7 High School Differences! (USA vs GERMANY) 

We could honestly talk about this topic for hours! We had to cut a lot in this videos and we didn't even cover topics like dress code, teachers, lunches, scholarships, social dynamics and so much more! Let us know what your high school experience was/is like! 😉💜

School in Baden-Württemberg/Germany here, mostly the same experiences as Phil, however we did have a big lunch break where we were allowed to leave the school ground (there was a school cantine, but we mostly left to get Döner or something else). For sports and extracurricular activities: We did have some (sports and other) clubs at school, organized by teachers. But they were rather unprofessional, not that big and many students ignored them. But is doesn't mean we didn't do sports. Sports (or music etc.) clubs in Germany are mostly owned by communities or are private, not by schools, and at least when I was a teenager, most students participated in one or the other. This also means that most people had friends they didn't go to school with.

I'm german and currently in high school,and you're right we dont have sports clubs, but we have choirs and technological clubs

What we did with our time after school? It was filled with tons of homework we had to do until the next day. Especially our math teacher gave us so many things to do! I spent every day 3 more hours after school just for my math's homework. Mostly because I was very bad in it and couldn't solve the tasks on my own easily. I never learned anything from that but it was meant as help (or whatever). To me it was pure hate... . After that there were more things to to for German, English, French, sometimes biology. So after school I spent often around 3-4 more hours with homework and then theres were tests which you had to learn for too. The best days were when our teachers forgot to give us homework. Or if we could tell other teachers than our math' teacher that we already had so much to do or to learn for a test.

Sports are just completely separated with high school in Germany. It's just done in sports clubs and not connected to school at all. We did have something called "Jugend trainiert für Olympia" = "Youth trains for Olympia" where we competed against other schools as a team. Though practice for that was still done in our normal sport clubs and not in school. The same goes for other extracurriculars, you do them in the afternoon after school, like playing an instrument, art, volunteering etc. It's not that different to the U.S.

In Germany the best Student get's a title too "Streber!" 😂

You forgot Gesamtschule, I went to a Gesamtschule and it is basically a combination of Gymnasium, Realschule and Hauptschule. Also my school had 60 min. lessons with one 20 min. break and one 60 min. break.

I also went to a Gymnasium in Germany that did not have a lot of sports clubs... If you did sport you went to a local Verein which I think it is nice, because that way you would hang out with kids that went to other schools

I already hated the German school from the first to the last day. I'm sure I would have hated the American high school even more as an introvert.

Bundesjugendspiele 😂

I'm from germany and i noticed some differences to phils school experiance, for example, at my school there were actually many extracurricular activities like track, socker, handball, climbing,swimming... or learning languages, playing in the school orchestra, school choir, poetry slam, theatre, programming and lots and lots more. Maybe thats because my school was about twice as big as phil's. But we also had lots of lockers and a cantine which was shared with the neighbouring school. And in the "Oberstufe" I actually had 10 periods a day, twice a week By the way, I love your channel, you two are so much fun :) Deana is sooo beautiful and I really love her hair ,it's georgeous😍

I really love these series! It’s so interesting to hear the real "differences" between the German system and the US-system! I really want to go back to school to experience the American way of school!🤣😭 You have a great channel! Liebe Grüße ☺️

You both are an explosion of good mood!

So I went to school in Berlin and elementary school was until 6 grade and then Highschool from 7-13. Yes we still have 13 years in some schools and there are a few more!

When we visited Germany we loved going to the coffee shops and finding rather large groups of students chatting and having coffee or tea together! I wished our kids were able or willing to do this.

So cool. Love it. Finally someone -> (Diana&Phil) who points it out. Glad to realize the differences and similarities.... Thank you very much.

In my German High school everyone had to pick two extra curriculum classes but they where during school time and they where arts, crafts, IT, science, French, home economics, but I don't remember there being any sports.

Great video! I would also love to see a similar video where you talked about university application porccesses and differences in unis.

Hi Phil and Deanna! I really enjoyed this video! I went to a very large high school in Baltimore, Maryland of the USA, in the city and my high school experience was very much like the high schools in American movies. I was a part of the popular crowd but I was not a "mean girl." I, also was a part of the pom pom squad, girls cross country (long distance running team), and the yearbook club. I had regular and honor classes. Also, I sang on the choir in my sophomore year of school. I graduated with average grades, because, sadly, my main concern in school was to have fun and hang out with the popular kids in school (which is something I wish I could go back and change). All in all, I really enjoyed my high school years!

Hi Deana and Phil! First: I love your videos and I've been following you for quite some time. You're awesome. On the topic: I am Austrian and school here is for the most part the same as in Germany. So you can just copy everything Phil said about the grading system, our "way to school", our lunch break, the (lack of) extracuricular activities etc... But there were a few things I'd like to add 1) Students in Austria don’t change the classroom every hour. We’re usually put together in groups of up to 30 students who have the exact same time table. This group might be called “class 8A” (8th grade, goup A) and gets a classroom. The teachers change every period. Other than Germany we start to count again when we go to the Gymnasium. EG we say 1 - 4 in elementary school and 1- 8 in Gymnasium. It always confuses me when a German says “I am in the 11th grade”. In Austria we’d say “I’m in the 7th grade in Gymnasium”. 2) What’s different in Austria than in the US is that there are NO entrance or exit controls at schools and during the lessons no teacher would be out in the hallway. This means that quite often students would use the breaks between two periods to just leave and skip the following periods, especially if they were “unimportant” classes such as biology or sports. 3) We have a “class book” and there the teacher would note your absence but no one would immediately call your parents if you didn’t show up or “disappeared” between two periods. They did, however, contact your parents if you had a certain amount of “unexcused absences”. I once had 81, amounting in sum to almost 2 ½ school weeks. Oopsie!! Someone lost track of how much she’d skipped school, I suppose 😉. 4) And oh yes - we wear slippers at school. Yes, we do, that’s no joke 😉

Regarding the grades in German schools, it must be said that a six may actually only be given in cases of refusal to work. Those who answer all the questions incorrectly are actually entitled to a five. Many teachers do not adhere to this, but there are some cases where students have successfully appealed against a six.

