UNO and Amnesty International criticise German education system

[SSShakeTheChi]

For those who read German:
SpiegelComments

So NN admylin, Fink and everyone, what do you think of it all? I was listening to a report on Klassikradio this morning. Seems the FAZ is up in arms but I think there is a fair bit of truth in the criticisms. I don't find the German education system on the whole is centred around best promoting the interests/abilities of the individual child.

Morning all, didn't read all of that report, but the thing that worries me about all these negative reports is that the schools are taking notice and starting to slowly experiment with different methods. Longer full day schools seem to be the answer according to education and family ministers but our kids won't profit from it because by the time they have sorted out their new verbesserte systems it'll be too late to do ours any good.
My biggest fear is that they will introduce all-day school so from 8am to 4pm, our school is thinking about it for next school year. More hours in school but no extra lessons only more supervision by a 1Euro jobber who can either get them to draw pictures and sit still or sends them out to play in the Hof. They might let them do their homework, alone which means parents will still have to go over it in the evening and explain anything they haven't understood.

Morning Berliner
Didn't see that one, SSShake, thanks. Agree with him, esp. about this lunatic secondary selection Wish they'd drag the German system out of the time warp it seems to be in.
The Ganztagsschule wouldn't be obligatory though, Admylin, would it? Here the primary head was obsessed for the whole of last year about introducing it, much to the detriment of the classes she was supposed to be teaching - ds1 for maths She still harps on about the homework supervision, that's how she tries to get the parents to sign up. The teachers have to do it which means they have to miss a couple of hours in the mornings each week so trainees take over meaning that the children have more change & worse teaching. Turns out the teachers don't actually do anything apart from check the homework is done - they'd need more staff to do any correcting. I know as we considered sending ds2 for Y3 thinking it may help his German if he had a teacher correct it. His class teacher warned me off

Or should that be "Morgen Berlinerinneninnen" ?

Morgen Finknottle, I hope Ganztagschule will be optional but I've got a feeling it will be compulsary. If it is then I would seriously have to think about moving my kids. The paralel classes at our school already have Ganztag and some parents asked if on certain days they could take their kids out early to attend sport clubs or such like and they weren't allowed. They were told it is compulsary to stay untill 4pm. Most sport or club things start at 3 or 4 pm - later clubs starting at 5 or 6pm are for older kids anyway.

could someone do me a big afvour and pick out and translate the reference to Amnesty? I can't even find it - my German is non-existent

hatwoman, the amnesty international thing was on the radio this morning. I will google later and see if I find anything on that, it would be about the current system discriminating against immigrant dc I assume.

Well fink, admylin I really don't know what to think of the German education system. I do worry about it obviously with all the bad press and dd at school here now.

But then if their education system is really so flawed, how come Germany does so well in innovative fields etc?

It is worrying that your socio-economic background pretty much determines the final academic level you are likely to achieve. I have never been able to understand why this is the case.

Fink, are you calling us pancakes?!

From what I heard, this ganztags school thing is supposed to apply to all state schools in Berlin in the long term. I don't know if ours (as a so-called private school) has to provide full-day education too.

I don't know how strictly individual schools will comply to those rules , admylin. I know the State International is a Ganztagsschule but the girls at ballet school just leave the hort there and walk up the road to ballet class (on their own) around 2.30pm, so they at least seem fairly lax about enforcing that 4pm rule.

I think we'll be going in the direction of private or semi-private school. When you see how many private schools are popping up every where in berlin it's a sign that more and more parents would rather send their dc to private if they can.
As you say though, that would enforce the fact that the socio-economic background pretty much determines the final academic level you are likely to achieve.
If dh stays on at the Charite hospital then we need to move to a bigger flat any way so I would look at the nearest independant school for my 2.

thanks ssShakeTheChi - yes, the discrimination angle would make sense.

