I was browsing one of my old books – Barron’s 2001 Profiles of American Colleges – the other day and, once again, I realized several unique features of America as the world’s education powerhouse.

First of all, America is a distinct educational destination which values pluralism. Besides the tens of thousands of educational institutions hosting students from America and the rest of the world, dotting the landscape of this mammoth country, America offers a whole world of college courses. These programs are of relevance to the American populace. Eskimo Studies, Jewish Studies, Native American Studies, Hispano-American and Mexican-American or Chicano Studies, and in recent years, Philippine Studies, are some of the peculiar programs offered in US universities which reflect the history and the increasingly multicultural and pluralistic heritage of the American people (It can also be inferred that the past colonial masters offer courses in their universities which mirror their imperial past. In the United Kingdom, Egyptology is a course offered at University of Oxford and Cambridge University. This scenario manifests British interest in Egypt which historically was one of the colonies in Imperial Britain’s spheres of influence). As a Boston resident, I am well aware that America, especially Boston, Massachusetts, is the keystone of world education. For instance, shop at a local Abercrombie and Fitch store, and you will come across hordes of multicultural youths. You can overhear them speaking in Central European, French, Japanese, British English, and myriads of other lingua francas, manifesting how America is the ultimate educational hotspot of the world. You will also find a group of well-dressed Japanese tourists politely volunteering to take my picture while I was strolling along School Street in Boston, thinking I was a visitor like them. Or a Red Cross volunteer reckoning me as a student and asking for my contribution. I agree with LL Cool J, a well-known rap artist, in remarking that regardless if America encounters financial and political turmoil, the superpower will always be number one in the world for primarily being a creative hub. Given the millions of this educational heartland’s citizens and growing, imagine the vast creativity this population can produce.

Second, no country in the world is as democratic as the United States. Academic freedom prevails everywhere. Students are encouraged to get involved and to speak up their points of view in as early as elementary school. The popularity of talk shows is aired during daytime, primetime, and late night, hinting you are in Oprah country.

Third, in the United States, the right to information is highly respected and observed. America is a reading society. Publishing and documentation are valued for their purpose of keeping the American public abreast with knowledge and events which affect their day-to-day lives. Furthermore, if you are curious about anything particular under the sun, expect that when you Google it, a mammon of information would be readily available for such subject has already been published or blogged about. I have experienced this particularly when I conducted my research about this contemporary phenomenon of students taking on study-abroad programs or traveling overseas to study college. Lo and behold, I realized that America has institutionalized the subject of my graduate thesis and has even coined the term for it – international education. And whoa, institutions like the Institute of International Education in New York City (where I ordered my references needed to complete my study) and the experts on international education have been in existence for a very long time! Furthermore, another scenario on how this information hub works is barely two months after the 33 Chilean miners got trapped in the centuries-old copper-gold mine in Chile, the book The 33 Men by American author Jonathan Franklin had already been published. Indeed, America is the place to be when you need a wealth of information for you research work or simply enjoy learning and finding out more. Furthermore, art films centering on the immense tendencies of human nature abound, like the ballet psychodrama The Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, Michael Fassbender’s film on sex addiction explained in Shame, and the Lolita-like young student-older man May-December love affair film An Education starring Peter Sarsgaard and Carey Mulligan facilitates your inner humanity to be tremendously developed if you live in the United States. This educational heartland enables an individual’s intent to be highly educated, civilized, classy and cultured.

Fourth, apparently, the Americans have a role and a say in almost all fields of knowledge and human interest. They take interest, discover, and document anything under the sun for which the whole world recognizes them for, like the naming of dinosaurs (19th-century Yale academics are credited for this), the mooing of cows’ benefit to the livestock industry (Thanks to Temple Grandin, an American prodigy in animal science and animal behavior), and National Geographic’s informative accounts on its magazine about the lavender-laden perfume fields of Provençe, the Galapagos Islands’ aquatic wonders, Alaska’s dramatic Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the tea-colored Orinoco waterway at the heart of Venezuela. America certainly allots substantial funds to uphold not only its citizens’ but also the people of the rest of the world’s inalienable right to know.

