Greetings from Germany
By Holley VanStaalduinen

School! You think about going to school from 7:45-2:30. At 10 a.m. waiting for lunch to roll around. At 2 o'clock you daydream of what you'll be doing in half an hour. You look forward to the three-minute breaks to walk from one class to another and seeing someone different in the next class to talk to. The hope that maybe today the teacher will go off on another tangent. This is the world of American schools.

There is a world where there is no such thing as substitutes, and teachers don't know what tangents are, where one can choose what kind of school they go to, and the language taken there, but no more. This is the German school system.

The school system in Germany is quite different from that in the USA. In Germany, one goes to a basic school till the end of the fourth grade. Then one can choose from three schools. These being the Hauptschule, Realschule, and the Gymnasium; the Gymnasium is the most intensive. In the Hauptschule and the Realschule one finishes in the tenth grade. After this one can choose to go on and finish at a gymnasium or to study at a vocational school. The latter is the common choice.

In the Gymnasium one finishes in the 13th grade. The last two years at the gymnasium one studies intensively, two choice subjects, while continuing studies in all other subjects. After finishing at a Gymnasium, most go on to universities and fewer to vocational school.

There are many differences between a school day here and a school day in America. One has a schedule with 30 periods a week on average, which can start 7:50 and be done at 6 p.m. There aren't as many afternoon as morning classes. The whole day is together with the same class, in the same classroom. Classrooms are only switched for science and music class.

In between every class there is a 5-minute break, and at 10:15 there is a 20-minute break. When one has a free period, there are no study halls. One can go and do what they want. When a teacher is sick there is also a free period. One has a subject at the most four times a week, but normally 2-3 times a week. This provides less instruction time than in America, although the teachers go over material fast and thoroughly and don't seem to waste a minute.

The grading is also quite different. For most classes, 50% of one's grade is based on verbal contributions and 50% on test grades. Tests are not given as often as in America, and are quite extensive and important. This leaves a lot of room for verbal contributions, which makes the classroom setting quite different than that in America.

There are positive aspects of both school systems, and it depends on the personality of one as to which they'll like better. I am in the 11th, and enjoying the school system. My schedule starts everyday at 7:50 and ends at 1 p.m. The classes are challenging, but the differences are interesting. Every student takes Religion, whether he is Protestant, Catholic or Atheist. Gym class is not coed, one takes all four sciences every year, these are just a few of the differences.

Despite all the differences and how the school systems seem to be world's different, I realize that the one thing school is to everyone, is a place to learn and to have a good time with classmates.

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