Schools in Sweden vs America (Part 2) 

Swedes calls their bosses by their first name too. It's the whole "we're all equal" attitude.

School buses are common in Sweden too, but it's usually only for those who lives far away from the school or has a special need for transportation support, and I think it's only in elementary school (grundskolan). In highschool (gymnasie) the students who lives far away usually gets free public transportation from the government.

Excuse me, can someone explain to me why I've been watching 4-5 videos of this guy just talking about things I'm not that interested in. Damn dude, you are a good teacher, you MAKE me interested in the things you're talking about, it's fun to hear what you have to say. I think you have found the right profession for yourself.

Cool video but you live in Europe now. Time to throw "soccer" out of your vocabulary. Football plz sir xD

A reason for no substitute teachers is probably that there seems to be a near critical lack of teachers in Sweden.

I do not live in the US or Sweden, why do I keep watching these video's... Edit: Just realised this random comment is my most liked one, so thanks?

And in Sweden we have no home schooling aswell and we get paid (studiebidrag) to go to school.

Det är kul att höra folk prata om sverige

We also have something called Yrkeshögskolan, it's a 2 year prepare for work education. It's way more practical and you actually get work after graduaction or sometimes even before you even graduate. A special agency check the job market to see what's in demand and then they make a 2 year course about that. The school is only allowed to hold that course for two years and then they need to evaluate the job market again, to see if more people are needed. Btw, gymnasium is pronounced almost like jymnasium, since it's a soft vowel after the G it have to be pronounced like a J. Same with Gitarr (Gituar), you say Jitarr.

As a lot of other swedes have mentioned we actually do have school buses in Sweden. Altough its only common up to about High School. In Primary/Middle school I lived very far from my school, so we had a local taxi company who was hired by the school to pick us up in our neighborhoods and take us to school in minibuses. And they would also show up after school to take us home. But it is true that in High School and College/University most students use the public transportation system. However in most cases since almost all towns in Sweden has a functional bus system, the school tend to pay for bus travel cards and gift them to the students.

Back in my day elevens val meant that you had to choose one subject out of several different options, and it was completely equal to all the other mandatory subjects. Then there's the similar språkval, but which is just about language classes.

Okay, first of all... We call teachers by their first name cause of equality, same with our bosses. Secondly, You start school at the age of 6 grade "0" then "1" (age 7), grade "2" (age 8), grade "3" (age 9) and so on up to grade 9 (age 15). After that you go to gymnasium 3 years 16-19 y/o and then Uni 3-5 years. And thirdly, we do have school busses in Sweden. They're quite common. They look like normal busses but often yellow or silver.

The thing about uni/college in Sweden, the lenght of it depends what you choose to study. Like if you want to become a civil engineer or an architect it's 5 years long. Whilst me im gonna go to a job focused college after "gymnasiet" which is only 1 year long.

The relationship between students and teachers vary a lot. I have some teachers that are like super friendly. Then i have teachers who act like brick walls, unresponsive and boring. I am going to be starting my third year of "gymnasie" this autumn and i look forward to most of my classes.

What about hall passes and multiple choice questions on exams? And just a note about the school buss, If you see a taxi or a buss with the sign of two children holding hands, the same sign that are outside the schools, it ’s a school buss. Often small companies drive the schoolbusses and they use the busses for other traffic as well. So instead of painting the hole buss yellow they can remove the sign. Over and out.

You should have said that the public transportation is free for students.

