Better than the USA?
 

I've been researching other countries for travel plans once it's safe and fun to travel again. Watching travel and culture videos on YT, the algorithms throw in more stuff that's slightly different but no less interesting and entertaining. It's very interesting to find out things that you wish we did, but will never do here in the US.

Some nuggets

France banned cell phone use in schools for all kids up to age 15

In Japan, kids clean their classroom every day and help serve lunch

China just passed a 3 hour limit per day for kids playing video games

Just a few of the things that stuck in my head. And the videos below.

What else do other countries do that you think the US could learn from?

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Damn little. I don’t think the US can learn anything from cultures that allow their governments to mandate things as personal and private as cell phone use, who can use them and for how long. The level of control asserted by most other countries over their citizens/subjects is mind boggling to an American. If they can control your cell phone usage, what else can they control? And government controls don’t help make life better. Studies show that in the long run individual human beings are the best at making their own decisions about their own lives. Europeans think our First Amendment (and other civil liberties) are “bonkers”. I think people, no matter how prosperous and cultured who don’t live with our civil liberties are bonkers.

I love Europe and Asia and plan to travel there and to Australia and Latin America extensively when I retire. I even hope to lease a place in Italy or France or Great Britain (or one of each) for up to a year at a time so I can really get to enjoy the places. But I will never live outside the US permanently again.

When I lived in Japan, I'm pretty sure that most kids had 5.5 days of school, and their days were longer than ours. English was also a required subject for many years.

Japan is a pretty amazing place (or, at least, it was when I was there between 1978 - 1985. Things may have changed between then and now. Almost everyone was friendly and helpful. It was also very safe and clean. The Japanese were amazing people. I'd love to go back. I'd love to be able to work/live there again now that I'm an adult.

A small example-

When I lived in Germany the process to get a driver's license is something we could learn from. It took a few months of weekly classes, a number of hours behind the wheel with a certified instructor, who doesn't hesitate to fail bad drivers and require more training (not a drivers ed teacher type of instructor).....at a cost of several hundred bucks, or more. And passing a substantial written test. While inaccurate to say is was similar to a private pilot license, it was probably more in line with getting a sail plane permit....

The resulting driving patterns you see in Germany are a refreshing dose of sanity compared to here.

“France banned cell phone use in schools for all kids up to age 15

In Japan, kids clean their classroom every day and help serve lunch

China just passed a 3 hour limit per day for kids playing video games”

Good god, I hope this country never gets to the point where legislators are sitting around coming up with and passing laws like that.

How absurd.

Good point, but how do we compensate for the lack of parental guidance in the general population which is so often cited here?
On the other hand, are these laws, aimed at minors, any more limiting to individual freedoms than not allowing a minor to smoke, consume alcohol or drive on a public highway (ignoring the safety aspect)? After all there were a couple of articles in the news a month or so ago documenting kids under the age of ten taking Mom's car to go to the beach. Hey, with a Tesla they might have made it!
Before Covid, in my grand daughter's school, each day a "classroom helper" did things like get the milk orders from the cafeteria, run errands to the office, etc. She couldn't wait for her turn. In these times of reduced responsibility, for young people, I agree it is a shame we may be forced to rely upon governments to teach our kids, but if parents are unable (or unwilling) then who?
You can't legislate common sense, but you can set expectations. No driver's license until you're 16!

Glad I don't have to figure it out.
Best
Les

When it comes to education:

Foreign languages

In most countries they make a real effort for their students to learn a foreign language, usually English. Here we give kids a couple hours a week and call it a day.

3 years of French for me in HS and college. First time in Paris, I told the cab driver the address. He put the car in park, turned around in the seat and said in English "Never speak French again. Your accent is terrible." I can't help it, this Ellie Mae comes out no matter what, lol.

Because of that, I started paying a Mandarin Tutor for my son at 5 years old. At 21, he can speak, read and write pretty well to have conversations with his friends from Beijing.

Well put Les. I have to say I'm at loss for the "bad parenting is good for our country's future" argument. Or that government run schools can't dictate rules for the benefit of learning.

I thought this would be a fun thread. People need to lighten up a little.

In Germany and Japan, you can drink in public. I have many times made a picnic for a date on the Charles River and had to put wine in a Welches grape juice bottle.

Well, I love that dirty water.

1985 canoe trip on the Charles for 4th of July (I think 4th of July). All of us tied off. Boston Pops/Jon Williams.

I do remember drinking but we may have had to have been secretive.

In Germany, you can go in a public park and get completely naked. In US, that’ll get you to jail.
Puritanism is still very strongly influencing things in the us…

My some of the comments are shocking. It amazes me how people misconstrue.

Some nuggets

France banned cell phone use in schools for all kids up to age 15- Banned use in schools. Not banned use. Government sets all sorts of guidlines and rules in schools. Dress code, minimum attendance, restrict bringing a gun to school, grades, etc. Why is restricting use of a cell phone during shcool hours a problem?

In Japan, kids clean their classroom every day and help serve lunch- I think this is a great idea. But in some instatnce I can see the objection. Again, children are there to learn not clean and of course child labor laws.

China just passed a 3 hour limit per day for kids playing video games- not sure I agree with this one. Yes I agree limit use to three hours or less but that is a parents decisison not the government.

I like the bowing in the second video, simply a gesture of thanks, something lost here. In New jersey it is a law to stop for pedestrians in a cross walk even if you have the right away. I stopped even before the law. I also hold the door for people. It is surprisig how many do not acknoeldege the gesture.

The statement at the end of the second video says a lot.

A kind gestrure can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.

And probably for good reason. Many years ago my wife and I went to a nude beach in Jamaica. For about 10 minutes. Believe me, the people that hang out at nude beaches look far better covered up. OMG. :eek:

Mostly, other countries could learn from us. You have two examples of things that already happen and one from a totalitarian regime.


I wish we could learn to enforce our current laws as written. Is there a country that does that?

Everything the OP stated that we could learn from is the government doing what parents should do.

Edited - while this thread has some political undertones, let's keep the personal political jabs out of this thread. Thanks. Z-man.

I've done volunteer work that takes large groups of inner city youth out and away from the city, often for the first time in their life.

The change in behavior with just five days of no cellphone service is amazing.

The first two days can be rough.
The last two days are great.

I'd rather have a smart phone free school zone than a gun free school zone.
While I would agree the responsibility is with the parents to teach discipline, and let the teachers teach academic fundamentals.
In counter to that, why allow distractions into your learning zone.
Would you approve of a school that allowed juggling rainbow monkey clowns that hang out their "front tails" into your kid's classroom or library?

On another note.
The USA has a foundation of identify improvements either by local invention or by implementation of the foreign.
What has changed is we are now implementing foreign or local aspects that are not improvements.

I wish our children were safe enough to travel the way the Japanese children do.

Got the data on that?
I'm curious if there is an actual difference or just a perceived one.

no I don't but I do wish child abuse wasn't a threat.

... but you can't walk on the grass in a public park.