Your channel was recommended and I found the subject matter interesting. I'm more your parents age and went to a junior high after graduating from elementary school...which was 1st through 6th grade. Junior High was 7th through 9th grade. High school, at that time was 10th through 12th grade. What Middle School was for you was probably the equivalent of what junior high was for me. I'm coming from the southern part of the United States and if you wanted to learn certain specialized skills (example: carpentry/ masonry or learning to be a beautician or culinary arts) you would leave High School half the day and go by bus (yellow bus that is... LOL ) to go to a technical school to get that instruction and travel back to high school before school ended. To then get on the regular School bus, walk / drive back home at the end of the day. Proms were held at school at first, but as I got older than they moved to the big hotels or other big venues. At that time you were also taught driving instruction in School, from what I have gathered now that is no longer the case anymore. Strangely enough not as many Young people nowadays get their license early anymore, which that was freedom for the kids my age back in the day! Thank you, I liked hearing how things were different in other countries, take care!

This was a fun video! Thanks for making it

Oh, what about spirit week? Most schools around where I'm from in central PA do a spirit week where each day that week is dedicated to a different theme that you dress up for. Like, pajama day, 80's day, hippie day, school colors day, crazy hat/hair day, and a bunch of other things.

My kids go to the same high school I went to that is very small. There's around 80-100 kids per grade and we had all the sports, cheerleading, band and choir, and competed against other nearby schools. I think it's like that in all schools in the U.S. We also have a technical school that 10-12 graders can go to for half the day if they choose to. All the schools in our county, around 5-6 schools, go to the same one together. They offer nursing assistance, cosmetology, electrical, carpentry, culinary, diesel mechanics, welding, and maybe a few other things to choose from. Also our school has a semi-formal dance they do for freshman every year. It's just called "the freshman dance". Lol

I am from America and my high school is just like the movies when it comes to sports and things of the spirt one thing we have at my school is an Olympic size pool by the gym does any one else have those things and we have a fitness center too. Maybe that is just my school but after school you can just go there and play games in the pool as long as no else was practicing. It’s really fun

I loved hearing the amazement on phils voice about the yellow buses lol Something we find totally "normal" in the u.s. I never rode on the school buses except for field trips... my parents always dropped me off. I'm from California and went to highschool in the L.A area and the experience was pretty much the same as Deanas. School started at 8am-3pm, and I also had cross country team practice right after so went home until 6. You guys always give me a good laugh, Love it! :D

Went to a high school in Austria. In my Gymnasium we actually had two sports teams, a soccer and a handball team. We also participated against other schools. But I grew up in the city, so that might have been a different experience in general. Also, we had a pretty big prom, themed and everything. I was on the council and we spent almost an entire year organising. The prom is the "closing event" of your school career, so to speak. PS. Great video as always😊

I‘m at the realschule and mine starts 7:50AM and ends 1PM. Lessons are also 45 min each and its 2 periods successively. First break is 15 min and the 2nd 25 min long. Only mondays i have a 7th Lesson so school is till 2:15PM. About clubs, as far i as know we have a social activity club and mediator club. Before, we also had choir and drama but idk, got cancelled.. At the end of 10th grade we actually also have a graduation Party. After my graduation i wanna go to the Fachoberschule to do 2 more years and then i also can study at uni 🤟🏼 Another nice video!

I went to the Ravenwood Highschool in Nashville and to a Gymnasium in Germany, so I can agree to all of this!!

I went to high school in both Michigan and Germany, and this video is 100% accurate. Both schools were in big cities, and we did not have sports at the Gymnasium that I went to. Another major difference was the foreign language classes required. The Gymnasium that I went to, we took Spanish, French, English, Italian, and Latin as a requirement. In the US, I was one of few that took a foreign language beyond what was required. Great video, keep up the great work and stay safe.

Choir, Orchestra, Future Farmers of America (FFA - also with cool Jackets) and Home Economics where you could knit, crochet, cook, sew, etc. The elective classes were lots of fun!

I think you didnt talked about the "Mottowoche" and the "Abistreich". I think the Abistreich was one of my best experiences in my life so far. Is this common in the US? We rent a big tractor + trailor and drove to our little city with loud music and pyrotechnics. After a hour we arrived at our school and received our "Abizulassung" and we celebrated it in every break on the schoolyard with loud music and much more pyrotechnics.😍 Its the last day of school btw.

With regard to the sports on offer at German schools, I can say that this does not exist because of the German "Vereinsmeierei". Politicians fear that sports clubs would die if schools were to offer intensive sports. Sports clubs are lobbying intensively on the issue of education policy to maintain the status quo.

