School

Here is a picture of Herder-Gymnasium, the school where I am working this year in Minden.

The red part of the building is the old school, and the yellow is the new addition. Inside is a funny collection of stairs and hallways that don’t always connect to one another. My first few days I was always walking up a flight of stairs or down a hallway and finding myself in some dead end with a bunch of broken furniture and having to turn around and go a different way. The school serves grades 5-12, although there are also some students in grade 13. I’ll end up working with a variety of different classes and instructors throughout the year, but right now I have a sixth, a seventh, a tenth and a twelfth grade class.

There are lots of differences between schools here and American schools. Some basics: school goes from 7:45-13:00 (everything’s on 24 hour time), with two fifteen minute breaks. Teachers are all responsible for teaching two subjects; one of my mentors teaches English and Biology for example, the other, English and German. Teachers don’t have their own classrooms, everyone has a seat a table in the teacher’s lounge and several have their own box where they can leave things like books, CD players etc. Most English instruction that I’ve seen has been very text-based, reading passages, doing workbook exercises, etc., although I don’t think that’s always true. Homework is marked on the honor system and rarely spot-checked or collected. Students start learning English in fifth grade and continue all the way until they finish school.

At first I just get to observe to figure things out before I start teaching. Recently I followed a sixth grade class around all day, just so see what an average day is like for students. This is what they did during the six periods: French (or Latin), Religion, English, English, Music, History. The schedule is different for them every day, but I was amazed at all the time spent studying languages. No math! No science! No German reading and writing! They have those things, of course, on other days, but still, there’s definitely a much greater focus on learning foreign language and culture. I was also interested in the religion class. I talked to a colleague and it sounds like religious instruction focuses mainly on Catholicism and Protestantism, depending on the grade. In some places they also include Islam, if it’s followed by a significant proportion of the population. The class I attended wasn’t on nuts and bolts theoretical issues, so much as ethics. Why do people get made fun of? What do you do if someone is getting picked on by others? There was no praying, no mention of Jesus even, although I’m sure that comes in other classes. Music was thirty thirteen-year-olds with recorders. I might skip that one next time around.