Another thing people are missing when it comes to why we use first names is that they tend to be more unique. We even had the issue in the past where the military gave people new names since everybody had a name ending with "-son", such as Andersson, Johansson, Larsson, Karlsson, etc. Just imagine having multiple teachers at the same school called "Herr Karlsson" or "Fröken Andersson" lol! It's like a comedy waiting to happen. Oh and one thing that is perhaps of your interest as an American; most Americans whose last name end with "-son" probably have Swedish-American ancestry. You likely know at least one or two of them yourself! ^_^

Regarding choosing gymnasiums, it depends a lot on the finally grades you get when your in grade 9 (when you turn 16 and start gymnasiet) . The better grades the more popular high school you can TRY to get in to , because there only a sweating spots you have to make a list with schools if you don’t get your first choice

Snow days in America: school is canceled because kids can’t get there Snow day in Sweden: teacher yells at you for being late, but you’re only late because the bus was

I do not go to school anymore but we called our teachers by their first name, if someone said the last name of a teacher, everyone looked at the student as if you were an idiot. but I saw one of my teachers as my extra father because I liked him so much and he cared and wanted everyone to be approved in the subject, I had him in middle and high school. I lived on an island so I went to the harbor and went over a ferry and I still live on the island so now I go over to get to work, Live in sweden.

+Stefan Thyron There are schoolbuses in some rural areas of Sweden if there is enough children to fill a bus and no normal busses goes through that area fitting school hours. They're not as obvious as the american yellow ones though. Sometimes it'll just be a regular cab bus payed for by the municipality. If there is only one or a few students it'll be a regular cab that acts as school transportation, also paid by municipality. My coworkers three kids goes to school in a cab. This is only "ute på landet" as we say. In cities, generally since public transportation is so good here that's what they use.

we have school buses in sweden, just not in the bigger cities. almost every other place has school buses, since not all places in sweden have public bus lines. at least where i live, (värmland) a lot of students live far away from the school and you're lucky if you have a public bus line nearby.

Wow, that was very educational... With the highscool and gymnasium stuff...

Since you broight up college... One kind of neat thing here in Sweden is that college is... free. People still get student loans to pay for living costs and some books and things, but there are no tuitions or fees. Student debt is still a thing but definitely not as big a problem as in the US, since the loans are all done though a state-financed institute, CSN. And they have very reasonable rates. In general, Sweden's been good at recognizing there's value in having a lot of well-educated people around. Even if strictly speaking that education might not be directly applicable to people's vocation later on.

Hi Stefan, I live in South Africa. Our school buildings are mostly outdoors (like the hallways) because obviously Africa is so hot. No, there aren't just "black" people here, there are many other races, mostly white along with black. We don't have cafeterias, we go eat lunch at home after we finish with school at about 13:15. From Grade 10 to 12, you get to choose your subjects that you learn so you get an idea of what to study in university (college)

School buses are definitely a thing in Sweden. Everyone in the city I grew up in used them between the ages of 6-18.

There are a lot of school buses in Sweden. I go there every single day, but they only pick up those who live type at least four kilometers from school. And our school is not the only one that has it.

im doing school work about the diffrences between Swedish and American school, ty for helping me with my work :)

My classes almost never got canceled, except for a lot of snow. And I'm swedish :x probably vary very much from school to school. And i always went with school bus, looked like a normal bus, but with a special sign on the bus that shows it's a school bus.

One big difference between the US and Sweden is a consequence of the varying lesson lenghts: swedish classes don't have the breaks at the same time as other classes, so teachers can't patrol the hallways to see who's skipping, since one group of students pretty much always has a break/recess.

Really cool videos you got! Way to go!! I'll be moving to Sweden this month too for university studies and your videos are really helpful though. THANKS!

About cancelled classes in Sweden. I just quit elementary school in Swede (grundskolan) and I start high school this fall (gymnasium). This vary very much between different schools! In my school the classes got cancelled about 50% of the times teachers were sick or for some other reason could not show up. Most of the lessons that we had subs usually were very unuseful and I would ordinary skip these lessons or not take it seriously. It is also common for the students to show very little respect for the subs. We almost never took them seriously and if a sub wanted us to like them they just put on a movie or so. other schools could either never have subs or always have subs. my school had teachers who worked as a substitute on the school that just filled in whatever class there was a teacher missing.