Well, in traditional Gymnasium there used to be Latin names for grades: Sexta: 5th grade, Quinta: 6th grade, Quarta: 7th grade, Untertertia: 8th grade, Obertertia: 9th grade, Untersekunda: 10th grade, Obersekunda: 11th grade, Unterprima: 12th grade, Oberprima: 13th grade And failing with a 5 is like "he/she made big efforts" in a testimonial, while 6 means: "he/she gave a shit and didn't even try". And they change the system of grades to 0-15 points because you then collect points for your Abitur. But it is easily recalculated to the original 6 grades: 15-13 = 1 (+/-), 12-10 = 2 (+/-), 9-7 = 3 (+/-), 6-4 = 4 (+/-), 3-1 = 5 (+/-), 0 = 6, where + is -0.3 and - is +0.3. So, 12 points would be a 2+ (1.7). And to pass, you have to have a plain 4 (5 points).

I go to a public high school in the US (Vermont specifically) and we have tons of sports programs. We have both sports teams and clubs. We also are allowed to leave the school for lunch and anytime we don't have a class. We also have tech centers for each county in my state.

There were two high schools in the town where I grew up. My high school had a huge pool that was from 5 feet deep to 12 feet deep and a planetarium. We also had a gym that was big enough to split into four individual rooms . We were also lucky enough to have the Driver's Education classes and the simulators to practice on in class. Of course the school I went to was built 8 years before I attended whereas the crosstown high school was built in the 50's. I have to say that we had to be at the bus stop for 6:45 a.m. and classes started at 7:30 . To everyone that is in high school now, enjoy your time there because once you get out into the real world reality will be a lot different.

We have some Sports-activities in our Scool Football-team- Handballteam. And Games against other School. Scool in Germany- Berlin

I went to a gymnasium in a big city, we had four 9 hour days a week with the 7th hour being lunchbreak. But our cafeteria was like way to small and couldn´t even seat a school year so we would sneack off of the schoolgrounds to McDonalds or bring our own food. Friday was always only 6 periods. And we did have some clubs, they were called AG short for ArbeitsGruppe (workgroup). We had a musical AG till the teacher went into retirement, we had a chess AG, a canoe one, a basketball AG. But sport is mostly done in clubs that do not have anything to do with the school. I for example used to be a synchronized swimmer training 3-4 times a week in the local swimming club (one of the few in germany that have a sychronized swimming team) and I learned 3 instruments at the local musicschool and played in 2 orchestras. There is more than enough to do after school, not only gaming (though I did do that, too xD) It was really nice to be with other people though, because I didn´t have real friends in school, but I had friends in my other activities. If it had been tied to the school as well I would have had no one.

I did year 11 of my high school in Germany (I am from Canada but now live in California). I attended a Gymnasium in tiny little Metzingen which was a maths and sciences focus school - which was not my focus in school back in Canada. In order for me to complete my 11th year and get credit for it back in Canada, my Gymnasium structured my learning by letting me take math, art, English (this actually helped me learn German and fast!), French (not as easy as you think translating from French to English to German and back into French!), and Physical Education. High school in Germany in the Gymnasium format is similar to what it was like in Canada - we had grade 13 (like Abitur) which was a prep grade for university. Although it was only offered in the province I grew up in and it no longer exists. I also attended a Volksschule in Metzingen in the evenings to learn German. I was fluent in less than 3 months. I am not sure the current definition of Volksschule applies today - but maybe you know Phil? It’s like a mandatory people’s school but my host family paid for my lessons and they were classes for foreigners/immigrants.

In every of the 16 German states the public school system differs hugely because education is sovereign competence of every state. For example, in Hamburg we only have 2 different schools: Integrated school and Gymnasium. At Gymnasium you get your high school degree after 12 years of school, at integrated school after 13 years. Integrated school you can also leave after 9 or 10 years to get lower degrees and start work training or actual work.

In Alberta (Canada) first period is 9am-10:30am, second 10:30-12, half an hour lunch then third 12:30-2pm, and last forth 2pm-3:30pm. grades are 10-12. My public high school had 2500 students. We were fortunate because the school was and still is brand new (built in 2011) and came with a parking garage for teachers and seniors (who signed up quick enough). But most people preferred the parking lot because it was much more fun to hang out in your car, and the teachers patrolled the parking garage for people vaping in their car. Most schools in my city have culinary class, so the students in the class are required to do lunch shifts preparing food for students to purchase. Then we had a school store where you could buy phys. ed uniforms and school branded merchandise and the business students would manage and operate the store during lunch and before/ after school. In our part of the country american football is very popular, so we have our own football team. Cheer leading however is less popular and ours were pretty bad. I didn't find that we had many cliques however. the jocks we more of an identifiable group however.

I went to a quite big high school in the Munich area and we had a lot of different clubs: orchestra, big band, theater, basketball, handball, gymnastics, choir, crafting,... mostly sorted by age The sports teams also competed, but it wasn't such a big thing, for most of the participants it was more like extra training since they were all in other non-school clubs With all of our clubs in school it really depended on what our teachers were able and willing to offer to the students

Uh, please more of this. This was really fun to watch! For me it was super similar to what Phil described as I also grew up in a small German town (but near Frankfurt). We also had a motto for our 'senior year': ABInson Crueso - 13 Jahre warten auf Freitag. So cringy now :D And our 'prom' was equally unspectacular. I kind of envy the American High School kids for their school spirit and sports and other activities they can do, but I guess it could also add a lot more pressure to a kid in puberty, dealing with all the social pressures and then having to perform well in extra-curricular stuff as well etc. Anyway, cool video! Stay healthy!

