Students entering the high school face four years of schoolwork, activities and various other challenges; however, for some, this is in a new country and language. Although the transition to BHS was hard at first, students said they eventually learned to adjust.
“I grew up in Tokyo, Japan and moved to Brookline when I was in the 7th grade and started school at Lawrence,” sophomore Kazuto Nishimori said. “It was a challenge coming from a completely new place, and initially I had trouble with communication and making friends.”
In contrast, students who came from places like Canada or Sweden said they did not have a difficult time with the language, but it was still a change from what they were used to.
“I’m from Montreal, Canada and I came here for my sophomore year,” senior Sandrine Ducharme said. “In Montreal, I went to a private, all-French-speaking school, so it is completely different from school in Brookline. High school in Montreal also starts in the 7th grade and ends in the 11th grade, where you then attend a two-year prep school before entering college.”
Senior Frederik Lund attended a large public city school in Sweden prior to his arrival at Brookline this past year.
“In Sweden, I had one class that I learned mostly all of the subjects in and that class was about thirty students,” Lund said. “The subjects also varied in length–some would be an hour long, whereas others may be an hour and a half.”
Many foreign schools were run differently from those in Brookline; there was no block system established as part of the schedule, and classes were taught in a different style.
“Before coming to Brookline, I never had a discussion-based class before, especially in English,” Ducharme said. “Back home, it wasn’t as interactive because it was just the teacher speaking to the class and the students taking notes.”
Other students said teaching styles here vary greatly from those in their home countries.
“I think one of the most significant differences academically is that in Japan, we did a lot of drills and practices, whereas here I feel that we focus more on the concepts,” Nishimori said. “In Japan, they’ll give the students a bunch of formulas to just practice with. Here in the U.S., they tend to explain the formulas first for why they work. But I think in the U.S., they lack in practice, and that’s the biggest difference.”
In Sweden, high schools are designed with programs for students to choose from, according to Lund.
“High school starts in the 10th grade, so between your 9th and 10th grade, you apply to a high school that has the specific program you want to study,” Lund said. “The programs you can choose from are science, social studies or language. I chose the science program, so my classes were mostly science-related.”
Aside from different schedules and teaching styles, some students said the workload was also a difference.
“In Sweden, we didn’t finish till about 4 p.m. every day, so the homework took less than an hour to do and we mostly finished it during the day,” Lund said. “It was a big adjustment because here in the U.S., we get a couple of hours.”
Ducharme and Nishimori both said the relationships students build with their teachers in the Brookline community are distinct and more personalized than in Montreal or Tokyo.
“In Japan, the teachers are a lot more distant to their students, and I feel that here, the teachers are much closer to their students,” Nishimori said. “Especially in SWS, I think that the teachers are much closer to students in general.”
Ducharme agreed that teachers in Brookline try to establish closer ties with their students compared to her school in Montreal.
“The teachers here are all really friendly, and they’re always here to help you when you need help,” Ducharme said. “It’s a really different connection here with your teacher. I feel like you can discuss with them about anything, but we don’t really do that back home.”
Tasoula Burk can be contacted at [email protected].
