One of the first things I noticed, as a schoolteacher in Japan, is that so many countries start their school year in a different month. I come from Australia, where the school year is the same as the calendar year, and so the students begin their classes in January. Being in the southern hemisphere, Australia's summer holidays start around the 15th of December and finish on January 26th, which is Australia Day. (Summer itself doesn't end until March). The United States also...