Fifth, being the world’s Education Mecca as it is, America is an acclaimed investor in people. It provides opportunities to anyone who has the intent to do whatever it takes to achieve his life plans regardless of his background. For instance, Temple Grandin, a typical Boston resident, was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at an early age. Later in her life, she developed into an expert in animal science. Dr. Grandin is a specially abled American doctor of animal science and behavior. Gifted and versatile, she has achieved on to becoming a professor at Colorado State University, a best-selling author, a consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, and the inventor of the hug machine, designed to calm hypersensitive people and a mode of stress relief therapy. In 2010, Dr. Grandin’s life story was produced into a film under her namesake. The inspiring movie earned a Golden Globe award for Claire Danes, the actress who portrayed the title role.

Finally, America’s offering of Scandinavian Studies, British Studies, Canadian Studies, Dutch, and Polish in some of its tertiary institutions shows America’s intent to extend is appendages of influence – be it political, economic, or cultural – to the territories dealt with by these programs of study. Moreover, it is in America’s ideals to fortify its established diplomatic relations with its allies, thus, aiming to gain a better knowledge and understanding of these countries. In the American television program, Rick Steves’s Europe, I am surprised to arrive at the conclusion that American expatriates are everywhere, studying and familiarizing themselves with the other sojourners of this world better. Rick Steves is an American author, historian, and television personality hosting his Eurocentric travel show. The episodes present Mr. Steves journeying in strange yet breathtakingly picturesque locations such as the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, the Balkan side, and other Adriatic delights. In one of the episodes, he met a fellow American writer and a permanent resident of Slovenia who authored a travel guide about the life and times in the southern European land. In addition, a lucid account of the socio-cultural landscape of the Philippines has been vividly captured by an American scholar, David Timberman in his book A Changeless Land: Continuity and Change in Philippine Politics, one of my required readings in graduate school. As an observer, these scenarios present America as to be projecting a Roman Empire-like international presence. I could therefore expect that should I travel to non-mainstream tourist destinations like Greenland or Iceland, I could always look forward to encountering hints of the American-ness.

