Election posters support preserving the Gymnasium in Germany

Today I’m writing my last post for this blog. For two months we’ve been blogging about education in our home countries. I’ve learned a lot about education in other parts of the world, but also about the German system.

When talking about these subjects, I recognize a certain pattern: Often an education system’s performance is only evaluated by looking at the numbers of students who go on to get higher degrees or earn better marks – in other words, those who seem more prepared for the job market. But there is another factor that makes the educational system tremendously valuable to a society. And this factor is related to the discussion with my friend Katharina that I posted: Pre-schools and schools offer a very important opportunity to bring the members of a society closer together. Yet, Germany doesn’t fully seize this opportunity. On the contrary, the three-tiered school tracking system in many German states furthers the division of our society.

While I had contact with children from all across the social spectrum during my time in elementary school, I stayed friends mostly with students who were also able to go on to a Gymnasium after fourth grade (To have a better idea of what I mean, have a look at my overview of the German school system here). Only at 17 did I hang out with my old classmates again. By then, they had finished other kinds of schools known in German as Hauptschulen or Realschulen. These reunions are traditional in our village: Those who are 18 years old organize a festival each summer. In many cities, traditions like this don’t exist anymore, and neighborhoods and social clubs tend to be divided up along class lines. Schools could be one of the few places left to work against our society breaking apart into separate classes because all children have to attend them.

Politicians often neglect this fact. In the state of Rhineland Palatinate they have abandoned the concept of the Hauptschule. There wasn’t a lot of resistance against this reform. The existence of the Gymnasium wasn’t questioned. Many students attending a Gymnasium and their parents regard their school as a symbol of their achievement and status. Yet, these students miss a lot of opportunities for learning how to socialize with other groups of people. They can also lose sight of the realities faced by many people living in their country.

My high school - a gymnasium - offered a rather cloistered environment

It is still understandable that many parents don’t worry about this as long as their children will have better chances in the job market. They think that their children will learn more easily in this protected environment. Research to the contrary is often powerless against such convictions. For this reason, many parents organized demonstrations when the Gymnasium was to be abandoned in Hamburg. And politicians in Germany’s liberal party proclaimed on their posters during the election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia: “Keep the Gymnasium!”

Can we thus regard the fact that politicians don’t touch the Gymnasium as an election strategy? After all, the most politically active people usually send their children to one. In the socially disadvantaged parts of society, on the other hand, children often don’t make it to a Gymnasium, and there are very few people who would organize any kind of demonstrations or collect signatures or step up in front of a camera to make their point. Additionally, these people vote less often than those with a higher income and a better education.

I would like for committed politicians throughout Germany to no longer regard the Gymnasium as “untouchable” in the future. I also want them to support reforms that will really bring about fair opportunities and stronger cohesion in our society. After all, we have so many more financial resources in Germany than many other countries have. Shouldn’t it be possible to come closer to realizing these goals?

Bild1: FDP-Wahlplakat währen NRW-Wahlkampf

Bild2: Mein Gymnasium bot ein sehr behütetes Umfeld: Es war ein katholisches Mädchengymnasium

My friend Katharina at the head of the line

During the Global Media Forum (GMF), I met the students Hendrik and Isabelle who go to a school for physically impaired students. They participated in an exchange program between their school and a Tunisian school. Right now, Germany is talking a lot about the issue of education for the disabled because two years ago the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities went into effect – including in Germany. It stipulates that disabled children should attend so-called regular schools and should no longer be left out on the basis of their handicaps. As it stands now, the non-disabled have little contact with disabled students. Personally, I just have contact to an uncle of mine, who attended a regular school years ago, but today lives in a facility for the disabled and works in a factory with other workers with handicaps. My friend Katharina also gives me some insight into the daily lives of people with disabilities. She is preparing to become a teacher specialized in working with the disabled. So she was exactly the right person to talk to on the topic of educating the disabled in Germany.

Katharina, during the GMF a Tunisian teacher said that mentally-handicapped children have disadvantages when they go to a regular school instead of a special school for children with handicaps. What do you think about this statement?

Actually, I think she’s right. In my class, I had two children with Down syndrome. They came to our school after finishing fourth grade at a regular elementary school. Both have learned, for instance, the technique of reading, but they don’t understand what they read. They’re too preoccupied with the process itself. The same happens when they do arithmetic: They haven’t acquired the basics.

Do you think that would be different if they had gone to a school for handicapped children earlier?

Probably. Because we aim at teaching each child individually. The whole class works on one topic, but each child works according to his competencies. If we notice that a child doesn’t have the basics of math down, we don’t teach him more advanced topics because it isn’t relevant at his development stage. At normal schools, in contrast, certain basics and development stages are taken for granted. There, teachers don’t have the time to concentrate on a handicapped child and teach him according to his needs.

What kinds of basics do you teach children before they can move on to more advanced mathematical techniques?

What is important is recognizing patterns and rules. We work very playfully. Our students, e.g., thread pearls on a string in a given order. At first the aim is that they recognize that the colors of the pearls follow a certain pattern: A yellow pearl is always followed by a red one which is followed by a blue one and so on. Later on students will be able to recognize succession patterns of numbers.

You work only with handicapped children at your school. But according to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, children with and without handicaps are to be taught together in the future. Do you think this a good decision?

Inclusion should be the watch word for school activities

Generally, this decision is overdue. In Germany, persons without disabilities don’t really know about the lives of handicapped persons. But they are part of our society! For several centuries, our state has excluded them partly by establishing special institutions for the handicapped: kindergartens, schools, workshops and so forth. When that’s done just to make sure we don’t come in contact with persons with disabilities, I think that’s wrong.

Do you think German politicians are taking the right steps to realize the convention’s aims?

It is good that they have recognized the need to change something. Yet, no additional money is invested into education, but we would need this money in order to make individual support of children possible. Often schools don’t have enough means to work with given children individually – particularly, at regular schools. Behind all of the political reforms that have been started, I don’t see any real strategy.

What is needed to support children with disabilities at regular schools?

First, smaller classes are needed! 15 students would be perfect. Research shows that all children profit from smaller groups. Additionally, more personnel is necessary, especially if we want to include children with disabilities in regular classes. In addition to a regular schoolteacher and a teacher trained to work with children with disabilities, an additional expert on relevant pedagogical issues is needed. With smaller classes and more personnel, inclusion would no longer be questioned but taken for granted. We should enable everybody to study according to his abilities. Our whole society has been called upon to realize integration. In schools, integration has just been started. But we have to fully accept persons with disabilities in our society, also outside of our classrooms.