In Serbia we have different variations of high school. The main (and the best) is high school called gymnasium which is like college- preparatory school (found that name online) and you learn all aspects of science like history, geography, biology, math, languages, IT stuff, psychology etc etc. But then you have high schools only for design, math, languages, chemistry, law, tourism, agriculture and etc.But to finish high school you need to pass three tests. First is essay in Serbian, second is essay in English, and third is essay in subject of your choice, so when you pass those three you graduated. As for the colleges, every one of them have qualifying examination so for example if you want to study medicine you must pass their biology and chemistry exam and if you do you are in, if you don't you've been given a second chance, but if you fail that to, you wait the next year to apply. As for tuition fee, if you had good grades in high school and in qualifying exam you study for free if not you pay for it. Also if you want to study next semester for free you must have certain number of ECTS (here the minimum is 48 and max is 60). Keep up the good work,, love your videos greetings from Serbia! :)

Älskar dina videos :) det är så intressant att se hur mycket du älskar Sverige, det får mig att uppskatta mitt kära land ännu mer ❤🇸🇪

Regarding school buses: Schools in Sweden have to offer some kind of transportation to students living more than 6 km away. There is usually public transport covering the route and time a student has to travel, so most commonly the schools give out season tickets for that. When no public transport is available they will use something like school buses/school taxis, but this is mostly in rural areas. I've lived in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Örebro and have travelled quite a bit, and I don't remember ever having seen a school bus in Sweden except on photo/video.

If you live in a smaller community or in the countryside, there's a school bus that picks up the kids and then drop them off after school. Where I'm from we had school buses.

I live in Sweden and in in my school in elevens Val we could vote what we want to do sometimes and sometimes do use choose things we can even do wanted to do that but it was more like fun activities like going swimming or different things and also we have elevens dag where there is a different station to like win points for their class and then they put all the post to gather they look if they’re in what grade one for 1-3 and one from 4-5. My class 5B won the last time and we got new things for our class.

When I was starting gymnasium (kind of high school) I moved to stockholm alone from my home in Gävle which is like 2,5 h away. I live in a apetment now alone just to study theatre

4:00 I think itmakes a lot of sense for primary school but I wish it was a bit more formal in our counterparts to middle school and high school (högstadiet and gymnasiet). The devaluation of the profession of the teacher is part of why Sweden has such a hard time finding teachers.

I think one of the reasons why it’s more common for students to walk to school(even very young children, I started biking when I was 10-ish I think) is because, as far as I know, although I’ve never been to the US so this might be wrong, the streets are much safer here than in America. It’s no big deal for children to walk or take the bike to school by themselves. The biggest safety concerns are that the child will not be careful enough when crossing a road or something.

Transferring schools is much more common in the bigger cities like Stockholm, Göteborg or Uppsala, as there are more options available within reach. In smaller cities/towns, you would only see people change gymnasium for certain educations (e.g. I switched from a general gymnasium, being on a design focus technical programme, to a aviation programme in another city, or due to social issues, like bullying.

Up until 9th grade there are school buses. But when you get to High School (gymnasiet), you are responible for getting to school yourself. However, since most Swedish cities/towns are smaller the majority of people just ride their bikes or walk to school.

It would be very interesting if you would have a video where you talk to a Swedish teacher about these questions.

Gillar din kanal. har kollat på alla dina filmer. ta gärna upp olikheterna mellan svensk vapenlag och amerikansk.keep up the good work

In my old school in Sweden we had school buses and everyone was finished the same time👍🏼 so I thing it depends from school to school in Sweden ☺️

Omg, I just realized that you are actually working at my old school. Damn, where were you when I was attending there 5 years ago? I would have loved to practice my English with you. Is Per still working there? He's such a great teacher :)

Thank you for bringing up your view on using the first name instead of the last name :)