In “Leisure Theory in the Information Age” by Wes Cooper and “Reflections on Recreation, Park, and Leisure Studies” by Daniel L. Dustin and Thomas L. Goodale, the authors raise two very important issues about the growth and impact of an increasingly symbolically constructed culture. This new culture has developed due to information technology and these changes in our culture have created a more narrowly specialized type of education for professional careers which is increasingly taught electronically. In turn, these changes in education have undermined the traditional community of scholars concerned with values and contributing to the public good.As Cooper describes it, our work and leisure has increasingly taken the form of “symbolic manipulation” rather than manipulating the physical environment, so that more and more “we and our environments are increasingly becoming symbolic constructs.” This increasingly symbolization of our society has affected both work and leisure, so that whether one is at work or involved in recreational activities, one is more and more not interacting with the physical world as with a symbolically-created virtual world.For example, instead of going bowling at a bowling facility with a group of friends, one may participate in an online bowling game with a network of other online bowlers one communicates with electronically. Instead of meeting friends to talk about an event in person or even on the phone, one may experience an event through TV or an online presentation and then text back and forth with others about it. Instead of going to a movie theater with friends and family members, one may download a movie from Netflix or see a video or series of short video Webisodes on Hulu or YouTube, and then share emails about it with other viewers. The rise of video gaming through social gaming sides like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, where one gets virtual supplies and equipment to help one get ahead in the game, are another example of this growing manipulation of symbolic constructs in everyday life.Cooper’s essay is devoted to considering what to do about this transformation into a more symbolic society. His Alpha model suggests that in the future, these symbolic worlds will become more and more important, and we have to be better able to adjust to this increasing ratio of the symbolic to the non-symbolic in our world, based on whether we see this shift as something to be valued or a warning about a future which is more and more a symbolic construct. Or as Cooper puts it: “Alpha…gestures towards future possibilities, such as the increasing importance of virtual spaces in our lives.” (p. 469). In this Alpha view, this growth of sociable virtual spaces will become more and more a natural part of our lives, which we take for granted, much like we have taken for granted the development of a subjective consciousness as an essential part of our personal identity. As such, this growing influence of virtual spaces will contribute to creating new forms of educational institutions, work, and leisure, such as reflected in the growing number of online courses and graduate programs, telecommuting at work, and online leisure activities.As an alternative to this growing virtual takeover, Cooper suggests that there might be a Beta Trial-and-Error Hypothesis, which represents a middle-ground approach between giving in to an inevitable takeover of this social virtual world replacing a grounded reality and a Luddite-like effort to a return to “a golden age of freedom from high technology.” Instead, in this trial and error approach, an individual can choose to seek out the best of both worlds by combining an involvement in a symbolically constructed environment with participation in real life activities. Likewise, organizations and institutions can choose which approaches work the best for them, such as by deciding to combine virtual courses and real ones.Finally, Cooper proposes the Gamma Symbolic Utility Hypothesis in which he suggests that the symbolic meanings one has for something have a symbolic utility (or SU) which should be taken into account along with the expected utility (EU) of something, and both can influence the decision someone makes by contributing to the decision value (or DV), which is composed of both types of utility. In other words, we don’t just make decisions based on rational factors, as proposed by Rational Choice Theory (RCT), which is the kind of approach economists use in assessing the choices people make in spending their money, but by other considerations. As Cooper puts it: “decision value (DV)…aims at finding a balance between maximizing outcomes or payoffs and maximizing what has positive meaning for an agent.” The implications of this hypothesis for examining the influence of the increasingly important symbolic constructs is to recognize the ways different people may assign different meanings to the choices they make to participate in physical activities or in virtual worlds.I think this discussion of the growing influence of symbolic structures and virtual worlds in our life today is an important one, because this discussion raises issues for those assessing the health of our modern culture and for the providers of leisure and recreation, which has become increasingly the domain of private enterprise as the funding for public leisure organizations has shrunk. While many people, including Cooper, seem to have a negative perspective in viewing the high-tech take-over of society and blaming it for the separation between people who are engaged in virtual activities, such as social gaming, I think this a wrong-headed approach. In fact, I have seen studies in the news that suggest that those who are most active in online virtual worlds also have more social connections, since they socialize in the everyday real world based on their experience in the virtual world and they use that to supplement their other real world physical activities.Certainly, there are some social misfits who find the anonymity of virtual worlds a way to have a social life which they cannot have in everyday life because they lack social skills. But for most people, participating in online activities is not an escape from everyday life, but a supplement or complement to it. An example of this is the popularity of social gaming for the popular crowd in high school and college. Also, many employees and independent contractors, including myself, have found becoming technologically savvy and participating in or presenting everything from Webinars to online conferences crucial for being employed in today’s economy. At the same time, these employees and independent contractors, myself included, participate in a wide variety of real time meetings, such as referral clubs, Chamber of Commerce mixers, and industry conferences. It is not an either-or situation but the use of both worlds that is necessary today to be competitive.Although Dustin and Goodale don’t use the terminology of symbolic constructs or refer to the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma hypotheses in their article, they discuss how this increasing symbolization of life affects education, and in particular how it has impacted the education of leisure and recreation professionals. They suggest that this change has undermined the traditional use of education to prepare students not only to enter a profession but to have humanistic values leading them to want to contribute to making a better world. Dustin and Cooper also express concern that the new technology enabling these virtual worlds has undermined the traditional educational institutions that have provided a geographical place where students can gather and have a personal social interaction with one another. Instead, there has been a growth of online courses and programs, enabling students to gain the professional credentials for a field without having to interact with other students or their professors.As Dustin and Goodale observe, the field of leisure studies first emerged at the University of Minnesota in 1937, where it was guided by a public service ethic to provide leisure services that “contributed to a better quality of life for individuals in the community.” Then, in the 1960s, which was marked by the rise of the National Recreation and Park Association as the primarily organization for the professional and lay community in the leisure field, leisure studies were devoted to preparing students to work as professionals in the field. However, since the 1970s, as public leisure services have lost funding, the private sector has become more important, and more and more students have been educated to serve these private enterprises.As a result, the focus in leisure education, as well as in other fields, has shifted more to preparing students to get well-paying jobs in their career specialty, and this education has increasingly been provided through distance learning, making it more convenient for students to take courses at their home or office at whatever time is most convenient for them. As Dustin and Goodale observe: “The ultimate expression of this is distance learning, correspondence courses and degree programs in electronic form…Not since the printing press has technology had such an impact on learning and the dissemination of information.” This shift has also meant that there has been a decline in face-to-face interaction, and degrees and certificates have become like commodities, which are purchased to make one more marketable for a career.These are important transformations, made possibly by the rise of new technologies and new systems for delivery of information, and they have been transforming educational systems, just as they have been transforming interaction in everyday life. For example, computers, along with cell-phones, e-mail, and online accounts have become necessities in everyday life, as well as in education, whereas they were more like personal luxuries a decade ago.However, while Dustin and Goodale argue that these high-tech developments are detrimental to the educational experience, I think these developments open up tremendous opportunities for individuals who once could not get an education because they can now access it at their convenience. Certainly, this system can be abused, such as when someone hires someone else to take their courses, write their papers, and post them on line for them, without any way for the professor to verify exactly who is taking the class, because of the anonymity of the computer (unless some system is devised to record who is in front of the computer typing a paper or online reply). But in general I think the system offers great opportunities. For example, there are now extensive digitized libraries of material online, and it is no longer necessary to spend hours going to a physical place, which involves fighting traffic, waiting in line, or searching on stacks to get that information. Also, the privatization of leisure has opened up many new career opportunities in the private sector for those who are able to respond to these opportunities or create new careers for themselves, such as a leisure researcher or consultant, who advises people on the new leisure and recreational possibilities. Indeed, this has become a brave new world with all sorts of new possibilities for those who can respond and adapt.

