Living In USA

Overview
Education is an important part of American life, and the wide variety of educational choices is sometimes difficult for visitors from other countries to understand. One-half of all the people in the country between the ages of 18 and 25 are enrolled in a college, university, or technical training institute. All boys and girls up to age 16 are required to go to school. There are three broad categories of education that serve this population: (1) public schools (including charter, magnet, and vocational schools), (2) private schools (including religious, boarding, day, Montessori, and Waldorf schools), and (3) home schooling.

Education here is intended for everyone. Schools are expected to meet the needs of every child, regardless of ability, and also the needs of society itself. This means that tax-supported public schools offer more than academic subjects. It surprises many people when they come here to find high schools offering such courses as typing, sewing, radio repair, computer programming, or driver training along with traditional academic subjects such as mathematics, history, and languages. Students choose from a large selection of courses, depending on state requirements, their interests, future goals, and level of ability. The underlying goal of American education is to develop every child to the utmost of his or her abilities and to give each one a sense of civic and community consciousness.

Because our population is so diverse, schools have traditionally played an important role in creating national unity and in "Americanizing" the millions of immigrants who have poured into this country. Schools also play an important role in the community, especially in small towns.

The American approach to teaching may seem unfamiliar to many, not only because it is informal, but also because there is less emphasis on learning facts than is true in the systems of many other countries. Instead, Americans try to teach their children to think for themselves, to analyze, to explore, to develop their own intellectual and creative abilities. Students spend much time learning how to use resource materials, libraries, and computers. Americans believe that if children are taught to reason and to research well, they will be able to find whatever facts they need throughout the rest of their lives. Knowing how to solve problems is considered more important than the accumulation of facts, which often grow obsolete.

Computers are used in many classrooms, frequently starting in kindergarten. If your child does not know how to use a computer, you can help him or her a great deal by providing computer lessons in advance, even while you are still in your own country. To find such classes after you arrive in the United States, consult the school or ask a local computer store where classes are given.

Naturally, when any family moves from one country to another, the question of schooling for their children is always an urgent one. Unless you are in a small town, there will be a variety of schools — public, parochial, or private; day or boarding; coeducational or all-boy/all-girl; traditional or experimental — available to you.

Overview
It might be said that shopping, rather than baseball, is the real national sport of the United States. As Paco Underhill observed, "We use shopping as therapy, reward, bribery, pastime, an excuse to get out of the house, as a way to troll for potential loved ones, as entertainment, as a form of education or even worship, as a way to kill time." [1] In the small town of Freeport, Maine, just up the road from our publisher, there are 158 stores. One of them, the flagship store of the venerable catalogue company L.L. Bean, is open 365 days a year — 24 hours a day! Should you find yourself in need of a fishing pole and complete line of tackle at 3:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, the people at L.L. Bean can help. In another small town, Bloomington, Minnesota, there is a shopping mall so large that it boasts 525 stores and claims 42 million visitors a year. Apparently that's more than the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, or the Washington Monument, because the Mall of America, as it is called, asserts that it is the most visited attraction in the United States. More than 1,500 couples have been married in the Mall of America since it opened in 1992.

One newcomer to the United States, when asked his first impression, replied, "So many things to buy." And there are! You will find yourself being urged from every page of every newspaper and magazine, on the Internet, and on every TV and radio station to buy all manner of goods, which, in fact, you will be quite happy without. This constant barrage of advertising, with its emphasis on owning this or that in order to be happy, healthy, or more attractive, has given the United States the reputation of being very materialistic. It is true; this is an affluent and, therefore, materialistic nation. It is interesting to note, however, that as soon as any country grows more affluent, it tends to grow increasingly materialistic. Traffic jams develop in country after country as more people are able to buy cars; sales-people work hard in most of the world to sell televisions, watches, furniture, food, clothes, computers, or washing machines.

People everywhere seem to be alike in this respect. As soon as there is any extra money, we seek to raise and keep on raising our standard of living. You may not be surprised by this, but look at the bigger picture: What do people do with their new prosperity? Does it enrich their relationships with other people? How creative are they? How hard do they work? How do they spend their money?

Because so much in the United States is mass-produced, and much of it imported from countries with cheap labor, there is a large quantity of relatively inexpensive goods available to everyone. You will find a tremendous range in price, based on quality, style, area of the country, and other factors. Comparative shopping is a good idea before you buy any major item. From all of the choices available, how are you, the new arrival, going to know what to buy and how to get your money's worth? In the first place, don't hurry. Take time to look over the various kinds of stores and examine the quality of their merchandise; read the ads carefully so that you can compare prices; touch, explore, and examine before you buy, and talk to your new colleagues at work or school and ask them for recommendations. In addition, some helpful guidelines are provided below