We too have schools that you belong to when you live in a certain area. And if you wanna change schools I think your parent has to fill out some forms, if I'm not mistaken. However when you change schools you usually get the second closest school if you're not having a preference. I had to change school because of bullying and I got a school that wasn't too far from home. I'm interested to know how schools in the US work regarding bullying and if it differs to swedish schools. Is that a subject you could talk about? Thank you for your channel and awesome videos! Heja Norrköping! 😄/ En till Norrköpingsbo 😄

I grew up in the country here in Sweden and we had a school bus. But that the school started and ended at the same time to suit the buses was not the reality for me or my friends. The bus arrived and went at the same time every day even if your classes ended 3-4 hours earlier or just when the bus arrived so you had to run to catch it. In Sweden we have requirements (I think its kilometers) to be granted free school transport, and every län/kommun have their own kind of school bus :)

We have lots of after school activities in sweden too, those can be literally anything. They don't have anything to do with the normal school tho, just wanted to point that out.

Which grades do you teach in?

in Sweden we have no school buses in the way America has, but there are different bus companies that run the school buses. But it is more common in rural areas in Sweden. I come from a small municipality in the Western Götaland region

I have grown up way out on the swedish country side. And I went by schoolbus from the age of 7 to the age of 15. :-) When I was six years old, we went by special cab, that only drove school-kids. There's rules about this thing with school-buses. And since I lived so far away from school, I got to go by bus. My brothers kids who live even FURTHER out on the countryside go by a special cab every day both to and from school. :-)

I ride a taxi to my school. The taxi is called skolskjuts. This is in Västerås.

In my school we never cancel classes if our teacher Is sick. We only cancel classes if it starts snowing really much so everyone can get home in safety before it its too much snow. We only do this if it is near the end of the day.

I would say the most common way for students to get to school in Sweden (at least in smaller cities and in elementary school) is to eiter walk or take the bike. I did that for my first 9 years. When I started the gymnasium it was too far, so then we could go on the public transport.

Great vids 👍🏼 but I just want to point out: 1) College is free (unless you decide to take student loans - up to 1000$/month, but you can receive a few hundred dollars a month that aren’t loans). WOOP 🙌🏼 WOOP 🙌🏼 2) college is anywhere from 3-6 years. I’m halfway through Teacher’s Ed right now and it’s 5years in total (to teach 1-9 + gymnasium). (Subject combo: Art, English, Music - in that order) 3) school buses do exist in Sweden 🙃 but not everywhere. There are some places where you can’t throw a stick in the air without hitting one, and some where you can go your whole life without even seeing one🤷🏻‍♀️ There, I’m done ✅ Love your vids, btw ^_^

If you live far away from your school in Sweden, you get a free bus card that works from five o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock in the night, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, depending on what grade you're in and how far away from school you live.

Earlier, before 1994, I think, everyone had to go to the school that was closest locatedto where they lived, even at the Swedish high school. In 1994, it was also legal to open private schools (friskolor) that were free for all students to choose and cost no money.

Many students in the US do not take school buses. Many walk or get dropped off by parents and some take public transportation.

Please do not forget (it may not have been your experience if you were totally tied to a Major) that the first 2 years are the absolute basics of a broad based post secondary education but also a chance (obligation) to take the 101/102 versions of a potential degree major. It does not often tie you to the major, but can in stead be applied to the requirements for a Minor emphasis on your education. A Major & a Minor are an important part of a student's strategy for maneuvering through the system. It's basically up to you to figure out how to get to your destination. Counselors can give you help, but if you are not clear on what you want the outcome to be, you're in trouble if you don't have older family member or family friends to advise you. That sort of reminds me of the pivotal moment in the movie "The Graduate" where I think Hal Holbrook said to Dustin Hoffman "Plastics"!

