A Thought About 15-year-olds and the Czech Education System

So I know I said my next post would be about my traveling seminar, and I will get to that. 

But first: this morning, I was over at Mikulandska, the school where I volunteer as an English teacher twice a week.  Normally, I work with a beginning English class on Tuesdays and a more advanced class on Wendesdays.  This week however, my friend Maarja, who also volunteers at the school, wasn't able to make her normal Thrusday class so I volunteered to cover it for her.  This class is much more advanced than the other classes, and also made up mostly of 15 year olds, who are on the older end of the spectrum of kids that we work with.  Today's topic for the class was 'hobbies' and each kid had to do a 1 minute presentation in English on their favorite hobbies.  I really enjoyed listening to them, partly because the level of their English was amazing, and partly because they sounded so much like American kids.  They listed all of the typical pastimes: listening to music, shopping, traveling, reading, etc.  For a little while, it felt just like I was back in the USA. 

The class that I was in today was much more rowdy than the normal classes that I teach.  Hanka, the English teacher at Mikulandska, explained to me that this is because they are taking their leaving certificates in less than a month and don't care as much about school.  In the Czech Republic, you take your leaving exams at 16 and then choose whether or not you will continue on to high school.  Apparently, it is not as common for kids to keep going to school, and especially in the more rural areas, many of them choose not to continue.  Hanka told me that all of the students in this class would be going on to high school, which is good.  I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you can choose whether or not to end your education at such a young age.  I know that in the US you can technically drop out of high school when you are 16 as well, but I think it is a lot less common.  I feel like the typical point for many American students to choose not to continue on in school is after high school when they are deciding whether or not to go to college.  I can't imaging making the choice when you are just 16 years old... it just seems so young to me! 

On anothe note, we are having a fashion show with my beginner class next week so they can practice their clothing vocabularly.  Anyone have any good suggestions for American songs that are relatively clean but still upbeat enough for a fashion show?  I am trying to avoid having curse words pop up in the middle of the song!