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Will provide a more detailed answer later (am in a rush out the door) but Art and Musical education (perhaps not band or orchestra in particular) are integral parts of most North American educational systems until high school when they become electives and students can choose to pursue their interests in these or concentrate on other things instead. High school in most of North America begins in Grade 9 or Grade 8 depending. I think the inclusion of art and music prior to high school is a good thing! School systems that do not have art education or music education usually do not have it because of funding issues.
As for mandatory band participation, I have never seen that in my experience in high school in the US. Band, orchestra, chorus etc were optional classes and activities. There were some mandatory requirements such as math, 3 years of a language (where I went to high school), and of course science (chemistry, biology, physics, earth sciences) and usually three years of English were mandatory. The level of class however varied widely depending on the student. We had regular Bio, AP Bio, and Adaptive (special needs students) biology classes at my high school for example.
In Canada my cousins in Quebec had one type of biology class at secondary (roughly high school for Quebecois students) which all students attended regardless of their ability or aptitude.
Music education was also mandatory in Quebec until secondary when it became at the choice of the student, as I experienced in the US.
Band is not mandatory in high school in TX but if you choose to play in the band it is a scheduled class - therefore taking away from academic electives. My son was on the swim team and it was the last 2 periods of school everyday for the whole year. I wished it had been an after school sport like in Canada so he could have taken some academic electives.
On the other hand as my "computer geek" as I affectionately call him - I am glad he had the activity. The rest of his live was too sedentary.
Will provide a more detailed answer later (am in a rush out the door) but Art and Musical education (perhaps not band or orchestra in particular) are integral parts of most North American educational systems until high school when they become electives and students can choose to pursue their interests in these or concentrate on other things instead. .
Thank you, I am listening very attentively - it gives me a better understanding of the whole picture. ( Yes, both band and orchestra were "integral part" of my son's education and I think that this should be after-school activities according to parent's/child choice, since it's obviously put in place instead of more valuable and practical things in middle school such as physics and chemistry for example...)
On another hand I realize that Soviet schools were more efficient in their approach (after all the method of education, the whole approach came there originally from Germany, lol.) They've had only ten years of schooling instead of twelve, so obviously they were starting kids on "serious stuff" such as science much earlier then in US. Musical education was still a part of curriculum ( introduction to classical music and choir,) but not more then couple of lessons a week - 45 minutes each. There was no such thing as learning to play instruments during school hours - that was left up to families.
Having just completed all my pre-secondary and secondary schooling(entering engineering program in the fall), I may be able to provide some insight into Canada, or at least Ontario's, methods of teaching. As Far as math and sciences of here in Ontario and Quebec, we were not introduced to any serious physics or chemistry until 11th grade in highschool. Rather chemistry and biology were taught together from 5th grade(obviously very rudimentary concepts like the basics of photosynthesis, and a look at how animals live, etc.) and physics primarily encompassed electrical circuits and if I do recall correctly a basic look at atomic structure from grade 7. In ontario, textbooks were always used starting form grade 3 (I assume the kids weren't trusted enough to handle looking after expensive books at too early of an age). Math from grades 2-8 was never anything more difficult than simple arithmetic and thought exercises in trigonometry, the concept of a variable was never introduced until a small prep period at the end of grade 8, which is a mistake on the part of the school board considering the variable is the most important concept in any branch of mathematics and is also not a difficult concept to grasp at all. English was the first subject taught in school beginning in kindergarten, and always became progressively more demanding(from grade 6 and on) of the kid to think critically and pose their own interpretive questions. It was primarily taught through studying novels and short stories and essays were introduced in 8th grade(ofcourse, very rudimentary essays). Depending on the school you attend, the arts were considered a serious subject beginning in grade 7, some shools forced kids to learn a musical instrument in the summer between grade 6 and 7 to be ready to begin playing in 7th grade.
