Thoughts about the English school experience as a Russian: is the British system flawed or am I missing something?

submitted by IamCleaver from self.Education

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[–]jet199 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Yeah, the British system is mostly set up to teach to how to approach subjects rather than teach you facts. GCSEs in particular are incredibly childish for the age being tested to allow everyone to come away with some kind of grade. A levels are a lot more rigorous.

[–]IamCleaver[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Does the actual teaching approach change once you are past GCSEs?

[–]jet199 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Depends if the school is good or shit.

A good school definitely starts concentrating on the subject more at A level and starts pushing students to think a certain way rather than just letting them find their own way.

I mean I can't really say much because my school always had science as 3 separate subjects because they knew they'd be sending lots of people to medical and other science degrees so I didn't see much difference before and after GCSEs.

However I have an English teacher friend who has taught for English A level all around the world and she says the teaching is completely different. This isn't just in English schools, in Asian schools too she has to teach the critical thinking almost from scratch as they are used to memorising a correct answer and repeating it which is the opposite problem.

[–]IamCleaver[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I have heard about the horrors of asian schools. Thankfully, neither Russia nor the UK are like that (although Russia does require more memorisation , often excessively, particularly when the teacher isn't good). One positive thing I noticed about the British system is that the teaching quality doesn't depend as much on the teacher herself. Maybe the teachers are better trained in general, maybe the bad teachers don't stay for too long in the UK, but I remember only two teachers who made their subjects unbearable. In Russia it is always hit and miss. The teacher is the deal-breaker

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I'm going to recommend you watch the film The History Boys, even though it's written by a paedo apologist and has James Corden in it.