J: Well the other 30 or so percent of high school students, if they go lucky enough to go to a high school with like a technical programs, they can get a certificate while they are in high school and allow them to go on to trains like plumbing or being an electrician.
L: Like vocational education.
J: Right. Some like my elder brother, he joined the army right after high school, and then some will just go straight to work.
L: High school is also when sports start to get very serious.
J: Yeah. And high school in many parts of the country, its sports is not just school activity, it's an entire community activity. The students they join the teams and then the best students get to put on a special team called a varsity team
L: A varsity team. 校队Varsity teams sometimes get so popular and people even bet on them.
J: Yes, they do. This happens in some parts of the country. It is NOT encouraged.
L: It's not encouraged. Talking about sports, what are the most popular varsity sports?
J: The two most popular varsity sports are basketball, and football – American football.
L: American football. And if you are a very good player, do you actually get scholarship to a good university?
J: It is possible, but the likelihood is still fairly low. So if you're really good and the university notices you, then it is possible that the university offers you a scholarship to play the sport for them, but it should never be a goal of your education.
L: And then you can get university scholarship, but then again, it's very rare, isn't? Yeah, it's quite rare.
L: Ok. Think that pretty much covers K12 education. In our advanced episode, we're going to develop on that, and get it a bit deeper in this topic. Thank you James.
J: Thank you for having me.

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