I’m an American from California… everything that she’s describing is spot on…. We actually had open campus and we had the choice to eat out or eat school cafeteria food… We had sports as well, I took archery, and I took art classes, photography, but of course our school offered cooking class too, foreign language classes.. super cool… etc… I was fortunate to attend 3 proms… super cool.. but that was back in the 80’s… crazy.

At my school (Upstate New York), we have a very large cafeteria, we have a variety of food and drink -- we can even leave the school grounds

I'm a teacher in Germany, so I have seen several German schools from inside. There are some schools that have more than two clubs as an extra curricular activity, but I guess no German school gets even close to the offer of extra curricular activities of an American school. The reason might be that many sports or music activities are organized by people from outside school. So there are football clubs you can join or you can learn to play an instrument in a "music school" but usually these are privately owned and work completely independent from high schools (unfortunately, this usually means that you have to pay to be part of a club or for your music lessons).

i went to a lot of different high schools in Germany, some of them had after school activities (e.g. music/choir, football/soccer, rugby, and at one point I was in an after school club called "English childrens games and rhymes" which was pretty fun). One of my schools had lockers too, but we rarely used them. The start/end time of the school day varied too, some started at 7:45, others at 8 o'clock and one at 8:20 (because they knew that most people would arrive via train and adjusted school time to the train time)

Hi. I really like your channel. It´s so interesting to see the differences between the countries and that the things you see in the us movies are kind of true ^.^.... Although my schooltime endet 20 years ago. I still can say it was basicly the same as Phils. (I was in the Realschule in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) I got to school at 7.45, somtimes still earlyer because we had "Nullte Stunde" , so we had to be there at 7 am. That was hard, I hated this -.- We usually had Blocks of 1,5 hrs., between the blocks there was a 15 minute break, because of the room change. Scientistic subjekts, Musik and Art classes where always in a different room, all other subjekts we had in our Classroom. P.E was really tricky (in my last scool - I had to change schools very often because of moving -.-) The Gym was a 10 minute walk away from the school ground. We had to go through the Park to get there, so we where really stressed about getting there and back to school. Around noon we got a large break of 50 minutes. Pupils over 16 years old were allowed to leave the school grounds, but only with a permission from the parents or a guardian. We didnt had a caffeteria, but there was a small shop running by the "Hauswitschaftskurs" where you could get sandwitches and drinks. Usually you had to get there right after ringing otherwhise it was packed with peoples -.- .... The less houres we had was 6 (3 Blocks) - I can remember we had 4 Blocks nearly every day an one day even 5 - cause you had to choose a "Wahlfach" or a second language. I really would like to had a second language, but the time i got to this school, at 8th class, the second language started at 7th - so I had to choose a "Wahlfach" (Ethik, Hauswirtschaft, Sport, IT or something like this ... and you had change it after half a year) About the sports you could do at us highschools - I dont think that you can do this in any type of german schools, the reason is there is no friendly competition between the schools in the first. But we do have so called "Vereine" (assisiations or clubs) in the citys where you can do sports if you wanted to. But there are not linked with the schools. You also could attend to Music-school if you wanted to learn to play an instument, ore take courses at the "Volkshochschule". In the area I lived we had a lot of artists and they often did artclasses. So if you wanted to do something after the school, there was always a possibillity to do so - but - like I said - it was usually not linked with the school itself. Well - if you did enter a Verein or something, you had to pay for it. And you needet to buy the equipment by yourself. Ok - that was a lot ..... well .... I dont think it is the same today. When I hear junger people talk about school I often realise, that it has become a lot easier. For example the finals. I had to take finals in 8 different subjekts. 5 written and 3 non-written. 3 written subjekts where fixed - math, german and english - for the 4th you had to choose between biology, chemistry or physics and the 5th one was one of your choice (I did astronomy) The non-written subjekts where usually picked by the teachers if you where on the edge between two marks. Otherwhise you could choose yourself. I had to take geography and chemistry because I was between gras 1 and 2 on both and chose art or myself. The non written subjekts where really tricky, You didnt know beforehad which thema you got for the subjekt. 10 minutes befor you had to speak in front of 4 Teachers, you got a piece of paper with your thema and then you had the 10 minutes to make notes about it and talk at least 20 minutes later to the teacher, who after that asked you questions, too. It was really tought and I was so happy when it was finally over -.- ..... I can imagine the finals at "Gymnasium" where still harder ...... That was it. I am really courious about the finals in the us. Is there any possibility, that you can make a video about it in the future? I hope it was not to much for you to read - when I´m starting to write I can hardly stop -.- I hope you two stay healthy during this time - and go on whith your channel - You are awesome ^.^

During my junior and senior year of high school I got the opportunity to take college courses through a community college that was in my county. I was a CCP (college credit plus) student. There are many students from high school that attend this community college and by the time they graduate most of them receives 2 degrees, a high school degree and a college degree. Its pretty neat!!

I'm from Austria. I went to a Handelsakademie, it's somehow like the magnet schools you mentioned and 5 years. We were around 1000 people but the school also included the Handelsschule which is only 3 years and can be compared to the Realschule. Clubs were offered at my school. Languages, sports, year book/school paper, etc. 3. year of the 5 is the hardest. One semester I had 11 periods 3 times a week. So school until 6 in the evening. We had oral exams, big exams (1/3 of the grade), smaller tests, presentations, etc. So most people did not join any clubs. 2 was the maximum the school allowed.

