Doesn't seem like a productive class, titanic for a couple months, then go way back to william Wallace, now lets do WWII.

When you learn about WWII in my school it svcks...

It wasn't the most serious of times, 1st and 2nd year are just like primary school, it's when you go into 3rd year you've gotta start taking things more serious (be more productive) since you have to choose your own subjects for that year and 4th, plus exams are in 4th year

We have world history, English class, and some international affairs packed in a "social science" course. We learn a bit superficial history of USA and Britian. If you want to go outside education, just toss in money and you shall find teachers who would teach you these stuff, or even go overboard.

Consider yourself lucky, strict adherence to Canadian history (a few hundred years old at best) and revising the war of 1812 for the nth time is much, much less interesting than Hastings, the Romans, the Crusades (you lucky ducks! ), WW2 or any topic you just listed.

Pop quiz - no googling - when did Canada become independent from the UK?

1876.....

- See if this is anywhere near right, I shall be slightly impressed by my RAM

1867.

I thought it was 1836, so I wasn't that far out.

1776!
Wait woah there are countries other than US?

It's sort of a trick question.

You could say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Day, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_1931, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982 depending on how you define 'independent.' I've never met anyone from anywhere who could answer that question without researching it. Me included.

Next up: What's the capital of Greenland?

EDIT: Yeah, that was a pretty good Fern.

Oh I was close, was uch a good-ish guess

Glasgow? Wait.....

In my school we study history in a chronologically way, first the Caveman and Prehistory, then Mesopotamia, then Egypt, then Greece, then Rome, then Germanic Europe, then Middle Ages, then Rebirth, then Age of Discovery, then we would have a teacher just for Brazilian History (From the Age of Discovery up to today) and another for World History (WW1, WW2, Cold War, and go on)

Specifically, it works this way:

Primary School: Brazilian and Portuguese History.
Middle School: World History and Brazilian History, from Caveman to Cosmos.
High School: World History and Brazilian History, from Caveman to Cosmos, again. (Yes, we actually review everything again)

Also, I'm curious about what "Religious Education" stands for, I know that some catholic schools here in Brazil have it, but I never atended to any.

Here it's pretty much just study of the beliefs and traditions of the major religions - Christianity (which is probably the most well-covered), Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Judaism.

To people from countries other than the US and UK (plus a few others like Australia and Japan), I'm assuming a fair amount of the media you consume (movies, books, TV and games, specifically) is from one of the countries I just listed, how do you feel about that? Is it just an accepted part of life, or does it seem strange that so much of it is from another nation?

We've got our fair share of norwegian stuff going on, but there are lots and lots of american and british shows going on aswell. I don't really care, don't watch too much TV and most of the norwegian shows are meh. It's always been like that, so I guess we just "accept" it, it's not that weird really (well some of the stuff americans do are fairly weird) .

If you mean a religion class in school - we only have those in private schools run by those institutions, there is absolutely no religion allowed in public schools. Like in Catholic schools here, they mix both scientific eduction with religious beliefs.... like they may teach evolution as a theory and then teach creationism next. (Or vice versa.) In public school, you only learn evolution.

What weird stuff do we do? Never realized how hard it is to think of things other countries might find weird about you.

Here (Public and Non-Religious Schools) the teachers are obligated to comment on creacionism and some other "theories" but they only teach (profoundly) evolution.



Open TV is full of brazilians channels and programs, we have a fair amount of them. But "Cabe/Sat TV" is full of american programs. (Not so much british ones)


I think it's strange the way you need a huge "personal space" when talking to somebody. If I needed to talk with a group with the "same personal" space they use in the US I wouldn't be talking, I would be screaming so that they can hear me.

Not to say all your famous "social phobias" regarding demonstrations of affection in public. xD

Also, a false friend:
Exquisite = Refined, Fine, Good.
Esquisito = Odd, Strange, Weird.

...The personal space thing is true to an extent. When someone brushes against me, I think what the hell is your problem and just want to punch them in the face.

If a teacher in a public school were to even mention Creationism in passing, they could be fired. People are extremely against any type of religious anything being discussed in public school situations.

And I like my personal space too. lol I didn't realize that was an American thing!

In Poland, there is a "Religion" class, and you learn only about one religion. If one is a member of other religion, he theoretically should have Ethics lessons, but often schools do not have teachers for that and that students has a free while.

My TV receives only 7 channels and I have no cable nor satellite TV. On the "normal" TV there are mostly Polish TV-series, shows and some movies. Form other country's shows, there are mostly movies (many of them, any channel has mostly US movies in the evening). On the cable and satellite, there is really large amount of American shows, series and movies, like HBO, Comedy Central, Discovery, Planete etc, of course in Polish version.

BTW, how your countries take care of other language in TV? Dubbing, subtitles, other? Here, TV is almost dominated by reader (lector). When a character starts speaking in his native language, a louder voice comes up, that says what the character says. Of course the same one man says whole movie. Full dubbing is done almost only in animations like Shrek, cartoons and kid/teen movies. Games, on the other hand, have either original voices and Polish subtitles, or full Polish dubbing.

Usually subtitles here in the UK. You sometimes get dubbing which is sometimes okay but more often quite bad and/or rather odd. I think I prefer subtitles...

I went to Catholic schools so we had RE everyday in primary school and then twice a week in Secondary school.
We only learned about Christianity in this class because it was that kind of school, everyone had to take part in the class whether they were protestant/muslim/hindu/jew etc

- I prefer subtitles, I've never really came across a programme that used a voice to translate, would ruin the show for me.

It is a little weird sometimes. One thing that always surprises me is how incredibly emotional Americans can get about the most mundane things, and it often doesn't seem genuine. I thought it was just some funny thing about American sitcoms, but people act like that in reality shows as well. Don't really know how to explain it better. Maybe you'll see it if you watch the Dog Whisperer episodes where Cesar goes to the UK, and compare the people there to those that usually appear on the show. The British people seemed much more similar to the Dutch. They didn't cry or laugh so exuberantly about everything, but they did seem genuine when they did show emotion.

Most music I listen to is European, but almost nothing from my own country. Doesn't bother me much. It's like with literature, most of it which is produced in the Netherlands and Belgium is total crap, so I'll gladly go for foreign material. Most of what they make is crap as well, but since I have so much more to choose from that doesn't matter.

In Toronto, there is a separate school board for Catholic schools. They teach us only about Christianity in elementary, then move on to other world religions in secondary. As for the whole science vs. religion aspect, they teach both and it's not the type of Christian education where you take the bible totally literally. Call it....religious science(?), of course this is only regarding stuff like evolution, creation etc. and they teach us regular science (physics, chemistry etc.) as they would in any public school. It might be worth mentioning that the level of education you receive may be slightly higher in the Catholic school board, but either one's alright I guess.

Well, the small subset of people willing to appear on a reality show aren't a good representation of the population as a whole. They're also picked to be on those shows because they're emotional -- which makes good TV in the US. It could be that UK viewers (and thus their TV networks) have different preferences for their ideal reality show candidates. Maybe. . .

Is it just me or does every episode of the Dog Whisperer go like this:

"Be calm and assertive around your dog. Make sure it gets more exercise. I will see you again in two weeks."