Back to School, Back to School

I’ve been shadowing different grade levels this week, it’s kinda funny and makes me feel like a little kid again!  The students start every new class by standing up and greeting their teachers in a slightly-adorable, slightly-funny sing-song voice: “Good mooooooorning, Mrs. Charter” or “Guten Moooooorgen, Herr Jürgens auf der Haar.” 

First, to the scheduling: classes are 45 minutes long, but they also have a lot of “Doppelstunden,” where they have two 45 min periods right next to each other with a five minute break in between.  Also, lunch isn’t til 1:05, but they have two larger breaks before that.  So, the 9^th graders I shadowed Monday had this class schedule:

7:45-8:30 Math

8:35-9:20 Math

9:20-9:40 Break

9:40-10:25 French

10:30-11:15 French

11:15-11:30 Break

11:30-12:15 Physics

12:20-13:05 Physics

13:15-14:00 Lunch

14:05-14:50 Gym/sport

14:55-15:40 Gym/sport

So, it can be a really long day for them!  Or, some days they’re done by 1:05 and can go home. 

Second, some random things I’ve noticed: The kids tell me they have lockers, but they don’t use them – they just carry their bookbags and coats all over to each class.   They also don’t have a “homeroom” time, although they have a main teacher who is responsible for their class…I wonder how things like state attendance records work. 

As for the rest of the week: Tuesday I went to Bielefeld to enroll at a German university (more on that later, maybe, it was a disaster), Wednesday I shadowed a 13^th grade class, Thursday I shadowed 7^th graders, and Friday I got to go to all of Susanne’s English classes with her.  It was awesome! I was super impressed with the 9^th graders knowledge of English, and the 13^th grade class I visited spent the entire class period asking me questions and telling me about stuff in Germany, all in English.  I think the speed at which I speak was throwing them off sometimes, but I think they’ll get into the swing of it soon! 

By far the strangest school-related thing that I’ve experienced here so far is what happens when a teacher can’t be in class.  There are no substitute teachers!  Rather, the main teachers leaves an assignment for the students to work on independently.  It seems like the younger grades have some other teacher sitting in the room with them to keep things under control, but the older kids just fill out their own attendance sheets and then can go do anything!  It strikes me as soooooo strange, yet when I think of how much crap we sometimes gave substitute teachers, I wonder if it isn’t just as an effective way to deal with the regular teacher not being there. 

Finally, on an unrelated-to-school note, here are some population comparisons of various cities here and in the states, to help you (and me!) have some idea of where I am.  Source is, of course, Wikipedia, and numbers are rounded.

Detmold, where I live: 73,000

Blomberg, where I teach: 16,000

Bielefeld, where I’m trying to enroll at university: 325,000

Paderborn, the other university town nearby: 150,000

Bochum, where we went on the class trip: 380,000

Tübingen, where I spent a semester: 90,000

Stuttgart, capital of the state that Tübingen is in: 600,000/2.7 million in the region

Göttingen, where I spent a summer: 120,000

Berlin, Germany’s capital: 3.5 million

Cleveland: 400,000/2 million in the region

St. Louis: 320,000/2.8 million in the region

Washington DC: 600,000/8.1 million in the region

So, I seem to keep moving to smaller and smaller German towns…Detmold only has two platforms at the train station!!