by Sarah Baloucoune

Having been chosen as an exchange student, people put high expectations on my adaptability, on my desires to open myself to people and be presentable to my fellow American neighborhood and people of other ethnicities. 

It would be a lie to say that this adventure isn’t scary to me, to be all alone in a big English world, a world that isn’t mine nor made to be mine, but from the first time I took the flight to come here I should have known everything wouldn’t be easy. 

After more than 24 hours of traveling with a connection to Belgium, in which I couldn’t rest because of the tumultuous plane that kept moving around (answer the call of Gotham was the best part of the trip, as having to binge three DC movies was so much fun). However, eating during the flight was a terrible idea — my stomach ache was my biggest misery of that adventure. But the real difficulty was to say bye to my family and friends. 

This exchange isn’t about the school at any point, but if there was something I wasn’t ready for, it’s how American high schools really are.

American high school isn’t like in the movies, but it makes it even more authentic, even more realistic, even more loveable, and I cherish every minute I pass between JHS walls.

Exchange Student Sarah Baloucoune

Are American schools better than schooling in Senegal? Coming from a foreign country, the first thing that had me rolling on the floor was the reality of the American high schools, which are immensely different from how they are in the movies.

All over the world, an image is spread of the “perfect school” where everything is good and sweet with music, dances, and love stories. But in fact, it is much more complicated and different than that – and a lot more stressful, too. This makes it closer to my school in Senegal and the whole Senegalese education system than to the fantasy they want us to believe.

Senegal is a country within Africa that was marked by the colonization of the French empire. As a result, the school organization of that West African nation is inspired by the ancient French school system and modified to accommodate the Senegalese government’s desires, even if some of the lessons we are taught are more than unnecessary.

 The differences between the American curriculum and overall coordination and the Senegalese school structure are multiple. One of them is that in America (or maybe just in the United States) the students have to walk through the hallways to get to their next classes. This was very weird and confusing at first because of this school’s immensity and the numerous rooms, making finding my way impossible without help or previous knowledge. 

In contrast, in my home country, students are placed in the classroom with people based on their grade, and the teachers move each class period instead of the students. Teachers bring their material and teach their subject, sometimes with bags or nothing. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that the students prefer this format and take great pleasure in staying alone in the classroom when the educator is late or off duty.                      

Another academic divergence between the two schools is the usage of Chromebooks, which is revolutionary to a student used to writing on paper and can be seen as a blessing as much as a curse to everyone else. The positive side is that it minimizes the number of books and notebooks, and it makes rapport between the teachers and the students easier and the usage of the internet for research more practical than using books. This is pretty much better than the written notebooks, except that the computer needs to be charged to be useful.                            

To be honest, the usage of Chromebooks gives me “toxic boyfriend” vibes: I want to have it, it’s fancy, fast and looks so professional; however, when using it, I am much slower than with a pen. I need help to learn everything about it because there is nothing to make you understand it and without advice, you don’t learn anything. It’s just a mess to have to learn how to use a computer when people are teaching their subjects.        

All those highlights of the not-so-important differences are here to show the actual gap between those two systems, being the whole organization of the schools. The biggest and most internationally known of them are the graduation system and the classes’ curriculum, those two being deeper problems covered by the Senegalese government and school accomplices. 

In Senegal, to successfully graduate high school, you must pass an exam named Baccalaureate, just like in the French school system. The funny part is that to get into high school, you also have to do an exam called BFEM (brevet de fin d’étude moyenne); this time passing it or not doesn’t have a big impact on the high school experience but totally changes the university experience.    

This exam was my nightmare because even before I started the ninth grade, people started putting pressure on me about it. Being constantly reminded of this left a bitter taste on my tongue, and the real preparation begins when there are 100 days left before the three days of suffering in the exam centers. It is more fierce and stressful than all of the middle school years. I succeeded in that exam, but I won’t forget how badly people put stress in my heart for an exam I was confident about for the whole school year.                                                                

The coordination of those national exams is pretty long but relatively simple since in most of the schools you don’t get to choose all your classes. As an example, in high school, you have to make one of the biggest choices of your life that will change your whole school experience, being the choice of the series. Students either choose the series S (in which you get to work more on the sciences and study the reality of the matters), or the series L (mostly turned to literature and philosophy or the study of human civilizations). Once students choose their series, most of the classes are already chosen for them.                              

I was placed in the scientific side but switched at the beginning of the 10th grade (first year of high school in Senegal); this was the best idea I had in a while. I may not be as good in mathematics as I would have been in series S, but my grades thank me greatly for that choice, and my mind and heart were still at ease by the end of the year. That change made me lose some school classes, but, hey, I did great that year, so that’s fine anyway (that’s also a reason why I am struggling in precalculus even if I had straight A’s my whole grade). 

With all those realities, most Senegalese students fantasize about the so-called “main character high school” with all its dramas and romance, but even more because it got the reputation to be easier than in some other countries, not to say most of them.  After all this intellectual talk, let me end this comparison with a little emotional note – there  are a lot of more differences that I didn’t tell you about like the usage of the phones, which is forbidden in my school; the American cafeteria and its catalog of food that gives the students the choice of what to eat for lunch, which is totally different in most of my home country schools; and the freshmen who are still in middle school in the Senegalese organization.                                                                                                                                         

I really am enjoying school in America, but I miss my home country school. I miss my friends and family even more, but I love this experience.

American high school isn’t like in the movies, but it makes it even more authentic, even more realistic, even more loveable, and I cherish every minute I pass between JHS walls. I will never forget the people I met here (big up  to my sweet Senegalese friends all over the states and my incredible host family here).