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Of course, you get paid more if you have a master's degree in education or whatever.

And private schools can pretty much hire whoever they want.

Really? That's strange. I think the degree just teaches you about the school system, dealing with kids 101, etc.

If I really wanted to be a teacher, I'd do the three year bachelors degree which means I'm qualified to teach anything, in primary to secondary. The diploma is basically just an add on that means I can only teach the subject that I've got that other degree in.

Yeah, I think it's pretty much the same. For the most part you need the bachelor's of education if you want to be a teacher, but you can get away with a degree in your subject for older grades.

Though I think that public schools all require the PRAXIS. No idea what that stands for, but it's the teacher exam. Need to take it as part of the certification.

But I'm really not researching this, just kinda winging it, so I'm not sure.

I mean, my mom teaches little special ed kids and she has a bachelor's in... early childhood education, I think, and then a master's in special education. But she started teaching before she had the master's.

But there's also the point that you guys don't have exactly the same system we do. We have 13 years of primary/secondary (roughly 5-year-olds to 17-year-olds) then 2 to 4 years of college for an associate's or bachelor's degree, then another 2-5 for a Master's or a doctorate or a Ph.D or whatever, depending on the degree.

I know it's different for you guys, but I don't remember how.

I think the difference is just in the ages kids start the different schools.

5-12 is Primary School, 13-18 is secondary school. You can drop out once you hit year ten (15/16), but most kids go on to University or TAFE to do their chosen thang.

Kinda. Kids typically start elementary/primary at 5, go until 10 or 11 (depending on the school) move onto middle school, go until 13 or 14, and then are in high school until seventeen.

The screwy thing is that all elementary schools start with kindergarten, then 1st grade, but they don't all end at 6th grade. Some end at 5th. Some middle schools are 6-8, some are 7-8, some go up to 9th. High schools all go until 12th. But there are also some private schools, especially, that combine elementary and middle school, like you do, or combine middle and high school.

We're a mess. Even within one county. Hell, my elementary school went until 6th grade, unless you lived on the local Air Force Base, in which case you got bumped up to the middle school for 6th grade to alleviate overcrowding.

And I realize I'm rambling, but this interests me.

That's inconsistent and overly complicated.

The only variations in our system are that some schools combine both. But those ones aren't exactly common.

I've also heard of some that go from grade prep to year 9 or something, but I've never seen one.

No. It's not overly complicated. It's very simple. Your state decides how it wants to set up its public schools. Usually, they set up a system of smaller school districts, frequently based on the county. The county or other district can then set up whatever they want within the strictures established by the state and the federal government.

It is inconsistent, yes, because it's not established by the feds or, usually, very much by the state.

Grade prep is? Kindergarten? Prior to first grade? 5-year-olds?

We have kindergarden as a pre-school type thing for 3-4 year olds. Prep is the first grade of school, starting at five, and so on.

I see. We call our pre-school "pre-school." Or a whole bunch of other names depending on the context, and not everyone does it, most who don't get it somewhere other than the school system.

Your prep=our kindergarten.

Your secondary schools, do they end at Year 12 or Year 13? Ours go till 12th grade, and you're generally 17 or 18 when you graduate, depending on where your birthday falls in the year.

We go up to year 12, so including prep, thats 13 years of school. Pretty much the same, except for a few superficial things.

Pretty much exactly the same. Names change, so it's kindergarten=grade prep and first/second/third/fourth grade=year one/two/three, but still.

And actually, I lie. Because after eighth grade, ninth/tenth/eleventh/twelfth are also referred to as freshman/sophomore/junior/senior. So, yes, we make our terminology as confusing as possible.

As a matter of being as semantic as possible, up until grade 6 we say "grade prep/1/2/3/4/5/6", and then we say "year 7/8/9/10/11/12"

It was entirely necessary for me to add that.

Oh, so sixth grade is called grade 6? Honestly, we do it that way sometimes, too. But we never call it year [insert #].

And yeah, the breakdown really is pretty similar. Aside from the fact that 6th, 7th, and 8th can be assigned pretty haphazardly to elementary, high school, or their own middle school.