It very much depends on the school and sports are overwhelmingly organized in clubs in Germany, but in some schools there is considerably more sports than Phil's experience shows. There are of course a few (boarding) schools for high level sports but even some normal schools used to have teams that entered competition. There used to be "Jugend trainiert für Olympia", a competition in many levels starting with the schools of a town or district and going up all the way to the federal level. Some schools had a tradition of competing there but usually the school teams were based on a core of players or athletes from certain club teams. One also should keep in mind that until quite recently, the Gymnasium was considerably more elite with less than 30% going to that type of school around 1990, so in some respects they were more like prep schools with a strong academic focus than like US high schools that had been comprehensive (more like German Gesamtschulen) for many decades.

Junior High vs Middle School: typically Middle Schools r grades (years) 6-8, Junior Highs r grades 7-9. It just depends on how the school district ur in n how it's structured. 😊

I went to a comprehensive school (Gesamtschule), which wasn't mentioned here... As far as I remember, there was an activity group (AG) in the afternoon, once a week. Some people chose Art class, some chose Music class, some chose Sports class. But there were no teams or clubs...There is a thing called Abi-Ball (a party-like event after final grade) which is sort of like a Prom, I guess. But since most of the students finish school after 10th grade, they don't experience that xD

We had some sport teams at EGD, I think we had a football (the real) team and a track and field team. And of course the "Jugend traineirt für Olympia" competitions with other schools.

I live in Stuttgart and there were no such sports clubs like Phil said. We had a debate club were we could compete against other schools but I think that was the only extracurricular activity that let us compete.

I went to Realschule for 5th and 6th grade. My school was a grade/elementary school combined with a Haupt and Realschule. My school would have 1 school dance every year on the last day before Fasching break. For clubs, my school had a choir club and a drama club. I don't know if there were any sports clubs. For high school, I went to a public charter school. My school was an early college school, so we could take actual college classes, not just AP. And the general education classes were based on skill, so you could be a freshman taking classes will a senior. We were allowed off campus for lunch and if we had classes at the college campus. My school had a small basketball club, but that was the only club available when I went to school there.

My High School experience was great! I had music as a subject and also Hotel Management and Catering. Every year we had a Revue (a musical) and every year I participated. In my Matric (grade 12) year we had a mini Opera and I participated. It was so much fun! I also sang in the School Choir, it was a Classical Choir. We got training in this Choir that it is possible for me today to sing in a Classical Choir like a performance of Handel's Messiah. I absolutely loved Choir! We had beautiful uniforms for Choir. Also I won a literature competition 1st place and 3rd place for English Poetry. I didn't do Sport. And I have wonderful memories of my Matric Farewell. It's more formal than Prom. No king or queen. But black tie. I had this beautiful wine-red satin ballgown and my escort for the evening (like a date, just a friend) had a satin wine-red bowie and vest on with his white shirt and black tuxedo. It was really nice. I think we really go out of our way here in South Africa to make High School glamorous for the students.

Our school also had choral and orchestral concerts, plays and small theater events as well.

The German school system is based on supporting children and young people with different levels of maturity and/or learning abilities by providing them with learning content at a different, adapted learning pace, subject matter and quantity to a certain point. Children and young people from a „Realschule“ or „Hauptschule“ can move up to the next "school level" after the 9th or 10th year and attend school for a further few years until they are able to obtain a „Fachhochschulreife“ or start directly in the world of work after completing their first secondary („weiterführende“) school. Children who receive a direct recommendation for a „Gymnasium“ can complete the general Abitur after 12 or 13 years of school.

I didn't hear anything about the Homecoming Parade! Every year a day or two ahead of the Homecoming Game we had a parade, the different classes would build floats and they also had a Homecoming Bon Fire. After I graduated I joined the local Fire Dept. and we would have our Fire Engines in the parade carrying the Cheerleaders ;-) and we would also send a unit to the Bon Fire, it was way more fun when I was with the Fire Dept. Also the girls would play the Powder Puff game, it was the Juniors against the Senior girls at flag football. Didn't care to much for High School but my Junior and Senior year I did go to Vocational School. I took Graphic Arts which is running a printing press and create layouts for the printing press, that was fun! They had Culinary, Electronics, Automotive and Electrician classes. Keep up the good work, have fun watching your video's, take care and be safe.

In South Carolina, there are also TP (Tech Prep) classes, but four year colleges/universities will typically not accept TP level credits if you are applying as a high school student. However, if you go to a community college and take college level classes, you can usually transfer to a four-year college later on provided you do well in them. (Most students who take tech prep classes rarely go to college at all...or at least that was the case when I was in school.) As far as transportation to/from school is concerned, it really depends on where you live. If you live in a city like Boston or NYC, or if you live just next door or down the street from your school then you can walk/take mass transit. However, if you grew up where I did, on the outskirts of town, you will have to either take the school bus, be driven, or drive yourself there. I grew up in a small town just west of where Deana grew up, but it's much smaller than Greenville. I don't know of many people who DID walk to school unless they lived just around the corner from it. In middle school, we used lockers in 6th grade because we had eight, 50-minute class periods per day, and you wouldn't want to have to keep up with all of your books for the entire day. (Plus, for some reason, 6th graders weren't allowed to bring backpacks to class.) However, in high school, we were on the A-Day/B-Day (called "block schedule" in some areas), in which there were eight different classes scheduled over two different days, but there were only four classes each day; each class met for 90 minutes instead of 50. Instead of using lockers, most students would buy two different backpacks at the beginning of the school year, and would have one for their A-Day classes and the other one for B-Day classes so that they wouldn't have to constantly unpack and repack their backpacks each day when they got home. With regard to changing clothes for Gym class, we didn't shower either. However, we didn't have P.E. uniforms; we just brought a change of clothes in a duffle bag from home. However, you were required to dress appropriately for gym or it would reflect negatively on your grade.

