Academic Year student Jeremie Sanem from Belgium recently had an article he wrote published! The article appeared in the “Teen Essay” section of the Press Democrat, a major Santa Rosa, CA newspaper. We are so proud of Jeremie!
TEEN ESSAY
Exchange student on what’s different
By JEREMIE SANEM
MONTGOMERY HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR
Published: Tuesday, December 15, 2009
“People regularly ask me what is the biggest difference between America and Belgium. Without a doubt, size is the biggest difference. Everything is big in the United States: cars, streets, food, houses, stores, TVs, schools, etc. However, there are plenty of little differences that make life fun for someone who is new to the U.S. These differences can be split into categories: school, house life, rules and clothes.
School is certainly the place where I observed the most differences. Sometimes these are minimal, sometimes they are unbelievable. Here, every teacher has his or her own classroom and it is the students who go around to the different rooms. Furthermore, it is possible to be in a class with people who are four years younger than you.
In Belgium, it is not like that. Students are in a set class for the entire year with people who are the same age, and it is actually teachers who walk around. Each class lasts 50 minutes, and there are eight periods every day, except on Wednesday. But that is not all. I think it is unbelievable that here, students can call their teacher by their last name without embarrassment. Over there, “Madame” or “Monsieur” is essential. And how many times have I seen people wear hats, drink, eat, listen to music, etc. in class?
Some other details are interesting to note. For example, your ring binders have three rings (we have only two rings), you never use fountain pens (I don’t know if they exist here), all you calculators are graphic (we are not allowed to use any like that), you have whiteboards and your write on them with markers (we only have blackboards and we use chalk to write on them), every class has a television with DVD player, a computer, a microwave, a telephone and sometimes a refrigerator (we don’t have all of these in every classroom in Belgium), and finally, your desks are linked with the chair (we have just tables and chairs are not linked).
Another major difference is in sports. In Belgium, it is only possible to play sports through private clubs because sports are not connected to school. It is impressive to see how the school spirit is very strong here and I’m sure this is strengthened by the sport.
However, as an exchange student, I can also state the differences at home that are not so remarkable.
Here, ventilators are hung at ceilings; these ventilators are present in every room. There is also a difference in plugs (they have two vertical holes, instead of two round holes). Since I have been here, I also found the joys of chores of like laundry and I discovered that most of your washing machines have their door on the top, instead of on the front.
The last but not least is the amazing number of channels you have on the television! In Belgium, I was happy with only 20 channels, but now when I go back, I don’t know what I am going to do.
The style is also different here; most Europeans like to copy American fashion because of the numerous American TV series that we can watch on television. There is a real freedom here in the dress code, and everyone likes to be different by having his or her own style. However, some of your clothes haven’t yet arrived in Europe. These include extremely large shirts, really flashy colors, boots that every girl seems to have here and a lot of good American brands.
Finally, some laws are quite different in Belgium. Some are better, others are worse; this is why I think that there is no reason to be jealous.
One question that many people ask me is the age that we are allowed to drink alcohol, and the answer is 16 years old for alcohol like beer. But for hard liquor, the minimum age is 18. This might delight some kids here, but contrarily, we can’t drive until we are 18 years old.
We are also not allowed to have a job all the year, but only during the 28 days of vacation. So, you are quite lucky because you can have more pocket money than us. Also, I think that the legal age to smoke cigarettes is different, too; it is 16 in Belgium instead of 18 here.
Total immersion in a country is really interesting in regards to teaching the finer points of your culture.”