Noooo, SSShake, I'm calling you jam doughnuts At least that's what they are called here.
I could write pages about the school system but am too tired today. Mostly cos I was out last night with another expat and we spent ages moaning about the school system Wish we lived somewhere where private or international was an option. No, actually, I just wish the current system wasn't so crap.
Off to light a fire and lie on the sofa.

Oh drat I always do that Pfannkuchen = pancakes!

So you're calling us jam doughnuts, eh? Well that's all right then.

Admylin, when are you likely to hear whether dh's contract will be renewed?

In East Germany jam doughnuts are called Pfannkuchen.

In the rest of Germany Pfannkuchen = pancakes.

In the East of Germany pancakes are called Eierkuchen.

Hth.

Califrau, I would say you got away just in time eh!

Oh please Calif, no holds barred.... Just going off on a tangent a bit here as usual: I hate this 1 Euro job thing, I find it so demeaning and I think it makes for so much bad feeling. I don't want someone HAVING to work with my dc for 1 Euro an hour. Feels like slave labour. I'm sure there are better ways of helping the unemployed back into paid employment.

Fink, admylin, calif - do you really think the UK education system is better than the German one? I don't honestly know. When I read the education threads here on MN with all the discussions on private/state, it seems such a divisive and unfair system. I also think that getting 4 year olds to learn to read and making them learn I dunno 15 spellings a night or something sounds OTT. I mean they reach the same level in the end, don't they? Whether they learn to read at 4 or 6 or 7. It just seems to me they learn so much faster and easier if they start later, so I think, in retrospect, I find the later school entrance age in Germany better. I also don't like the sound of all the tests the dc are having to do at UK schools. The pressure sounds extreme. I really find it hard to judge though.

The biggest problem I see with German schools is this selection process at the age of 10 or 12. I personally don't think you can say for sure at that age which dc will or will not be able to pass the Abitur at 18. If you get sent to Hauptschule, that's the end, isn't it? I mean even if you work really hard at Hauptschule and get your certificate, you have practically zero hope of getting any Ausbildungsplatz/job. So why bother at all?

Emkana that was naughty bringing in the Eierkuchen! Mind you I didn't realise they were just Pfannkuchen. Dd used to get them in kindergarten sometimes and I never knew what she was talking about

Hi SSShake, you jammy pancake Comparisons can be futile but hard to avoid Like any aspect of living abroad, it's easy to tell yourself to take the good & the bad and balance it out. When you see your child in tears, anxious, not sleeping et al, then it's not so easy to be objective.
I agree, the worst thing is this selection at 10. Actually the teachers start assessing the children in Y3 so we're talking about 8 yr olds. The decision is made in the first half of Y4, conference in January so many are 9. They can tell you that Realschule doesn't automatically mean no Abitur and thus no university but the reality is that the child is assessed at age 9 (average) that s/he is not suited to university and would be better suited to a vocational school and thus career.
It seems to me as though they sort the children into white collar/blue-collar futures, even though society is no longer as rigidly structured. That's partly what I mean by a time warp.
I know of at least 4 children in ds1's class whose parents are sending them to Gymnasium without a recommendation because the future employment chances are so restricted otherwise. And the "people like us send their child to G" mentality is huge here. I had no idea.
I haven't been asked once IF ds1 is going to G, only to which one he's going.
As for the rest, I do think there is a lack of pastoral/all-round care & concern for the children. I read the threads here and whilst I do think there's an over-emphasis on labelling and tests in England, there does IMO seem to be more emphasis on the child's social development, individual progress and a better focus on strengths & weaknesses. Instead of marking a child for his/her achievement according to his/her abilities, the system here on the whole does mark the child according to the attainment level of the whole class.
On the plus side, the Integrierte Gesamtschule we looked at was excellent and I do think a sea-change is in the offing concerning this rigid selection. Parents are starting to consider alternatives. Also ds1's Y1 & Y2 teacher was young, newly trained and very much concerned with all the individual development and social skills. I hoped that the system was changing for the better with more emphasis on helping each child achieve their potential rather than, "Klasse 2a is on page 67 and so we'll have to work extra hard to catch up." That mentality ignores the slower learners. One aftereffect of the PISA shock is that the schools are pressured into raising grades at the expense of the less academically gifted.
On a personal note, I think there is this facade of the perfect family here. Big city life is different to life here in the boondocks. Time Warp again. Parents who divorce are frowned upon. Mothers who work, ditto, unless you've built a new house on the posh new housing estate and you have a white-collar job Germany is changing but in small rural villages like this, it's a slow process.