I went to high school in Virginia and we had "elective" classes. We had a certain amount of elective classes that were required for graduation (eg. foreign languages, additional academic courses, public speaking, computer programming, ect.)and we had the option to to go to a vocational school for a part of the school day if that elective was offered at the vocational school. You had to choose this upon entering high school so that your schedule could be structured around it. In the 2 years I attended vocational school for 2 of my 4 years in high school and while there, I learned pattern making, textiles and sewing and still use those skills today, over 30 years later.

at our gymnasium in germany we have sports teams put they don't practice together and just sometimes go to competitions. Also something that's different is that we have school from 7:40 until 17:25/16:35. and then three days a week until 1pm. And we have a cantine but can leave to go eat somewhere else

I got a 6 in a test once. It was a blank paper, only with the date and my name in it. And a long, intense talk with the teacher, a short talk with the prinzipal, a talk with the "Vertrauenslehrer" and at last with all of them and my parents. This was really annyoing, but some problems got solved.

I went a public high school in NY outside of New York City. We had about 1000 students in the high school-- about 400 in my graduating class. Primary school was K-6 grades, then 7-9 in junior high and high school was 10-12 grade when I was there. Now primary is K to 5, junior high is grades 6 to 8 and high school is 9 to 12. High School started at 8AM until 1:30PM. Only Seniors could drive to school, plus they were allowed to leave school for lunch. We had sports teams but football games were on Saturdays. Our scores or grades in classes were A+ to F without E. We also had Driver's Ed, where students learned to drive a car. My school district had its own pool so we had to take swimming in junior high. We had AP classes for the smart students for college credits. I know someone who took all AP classes except for Math. By the way, Kindergarten was 9am to noon, 1- 6 grades were 9AM to 3PM and junior high was 8AM to 2PM

Another thing for the US is some schools (high school usually) theres a block schedule. So every other day you have different classes. So on monday Wednesday and friday you have a certain set of classes and Tuesday thursday you have different classes and it switches every week. For us, we had four classes everyday but it was different everyday.

I like the caption with the photo of Phil - "I married Ellen"

I was at a Comprenhesive school in Germany, two afternoons a week we had "AG" where we could chose a lot of sport like tennis, badminton, football, dancing, basketball and also things like chess, caring for Aquariums and fishes, some scientific things...and a lot more, but I don't remember them. We had abiut 40 0r 50 classes between which we were able to choose

1. Between the Realschule and the Hauptschule there is also the Gesamtschule. 2. As for clubs we have the Chess Club, Drama Club (they are currently working on Highschool musical) and actually a school band 3. As for events: we have (mandatory) football tournaments for the lower classes (5-6) and middle classes (7-9), the ball of course, the Christmas breakfast with secret Santa and twice a year there is a ‚Wandertag‘, where the classes go outside of school to visit a Zoo, Museum or just to the city for shopping. Also the „Tag der offenen Tür“ where the school is open on a Saturday for the families and children who want to enrol there, can look what the school has to offer. The students have to attend the day as well because they either guide the families around or are in the classrooms where there are special things like little experiments for the Children or such.

New York City: the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island Upstate New York (which is bigger than many countries in Europe): Yonkers, White Plains, Greenburgh, Scarsdale, Hartsdale, Mount Vernon, Mount Pleasant, Ossining, Peekskill, Elmsford, etc., etc.

My high school was in a farming community, we had drive your tractor to school day. Our biggest sport was basketball but we had all the others too. Anyone could purchase a school jacket not just those involved in sports . And we had class rings.

We have privat Gymnasiums, too. Where I live every school has a different main focus on education. I for example go to a privat owned Gymnasium with a musical or a economic focus. So you learn more about your chosen focus and have more lessons. (We pay a little fee 300-400€ a semester for school, the other part is payed by the state.)

To add to that I'm from Heidelberg and I vividly remember *Stadtschule Meisterschaften, where the various schools in the city competed in sports from track and field, swimming, gymnastics, basketball etc

Deana, it wasn’t just your large public school. I went to a tiny private school in GA (like 250 people from kindergarten through 12th grade), and we still had a lot of sports and clubs (football, basketball, baseball, softball, track, soccer, cheer, etc).

You guys should look up some of the "Every 15 minutes" program videos for US schools. It basically focuses on educating high schoolers about drunk driving, but when I was in high school I always thought it would be interesting to see how people from other countries would react to it. At my school they went all out. They shut down a street next to the school and recreated a car crash during a lunch assembly. There was an actual helicopter that air lifted the "injured" students away from the "crash".

I’m late, but as an America, this was accurate. Although I’m not from South Carolina (I’m a Texan) most of the stuff spoken in the video happens at my high school.

We have lockers all throughout our high school, but other than the PE lockers it's kind of rare and odd to see someone using them. In middle school they were used very often by some though.

