- I moved from Southern California to the UK when I was 16.
- My school experience in both countries could not be more different.
The first essay I turned in for the UK school I transferred to at 16 was for my English literature class — historically, my best subject.
I wrote about Tess of the D'Urbervilles; her pain, her isolation, the unfairness of her ending. The essay came back with the lowest grade I had ever received, alongside a single comment at the top: "This reads like poetry." When I thanked the teacher for the comment, asking why I had earned such a low grade, I was informed that she wasn't actually complimenting me.
My experience in my school in California was different
Growing up in Southern California schools, I knew exactly what it took to excel academically.
I read avidly, wrote passionately, and sincerely thanked my teachers at the end of every lesson. After all, they were the ones who awarded me my grades at the end of each trimester — being liked by them was imperative.
It wasn't much of a requirement for my essays to actually display knowledge of the subject I was writing about; if I could speak charismatically, both in my writing and to my teachers themselves, I knew I could get an A. Maybe it was a reflection of California as a whole, where self-presentation is curated like an art form.
Things in England were very different. Where American schools encouraged me to schmooze, quietly imparting the importance of every teacher's view of me upon my grades, my teachers in England worked only to make sure I clearly defined and argued my points, with no need for flowery language. My arguments needed to be concise and expertly navigated, following a strict structure of explanation, which allowed no room for my beloved adverbs and emotive descriptors.
In the UK, my exams were graded externally
The reason for this difference is clear. Rather than grades being determined and handed out by teachers like in California, in England, students sit externally-marked exams at the end of each year, the outcome of which solely decides our grades. It didn't matter to my English teachers if I was poetic, whether they personally liked me and wanted me to succeed — these things would do nothing to aid me in scoring well in my exams.
It took many failed essays to break my habits, convinced that if I just wrote a little more beautifully on the next one, my teachers would overlook my lack of evidence, quotes, and explanations.
Exams were more important for me in the UK than homework
On the plus side, another difference I experienced in the two countries' education systems is that these poor assignments didn't negatively affect my grades as they would have in the US; all possibilities of success hang on the exams.
Eventually, I learned to prioritize the techniques that would ensure the grades I so wanted, beginning to cut out superfluous language from my academic papers with clinical precision. I suppose it must have been the right decision because I ended up doing well enough in the fateful exams to land me a place at the University of Cambridge, where I undertook an undergraduate degree studying the philosophy and sociology of educational systems.
Now, as a professional journalist living in London, I'm grateful to be able to use both writing styles in my work. I still enjoy the employment of descriptive language I learned in US schools, and it serves me well in writing about the intimate topics that I cover in my job. But I equally find the concise, fact-based English style to greatly aid me in reporting and explaining the most important facts of any given event I am writing about.
I am passionate and persuasive, the product of two very different education systems which shaped me.