We have school busses in Sweden up to high school then you take the normal buss to schoo

In our school (Sweden) we have school busses at different times those who go in 1-3 grade take the school buss at one o’clock and the students who go in 4-6 grade goes to the buss at two o’clock (14 : 05 Swedish time) because 4-6 graders go one hour longer in school then 1-3 graders

Well I'm from Sweden and none of my lessons have ever been canceled except last year when there was lots Of snow (snökaoset)so I think that it really depends on which school you go to/work at ✨

I see schoolbusses quite often, then again, it is likely that it is the same buss I see every day. The one I see looks just like a normal buss but at the front and side where it's supposed to tell where it's going it just says "Schoolbus" and at the back there is a sort of "Schoolbus" sign.

Regarding school buses in Sweden, there actually are some school buses, or at least were when I was younger. However these buses were only really for the really young kids (I think 1st - 4th grade). I also think that those buses were only used in areas where there was poor public transportation and/if the school itself was not easelly accessible through those means. I used to live in a coldesack as a kid so I got to use that school bus. However later we instead were given bus cards paid by the school, and I could use a bus stop close to where I lived for the morning commute.

Love to hear when compare the two countries

In Sweden you could read at aupper secondary level a profession, we in Sweden attend 9 years of elementary school. So after three years you can read a profession then you read half the time in school and the rest out in a company, because the school can not afford the latest equipment available. But as the EU works, companies do not care about apprentices, they only care about fully trained workers. There are hundreds in Eastern Europe that vacuum the entire EU after work. That is why the UK left the EU.

From what i remember, to make if fair for everyone, because Swedish children are by law required to go to school (called like, School-duty), there is a rule/regulation that stipulates that any distance above a few km (don't know the number exactly) qualifies the student to receive aid to travel to and from the school, in some form. Either by a straight up taxi, a hired "school-buss" or with a simple, limited, buss-pass for public transportation. Sweden is probably not the only country with this law, but I think this is also why the food is free in school; to make it more fair.

OFC there are school busses in Sweden! LOL!

there are school buses in sweden outside the major towns. since there are no public transport in some places where you live school buses or even taxi's that will pick you up for school. but these are primarly for grade 1-9. if you are going to gymnasiet and cant commute to school you can go to a boarding school but if not, you (parents) need to rent an apartment :) edit: no yellow school buses though, just a regular bus ;)

I'm moving to Sweden soon , as a high school student ,do i have to speak/understand swedish in class?

I live south up in Sweden and here we only have like 80 students in our whole school and we're from first grade to 6th grade and we have school-taxi's and its basically like normal public transport but they Park outside the school for kids to take specifically home

When u wish to switch workplaces as a teacher you will be in even better bargaining position for your salary. Certain schools will pour quite a big sum for you if your doing good in current school.

Where I live in southern Sweden kids take schoolbus that basically picks them up at their home until 6th grade...

He mentions the different lengths of high school/College and the you have to choose a major before college. This is true, but in a way you choose what you want to do with your life before entering or version of high school. This bit WASN'T mentioned

There are schoolbuses in Sweden but they are not limited to only students they are a part of the regular public transportation and they have no different atributes that makes them different then other buses. They normaly dont go during school breaks though.

We have school buses, they are just not special buses, they use the same buses as the public transportation, they just have a special/extra route in the morning and afternoon to drop of/pick up students.

we had elevens val in school but we choosed a firsthand activity and secondhand activity and we do the activity for about 1 and half hours (if you couldn't fit in your firsthand activity you went to your secondhand activity)

I would say that most people here in Sweden probably would choose what we want to work with in 9th grade and then you become that in the gymnasium and then you start working that is probably how most people.

You forgot detention Sweden have no detention, only something called kvarsittning, but that is when u have done too many bad stuff in one class and you will sitt outside the classroom

Most young, well even older ppl that is performing a sports gear in Sweden is practice it in an Association kinda, and for the most part is free beside the material you need for the sport

oh one more thing is we rarely have snow days in sweden. I've only ever really ever had one which was last year, but growing up never..you get your butt to school come any kind of weather lol

There are school busses but you have to live a certain distance from the school and ask if you can get a buss card for school wich works only certain times but it is free. Also the busses are the normal red busses just that they only drive from and to the school.