In the first part of a series of articles looking at the education systems across the UK, the overarching structure of the school year for state funded schools in England and Wales will be considered. The structures and terms for schools under the Scottish, Northern Irish and Independent School systems differ again and will be looked at in future articles.The type and range of schools through which children pass during their education may vary depending on which part of the UK they grow up in, the nature of the schools in their locale and their parents ability to fund their education. However, for any schools receiving state funding in England and Wales, the defined schools years, and the requirements for education in each of those years, is set by the UK government and the Welsh Assembly respectively.The Year GroupsThe school year in the England and Wales begins on 1 September and runs up until 31 August and is split into three terms: Autumn (up to Christmas), Spring (Christmas to Easter) and Summer (Easter onwards).Although children will usually progress through the school years depending on their age(s) in between those dates every year, it is possible to both skip years or repeat years if there is a need; if a child’s performance is above or below the level expected at their current age.Whilst it is not compulsory attendance for a child, the (state funded) school year system begins with the Nursery year for children who are three years old. The system ends with Year 13 (the 15th year in total) for children who turn 18 in the relevant timeframe. School attendance is only mandatory from the ages of 5-16 and so children are required to enter school at some stage during Reception (the 2nd year), if they haven’t already, whilst, at the other end of the system, they can then choose whether or not to pursue their education in Years 12-13 (Further Education) once they’ve turned 16.The third year of education is termed Year 1 as it is the first full school year in which children are required to attend school having been introduced to it in Reception (if not Nursery).The Key StagesTo provide a framework for teaching and examinations the National Curriculum (for state funded schools) in particular uses the following key stages to group these years together:
Foundation Stages:

Foundation 1 – Nursery
Foundation 2 – Reception
Key Stage 1 – Years 1 & 2
Key Stage 2 – Years 3 – 6
Key Stage 3 – Years 7 – 9
Key Stage 4 – Years 10 & 11 (ending in GCSEs)
Sixth Form/College – Years 12 & 13 (ending in A Levels or International Baccalaureate)
The Standard School StructureThe first Nursery year nearly always involves the child attending a designated Nursery school but after that the structure can vary. The most common structure for the schools that a child will progress through in the subsequent years is that of:
Infant School – Reception to Year 2 [Foundation Stage 2 & Key Stage 1]
Junior School – Years 3 – 6 [Key Stage 2]
Senior School – Years 7 – 11 [Key Stages 3 & 4]
Sixth Form/College – Years 12 & 13
Many schools, however, combine the functions above so that the structure is simplified into two levels to fit neatly with the idea of primary and secondary education:
Primary School – Infant School & Junior School
Secondary School – Senior School & Sixth Form
Some more traditional schools in the secondary education system still refer to the Years 7 through to 11 in the older notation as Years 1 to 5 (or First Form to Fifth Form) with the following Sixth Form (Years 12 and 13) split into the Lower and Upper Sixth.The Alternative School StructureA less common alternative structure sees a three tier system straddling primary and secondary education and the curriculum’s Key Stages with:
First School – Reception to Year 4
Middle School – Years 5 – 8
Upper School – Years 9 – 13
Children can and do switch between schools following these structures according to the opportunities in their locality and it is particularly common, for example, for children to switch to a Secondary School for the rest of their secondary education once they have finished Middle School.Ultimately, the year groups only provide a framework to determine how and when the National Curriculum and examinations should be implemented. There are therefore many varying types of schools even within the above definitions, from Faith Schools to Academies to Grammar Schools, depending on other factors such as selection criteria and funding.