Saturday 14 February 2009

Update and the German School System

Well, I've been putting this one off for a while, had an incredibly incredibly busy couple of months with a recurrent tonsil infection and trips back and forth home to try and sort it out. In the same way that it took me a while to mention the breakup on here, I also drastically put off mentioning a new relationship! Its been on facebook for a while, but I guess here is where I do more emotion venting and it feels more personal, but what with today being valentines day and all I guess for all those who read this (and apparently you exist! thanks for the comments, I doubt I'd have made time to update if I didnt know people ever checked back) its time to announce the arrival in my life of Jon. I'm not hugely desperate to publicise my private life so suffice it to say, I've known him since I was born, he's none of the things I thought I wanted and everything I now realise I needed in a relationship and despite the difference and craziness of jobs (he's in the royal marine band service) it's all pretty good on that front :)
So anyway onto the juicy stuff, sarah's first real blog on anything other than the rather dull intricacies of her life, the wonder (haha) that is the german school system!
As most of you probably know, I'm working this year as a foreign language assistant in 2 schools in Hamburg, Germany's second largest city. After 6 months (eek) now of working, I'm beginning to really get a feel for teaching, but also to get a feel for the system. For those not as well versed in German education as me (where have you been?! hehe) the basic system is as follows:
Grundschule (Primary School) is started at 6, and finished at 9. They're not expected to know how to read or write when they start, and go to Kindergarten from around 4 if parents need them to be somewhere during the day.
Then the 'fun' starts. They then get streamed into one of 3 schools, a Hauptschule, a Realschule or a Gymnasium. Very basically explained, a Gymnasium is a grammer school equivalent, which is finished with Abitur (the leaving exams needed to enter Uni) at age 19, a Realschule is a mixture of academic and vocational subjects which is finished with Realschuleabschluss (exams which leave vocataional further study or apprenticeships as the next stage of study) at age 16 and Hauptschuleabschluss after which one is supposedly qualified for apprenticeships at the age of 14.
Which school you end up in is supposedly decided by your teacher. However, as I've been realising it seems that it is decided far more by your social background, parent's level of education and ethnic background (there are huge amounts of 1st generation turkish immigrants in Hamburg.)
I work in a Gymansium, and a school for the physically disabled which runs from age 6-19. This mixed (understatement) job means that I work at both ends of the educational spectrum here in HH (abbreviation for Hamburg). Turns out as well as being streamed in terms of academic ability, everything is dished out according to this school system; Gymnasiums get the lions share of funding, the teachers have to train for 2 years extra and then earn WAY more than their contemparies in the other schools. Facilities, books all get progressively shitter as you work your way down the system. The impression one gets is not of a streamed system giving everyone the chance to perform well due to teaching tailored to their academic level, but rather a sink or swim mentality where the brightest get the most support and Hauptschule closely resemble a place to lock disruptive teens for 5 hours a day while their parents work.
My flatmate K works in a Hauptschule, on her first day she went in and the kids were hitting each other round the head with chairs, the teacher simply walked back out of the room shut the door and said 'we'll come back in 10 minutes and see if they're still doing it'.
My special school is even worse off, the teachers and the erzieherinnen (we don't have an english word for this, each class has a teacher who's academically responsible for the kids and an erzieher(in) who is responsible for them pastorally, making sure they know how to sit and eat and behave etc) are atrociously paid, they're all clearly there for their love of the job and the kids but the pay of the erzieherinnen in particular is just a joke.
Remembering that this is a school predominantly for the PHYSICALLY disabled, imagine how shocked i was to discover they don't even take Haupschuleabschluss, and the majority will end up working in a furniture workshop. These are kids who in y4 can talk better english than my kids in y5 at the grammer school, so long as you can get past their speech impediments. ARGH its outdated and unfair and ridiculous and frustrating.
And then when I say that the special school is ridiculous, consider that my grammar school which is 'selfresponsible' and in Hamburg's top 4 schools, has 2 OHPs per building and 3 computer rooms of 15 computers for a school of 1000 pupils. Its in the wealthiest bit of HH too, the parents will just call up and take their kid's entire class climbing or iceskating or whatever at like 2 days notice! Odd stuff.
I've got more school rage, and will save it for later this week, as I now know people are reading!

S x x