School

A school is a place where children go to learn. Most schools have classrooms, teachers, and groups of students who study together. Schools teach subjects like reading, writing, math, science, history, art, and music. Almost every country in the world has schools, though they look different from place to place.

The idea of school is very old. Around 4,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians trained boys to be scribes, the people who could read and write. Ancient Greek thinkers like Socrates taught small groups of students by asking them questions. In ancient China, students studied for years to take hard government tests. For most of history, though, only a small number of children went to school. Most kids worked on farms or learned a trade from their parents.

That changed in the 1800s. Countries in Europe and North America began passing laws that said all children had to attend school. This is called public education. The idea spread around the world. Today about 90 percent of the world's children go to primary school. But more than 250 million children still cannot, often because of poverty or war.

Schools are usually split into levels. In the United States, kids start with kindergarten around age five. Then comes elementary school, then middle school, then high school. After high school, some students go to college or learn a job through training. In many countries, the school day runs from morning until mid-afternoon. Students in Japan and South Korea often stay much longer, sometimes attending extra classes into the evening.

Schools are not all alike. In Finland, kids do not start formal school until age seven, and they get long recesses. In rural parts of Bolivia, some students travel for hours by boat or on foot to reach class. In some countries, boys and girls study in separate buildings. In others, classes are taught outside under a tree.

People do not always agree on what schools should do. Some think the main job of school is to prepare kids for jobs. Others think school should teach kids how to think for themselves, or how to be good citizens, or how to live a happy life. Most schools try to do a little of each.

Whatever shape it takes, school is one of the few experiences shared by kids almost everywhere. The math problem a kid puzzles over in Kenya looks a lot like the one a kid is solving that same morning in Canada.