I went to a grammar school in Saxony and we had a ton of after-school-activities. At least 2/3 of our teachers had a club. We had several choirs, tech, robot, several languages, nature (animals, pets, lake, aquarium, redevelopment of a small river), arts, tutoring, special lessons for gifted students. And we had many sports activities: soccer (several groups), tennis, athletics, volleyball, basketball, fitness, gymnastics, table tennis. We often fought against other schools and some were part of "Jugend trainiert für Olympia". And of course many had activities out of school. There was music school, fire brigade, church/religion, tutoring, sports clubs ... Most of us had a full day, but it was a good time.

Ich find das so interessant wie du die deutschen Schulen bei dir kennengelernt hast. Bei mir gibt es auch Gymnasium, Hauptschule und Realschule wobei du nach der Hauptschule oder Realschule zum OSZ(Oberstufen Zentrum) gehen kann (oder vom Gymnasium wenn du merkst das es zu "schwer" für dich ist). Am OSZ kann man dann auch sein Abitur machen. Wenn man Fachabi macht, dann bis zur 12.klasse und wenn man das normale Abi macht bis zur 13 Klasse. Im Grund ist also das Gymnasium für diejenigen da, welche ein Jahr früher Abitur machen wollen und mit dem entsprechenden Notendruck klarkommen. Auch haben Gymnasien soweit ich weiß fast immer verschiedene Ausrichtung wie zb. Kunst oder Wissenschaften.....also jeder kann im Grunde Abi machen wenn er möchte, du musst nur wissen ob es sich wirklich für dich lohnt oder nicht(für viele Berufe/Ausbildungen braucht man kein Abitur oder ein Studium also warum etwas machen wenn es die eh nichts bringt). Man kann sein Abitur auch jederzeit an verschiedenen Stellen nachholen (meine Schwester beispielsweise hat es mit 25 nachgeholt) Also giebt es anscheinend doch einige Unterschiede ;-)

Grading system: (Germany) If you have a 5 or 6 in one subject in grades 5-11 (G9) or 5-10 (G8), you can make up for it with a 2 or 1 in another subject that has the same value. Example: German - 5 Math - 2 English - 2 Art - 1 - Passed German - 6 math - 2 English - 2 Art - 1 - failed (art has a lower value than German) -> Math, English and German are major subjects

Depending on the school in germany I had afternoon classes I could choose at the beginning of the school year. It could be swimming, other PE things like athletic or handball, photography and playing music in a band.

Wow 5-12th grade for high school in Germany. That's quite a long time! But I guess it's sort of nice to gain a variety of experiences before going to college :) Enjoyed your video!

Very interesting video. I'm from Switzerland and our school system is totally different. Our grades are also 1-6 like in Germany but the other way around, so 1 is the worst grade you can get and 6 is the best :-D normaly we have 9 years of school and after that you can go to another school or start an apprenticeship. We also have "Gymnasium" but you have to pass a test for these schools and it's 3 years longer than regular school. So when you go to regular school you finish it at the age of 16 and start a apprenticeship or whatever you're doing after school ;-) I went to a very small high school in Switzerland and we had araound 130 students 😂 so 800 students (like the "small" school Phil went to) would be a very big school for me ;-)

In some states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, there are opportunities to advance in sports (specifically wrestling). So, my teammates and I transferred to an online high school to compete at a high level. Therefore, most of the courses are online, however there are still in building classes. A typical week is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I do homework early in the mornings then go to practice at 9 a.m. Afterwards my teammates and I shower, have lunch, do more homework till the next practice, then go home and do homework. While Tuesdays and Thursdays we go to school (for NCAA credits), then practice, go home, etc. It depends on the person's courses too because, for example, I have college classes so I have to leave practice early on certain days. So yeah!

In Florida, Junior High school was 7-9 grades. Some larger cities use mass transit buses in lieu of yellow school buses to get students to/from school.

I am from Frankfurt and i was at a sports high school that was also a gesamtschule where you get different classes depending on your skill. And we also had sports Clubs in school. But usually kids in Germany attend a sports club that doesnt have to do with school at all

5:30 In Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) we luckily got rid of the 5-12 kind of rush scheme and went back to 5-13 High school system where you can take your time to educate :)

I go to a public school in rural Ohio. Our school starts at 7:45 and ends at 2:35. We have a Connect, which is a time for announcements and meetings, this is followed by eight 40 min periods. My county has 3 school districts, a rural and two 'city' schools. I go to the main city school. My building has the junior high (7-8) and the highschool (9-12). Our school is set up that if you're more advanced you can start high school classes in JH, and college classes in HS. Most required classes have a regular and honors version, with the honors version learning the same subject just at a faster pace.( time spent on a subject - Honors 1-2days - Regular 3days-1week) During your Junior and Senior years, you can also go to a Career Center (all three districts go there), but it is known that this school is generally for students who are at risk of dropping out. We definitely have cliques but it's not like the movies. For the most part the popular kids sit together. But for example, some band kids I know sit with cheerleaders. I'm a junior and only go to 4 highschool classes a day because I take classes at the local college. I have talk to friends that go to other schools in the state, they all say our school is way less advanced than other schools.