Overall the workload in Ontario schools was never something I found difficult, but many of my peers can strongly disagree. My mother, having studied in communist eastern Europe, has always teased me about the ease of schooling in Canada(she learned calculus in 9th grade, as I had to wait until 12th grade)
Reading through all this and was just about to reply with almost everything that DeathStar wrote...lol
I'm from Ontario also, and my school experience was pretty much exactly the same. Though I don't recall really using textbooks until Grade 7 (Jr High/Middle School). I guess we may have had textbooks kept in class for certain subjects, but I really can't recall having to regularly open up a textbook anytime throughout elementary school. We mostly had workbooks and got photocopied pages of stuff.
As for music, we learn to sing, basic note reading, and learn to play the recorder in elementary school. Than for the two years of middle school we pick an instrument we want to learn for music class (about two or three classes weekly) and band is an optional before/after school activity that you usually have to audition for (except for my music teacher joined me up even though I never auditioned nor wanted to be in the band, so I went to one lunch and one after school practise, and than one early morning one and said, "Never again!" Torture myself to play and listen to awful music while being half awake? I don't think so...needless to say I got kicked out after never showing up to another practise after that, lol.)
And that's crazy in the US how you can take whole afternoons worth of classes for sports? That's like the Chinese Olympic programs.
My mother, having studied in communist eastern Europe, has always teased me about the ease of schooling in Canada(she learned calculus in 9th grade, as I had to wait until 12th grade)
My father was the same way, he was actually a school teacher in Vietnam during the war and likes to boost about how he got to beat his students for misbehaving...ah, Asian schooling, lol
OP asks for comparisons of the "quality" of education. The Programme for International Student Assessment does such a comparison of 15 year olds in 57 countries. You can download a summary here: [url=http://www.oecd.org]Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development[/url]
In brief, Canada does considerably better than the US and is in the top group of countries. Interesting. I had assumed we were more or less equal in this regard.
As someone who has recently graduated from a Canadian High School I can tell you that the idea that Canadian schools are not competitive is completely false. Yes, it is true that Canadian Universities and Colleges don't normally look at extracurricular activities when they are making acceptance decisions (however I did fill out an auxiliary form for Queen's University asking about my activities over my high school career, why I applied to Queen's etc). But, I really don't think that that makes post secondary education any less competitive than in the United States. For example, my program Bachelor of Science in Nursing requires a four-year degree from a University or a University College affiliate. When applying for this program there were very few Universities that took students with anything less than an 84% average. I had many high achieving friends who were denied entry into all of the Concurrent Education programs they applied for. Some schools like McMaster, Queen's, University of Western Ontario, University of Waterloo and McGill are highly competitive marks-wise to get in (and depending on the program the standards can be ridiculous ex. Health Science at McMaster - 90%average to be considered). Just because extracurricular activities aren't normally considered during the application process doesn't mean they aren't important. There is a significantly fewer number of scholarships awarded in Canada than in the US. Canadian Universities cannot offer scholarships solely based on athletics and there are no full ride scholarships for Canadian schools. Gaining even a nominal scholarship can be quite difficult so many students do a lot of activities outside of school to beef up a scholarship application. As for elementary schools, I remember using textbooks from about grade 3 on. Especially for math and spelling. But in the primary grades (kindergarten, 1 and 2) we used supplementary workbooks nothing too heavy since half the time they weighed more than a small child anyways and I also remember doing chemistry labs (simple reactions) starting in about grade 6. I honestly can't give a comparison to american elementary schools since I was never in one but hopefully this helps dispel a few myths as to the Canadian system Oh and there are many larger Canadian high schools that offer AP classes as well as IB programming.
If you want to know what is taught in Ontario schools then you can get the provincial curriculum here: Grade 7
From what I have heard, U.S. public schools in wealthy areas of the North East can be very good but public schools in low state states in the south west can be absolutely atrocious. If I were to move there I would have to pay for private schools without question. I also would not send my child to a public school in a low income area but similar schools in Toronto get extra resources and better teachers. Actually, even the top private schools in Toronto pay their teachers less than the private system so they don't tend to acquire the top teachers.
OP asks for comparisons of the "quality" of education. The Programme for International Student Assessment does such a comparison of 15 year olds in 57 countries. You can download a summary here: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
They have a video for Canada: OECD TV - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (http://www.viewontv.com/oecd/031207_pisa2006/index.php?lang=ca - broken link)
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