For years I didn't know Eierkuchen were the same as Pfannkuchen either. One annoying woman I worked with used to say "Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen" (?) a lot and I remember thinking, "Egg-cakes? Yuck" Thought they were like soggy poached eggs in dough.

morgen
I teach trainee teachers for GS/RS/HS (or at least I did - am using up annual leave now until my contract runs out on the 31st ). I have become ever more convinced that I do not want to put ds and dc2 into the German system - which in practice, if we stay here, means British or international school. The British system is far from perfect, but what I see of the system here just scares me. This ridiculous selection thing is the worst of it - while ds, at least, seems pretty bright and thus is unlikely to be one of the ones who struggle, I just dislike the principle very intensely. I don't want my children's friendships to dissolve at 10 because of going to different school types and all that implies over here. And teachers of any school type except Gymnasium are really held in such desperately little regard. We have the students who had too bad Abi marks to do anything else - and that is the way most of them see it as well.
Also, IME German school students are not taught about independent thinking, but rather to learn and repeat the solutions presented by the teacher. Whenever I have set tasks requiring independent thinking I get students either looking puzzled or downright disgusted before asking openly 'How do you want it?' I inadvisedly set an essay on some poems once, and about 90% of them plagiarised - mostly because they were completely unpractised in forming their own view from engagement with the text.

Btw, sympathy this way please - there's proper, lying-on-the-ground-and-on-the-trees snow here (all the poor daffodils and blossoms... a week ago we had 16 deg), I'm trying to sort our move out (hence being on MN...), have a disgusting cold and dh is in bed with a migraine

I agree with finknottle re social development. Try and find a a school here with an anti-bullying policy Bullying of students who for some reason don't fit into the famous 'Klassenverband' seems rife.

While I'm on my soap box...
The Ganztagsschule is another example of Germany catching up with the modern world. For working mothers the only after-school care was/still is the Hort/day care, often attached to the local kindergarten. Pricey too for lower incomes, though much cheaper than England. The GTS is paid for by the local authorites so parents only pay for lunch.
Here there's lunch break till 2pm, 2-3 supervised (but not corrected) homework by teachers and 3-4 an activity. Computer, sport, yoga, art atm, all by people from the school/sport club etc. They are trying to use qualified people as before when they had a after-school-club thing, it was E7.50 an hour job. Mostly middle-aged women. The Hort was better but more expensive.
I had to laugh though when there was the whole talk about school all day - I thought of course they meant lessons all day but it's still school till 12 for Y1 &2 and then 1pm for Y3&4. Early start tho' - and ds1 will start at 7.40 at secondary school.
And don't forget, Ganztagsschule only till 12 on Fridays

I always have to shake my head a bit at the Germans' idea of Ganztagsschule - as if LESSONS in the AFTERNOON were some kind of shocking taboo School times are still very, very much structured around the 'mother is at home cooking her children a warm lunch' model of things.

Sympathy, Berolina. My dc are constantly run down atm. Dire lack of sunshine and warmth.
Do you have any British/International school options? Wish we did

I was so taken by the Gesamtschule, it also had a very prominent anti-bullying policy. Not one word about social development/skills in any of the literature from the other schools. Hoping they'll set one up here.
We have sleet and hail.

Judging by the other thread about the unannounced school trip to the cemetary and seeing an open coffin at a funeral, I'd say there is something very odd about the German system...

at that.