My schools offered a lot of different academic courses for elevens val, like extra math or extra biology, but two years in a row they actually offered free of charge bowling every other friday, best two school years of my life :D

school uniforms/dress codes are a big difference. of course in depends on which school you go to and where, but ive never had any sort of dress code, and from what i see and hear from american schools, it seems dress codes and/or uniforms are quite normal.

90's. Norrland; "Elevens Val"? Yeah right! 8.20 - 16.00 five days a week and a 7 Km public transport bus ride to the gymnasium. Maybe 5 cancelled lessons in three years :(

When I went to school, at least during the time I spent in my local Gymnasium. Classes could get canceled if the teacher was 15+ min late. I've found your channel today, great videos btw. I do have two questions, how much of Sweden have you seen? Have you visited the northern region (north of Dalälven)?

Riktigt bra video! Uppskattar dessa videos!❤🎉

And that they actually don't cancel foreign language classes like French or German. I'm LITERALLY the only student in my French class and I'm allowed to have French and not forced to change to like Spanish

I went to high school in Utah and in the predominantly Mormon areas, there are a decent number of similarities between them and Sweden

We do have school bus in sweden but they go 1 time in the morning and 2 - 3 times after school on diffrent times so maybe around 14:00 and 15:00 and 16:00

You forgot that in sweden we choose what programme we want to go to in high school and can be fully licnesed electricans etc when we graduate

We actually have school busses, in my school almost every students rides school buses but not the students that lives near the school

Being friendly does not mean undisciplined... shooting and bullying is being undisciplined... personally i was a shit show tho

Sweden do have school buses and usually they have a yellow sign on the front and back whit a picture of children on it, and yellow lights that turns on when the buss is going to stop. In the school law it says that the town distrikt (kommun) is required to arrange a free school buss if necessary. which may be due to a long way to school, traffic conditions (dangerous road), a disability for the student or any other particular circumstance. All these criteria are individually tested. You apply for a school bus at the school ore town distrikt (kommun). You must only exceed a certain number of kilometers, between 3-5 km (depends on child's age to) to get the right to take the school bus. u dont see those buses so often in larger cities and more in smal areas and countrysides.The color of the school buss vary in different parts of Sweden and may depend on which bus company the school buys the service from. When i lived in Södermanland i took a green school bus to school. I also remember "elevens val" when i went to school and if i remember correctly u had to chose one out of several options.

Förskoleklass (5-6) 1an (6-7) 2an (7-8) 3an (8-9) middelschool 4an (9-10) 5an (11-12) 6an (12-13) high school 7an (13-14) 8an (14-15) 9an (15-16) after that you are goding to go in gymnasium in 3 years hos Callas 1an 2an 3an after that you take student!

Hello Stefan, Actually the University here is 5 years not 3. First we have to choose a program like "Bachelor of science of Economics" then we have to take a 5 year master "Master of Science. Its the same for almost everything. Like Bachelor in engineering for three years then you do a master of engineering in two years. In a lot of subjects like law, economics, engeenering, medicin etc you apply for a 5 year program and the 3 first years is the bachelor (undergraduate) and the last two as master (graduate). As you said in those 5 years we do not do a single general subject. I study economics for example and the first 90 ects we do the basic courses in BA, finance and economics (also law for economy). The program you apply for is called the economy program. at the second fall semester you choose your major so either BsC in economics, BA, or finance. Then you do advanced courses in those. Then after 180 ects you get your bachelor degree and continue with master classes in your choosen subject. Yo become a teacher you have to have done 300 ects of the "teacher program" which is master + bachelor. Have a nice day!

Though since you go to 9:th grade in the elementary school (before highschool) it's like choosing what path you want to take at the same time as in the end of your freshman year in the states, so it's about the same time anyways :)

A diffrence is that in the US they have school teams which we not have in Sweden