I went to two highschools, one a huge public school with over 1000+ students and a sprawling outdoor campus on the west coast and then a small indoor public Midwestern highschool with 300 or even less students. The differences in just these two schools are incredible, in the western school we went to school around, I walked to school, 7:00 and started 7:35-45 am and we're usually restricted to the very small cafeteria, and then we went to our classes with some being all the way across campus from the next, during lunch most of the 1000+ students crammed together and got their lunch from the small cafeteria and made their way back out over campus to hang out and eat under trees or in other classes there were a few places we couldn't go and our security team made sure we stayed close to the cafeteria, we usually got out at 2:30-40 pm. For the Midwestern school I took the bus that got the more rural areas so we went through farm fields and dense little woods before coming to school, there you go straight to the cafeteria and are stuck there until first period began so that was at like 7:30 am again but if you rode the bus you would get there at 6:45ish. All of the classes are indoors, which was a shocker and you can't eat outside, only the cafeteria which did hold the entire school. After that classes were average and close together, and very personal with no security at all, only one police officer. School usually got out at 2:25 and then we made our way home.

I went to a public school in a small town in Connecticut. High school and junior high were in the same building (they have since built a middle school). My graduating class had less than 200 students. Unfortunately, our day did start at 7:40 (if you had to catch a bus, you were at the bus stop by 7:10) and went to 1:40. We had 4 minutes in between classes.... 4 minutes. P.E. was twice weekly. There were showers in the locker rooms, but it was rare that anyone used them. All grades were mixed for lunch (there were 3 lunch periods, so you ate when it fit into your schedule and hoped that you had lunch with friends every year). Seniors were allowed off campus for lunch. Football, basketball, and cheer were big at my school. College basketball is pretty prominent around here. Our cheer squad regularly went to Florida for competitions, and I think they may have even gone to Hawaii. As for dances, my school didn't have much emphasis there. Senior prom was kind of a big event (not my scene, so I'm honestly not sure if we had a Junior prom). And that's enough rambling from me.

At my school there just clubs (in German AG) so there is the soccor club, debate club (Jugend debattiert), beekeeper club, history club

we just have AG's where we can play tennis in the next town. But it's just from 13:45 to 15:15 and with teachers from our school. We also are an 'Gesamtschule' and there are all school forms in one house. It depends on the school if you have to go 12/13 years.

i just came here for the first time and i love you guys im enjoying ur shows. Grettings from germany. I was in a Basketball club but theyre not offered by my school

In Phoenix, school kids on schools days can show their school ID and ride the city buses for free from like 6 AM to 6PM, they don't use school buses as much in the Phoenix area. And school age kids can rid for half price any time.

the main difference that my high school had that was not mentioned was we only had the same four classes for each semester of 9 weeks. No one used there locker and if they did it was for sports. I live in the midwest

My school in The Netherlands didn't have sports teams. They did competitions once per year and we had a 'band' and a school newspaper that's it.

Hi Deana and Phil. Like some other mentioned it, we have the Gesamtschule. Its all 3 school types together. Gymnasium, Real and Hauptschule. I think this school type is the most common in Berlin. At a Gesamtschule you have 4 different types of difficulty. (A/G E/F) While A(Anfänger?) was for people who are so bad in the school subject(for example: Math, Bio, Sport) that they need at best a teacher for themself to at last understand a bit. Means only total idots were there. G(Grundkenntnis?) was the normal difficulty everybody start with. I think the difficulty of G Classes are like Hauptschule. Then there was E(Erweitert?) were the stuff you learn was harder and you have to learn more(for example my biology experience. While the teacher of the G class told all the student they need to learn the german word and can ignore the latin words, the teacher of the E Class told all they need to learn the latin word and dont even need to try remember the german word). The A/G students and the E/F students used to have class together. We used to have beside the normal grade system a point system. The point system was more importent than the grade system. I think you could get up to 15 points. Lets talk about how you changed between the different systems. If you want to change from the G class to the E class, you need at last to have a G2(commonly known als a normal grade 2). If you get a 2 or 1 you automatically go up 1 difficulity lvl. A to G / G to E / E to F. But if you have a 5 or 6 you automatically drop 1 difficulity lvl. F to E / E to G / G to A. And here comes the point system into the game. Lets say you have a German class and you write a dictation. This following numbers are just examples and i dont know how it was counted in my school time. If you are inside the A class you could make up to 30 errors and still get a grade 1. While inside the G class you couldn't have more than 15 errors to get a grade 1. E class could have up to 5 errors to get a grade 1. F on the other side you needed 0 errors to get a grade 1. Every difficulty had a max number of points you could get. This numbers are examples too. Lets say with A1(grade 1) you got 10 points. With a G1(grade1) you got 12 points. E1(grade1) gave you 13 points and F1(grade 1) will give you 15 points. So why are this points so important? Because at the end of the 10th class, you need a special number on difficulty classes and points. Lets say you want to make Real you need to have 2 E classes and 75 points. Even if you have a 5 with the E classes but get the neccesary points together with the other G classes you get your Realabschluss. With this system its up to you which school graduation you get at the end. There is a second think i wanted to say. My school in Berlin was a sport orientated school. So we could join a sports club after school. But allmost nobody was there because they all had their private clubs they needed to go.

I went to a high school in a small farm town in southeast Michigan and in the fall, we had a homecoming dance, the winter we had what was called Subdeb (pronounced as sub dub) which was like our winter ball and in the spring, we had prom. I Never went to prom but I was vice president of the German club my freshman and sophomore years. I took German for two years and loved it. Was gonna take it again my junior year but I took vo-tech where they teach you career building in a teacher like setting. I wanted to be a teacher so my vo-tech class was called "Careers in Education".

I was on a Gymnasium in the Hochtaunus-Kreis and we had like a Basketball AG (AG=Arbeitsgruppe=work group) but nothing more and the people who really did sports were in a football, handball or whatever they were doing club.