Teen From The US Reveals What It's Like For An American To Attend An Aussie School

Bored Panda reached out to Lara, the TikToker and RMIT University student in advertising who’s behind this viral video, who said she moved to Australia four years ago with her family. “My dad was an engineer and his company moved us all around the world. We’ve lived in Texas, New York, and Singapore as well,” she added.

“The culture shock was definitely the hardest thing to become accustomed to. People are simply different in other countries, not good or bad, just different,” Lara recalled and added that “the concept of change for me overall was the hardest.”

When asked what American things she misses the most, Lara said it’s “Chick-Fil-A, a fast food restaurant with the best food in Texas that you can’t find in Australia.”

In many schools across the US, metal detectors are something teens and school staff go through every day. They were first used in a Detroit High School during the 1989-1990 school year, so they’re not an entirely new concept as many would like to believe.

However, recently, more and more schools are implementing the use of metal detectors on their sites due to the rise of school shootings. They serve as ugly reminders of the problem of violence in the US, and how sadly, the leaders have failed to ensure safety of their young generation without such extreme measures.

At the same time, there isn’t a lot of research about the positive or negative safety or social effects of metal detectors in schools. A study published in the journal of the American School Health Association detected mixed results as one study found that less students carry weapons to schools with metal detectors than the ones without them, though it’s not entirely clear how and if that translated into less violence in those schools.

Moreover, some experts claim that in more severe and lethal cases of mass shootings, metal detectors will do little if any good. Some believe that students in line for the detectors and the operators would likely be the very first victims.

Another problematic aspect of metal detectors at schools is that they destroy trust between school officials and students. Often, the students are the only ones being screened, which may suggest they are being treated as potential threats.

Also, it’s well known that metal detectors are not foolproof. In September of 2008, in Milwaukee, a 15-year-old female student was stabbed several times in a restroom on the same day a $50,000 metal detector debuted at the school. Even though it’s not entirely clear whether the stabbing suspects had or had not been screened, the question of whether such a deliberate monitoring measure is effective remains open.