The German School Experience - Day 1

1

Some schools in the US are based around 8 classes, 4 core and 4 elective. This however is not how schools in Germany work. There are 3 school types in Germany that are equivalent to high school in the states; the Realschule, Hauptschule, and Gymnasien. Each based upon a students work ethic and grades.
In June 2009 I had the opportunity to attend a Gymnasien and live with a host family for an entire month! The first day I arrived at the school, called Alexander v. Humboldt Oberschule (a Gymnasien), students swarmed me and kept saying “bist du die Texanerin?!” (are you the Texan?) and other various questions. As shock took over my body and I felt my exchange patner Anna grab my arm and pull me away from the knowledge thirsty German students. The Gymnasien I realized had around 700 kids total, this was a huge change from my 1,000 plus students at school. The school also had kids ranging from 11 to 18 whereas high school for us has kids starting from 14 until 18.
Anna dragged me through the hallway while students stared at us and into her first class we went. It was Math class, this is where I learned how to read a German School Schedule. Each class was 45 minutes long and was different each day, my first day would consist of: Math (8 a.m. - 8:45), Physics (8:55-9:40), Art (9:55-10:40, 10 minute break, 10:50-11:35), German (12:05-12:50), Geography (13:00-13:45), then Latin (14:05-14:50, 10 minute break, 15:00-15:45). Then I discovered if the teacher didn’t show up, class was dismissed for that day!
We commenced class directly at 8 a.m. and ended promptly on time which was a surprise for me. I took notes in class, even though I didn’t understand everything, and even worked on the warm up with my exchange partner. Once class was up we had a 10 minute passing period to get to our next class. Physics with Herr Liebmann, whom became my favorite teacher). He walked into the classroom as we all sat down while the bell echoed through the hallway. “Moin moin!” (Northern German greeting). He looked at the class while everyone greeted him and then he laid eyes on me and started spitting out German sentences faster than I could comprehend them. Luckily Anna was there and explained I was an exchange student for a month, this interested him and he suggested that I participate in all the science experiments.
Classes continued throughout the day and as we went on I realized everything they were learning I had already learned. The thing was this was the 10th grade and I was in the 11th grade when I learned this, they were a year ahead and moved at a faster pace. The teachers also had a different teaching style, they would lecture for about 10 to 20 minutes and then the rest of the class was left to students participating in experiments or working together in groups whereas in the states the teacher either lectures for the whole day or just hands a piece of paper to us and tells us to work silently on it. I will admit I preferred the group work because it let everyone interact with each other and there weren’t any clicks and whatnot in the class since everyone worked together as a team.
The first day was a fantastic experience and I ended up looking forward to the rest of the month and getting to tour Berlin and becoming more acquainted with the students and teachers at the school.