There are times when I despair of humanity. I really don’t want to discuss the current one-and-only public topic. Opinions other than mainstream may not be expressed – if you don’t want to get tared and feathered. The problem is that this topic interferes with absolutely everything and is the reason why I even can write this blog article. What I do want to write about is my personal opinion about education/school in Germany. This is easy and surprisingly short compared to my normal way of writing:
But that sentence in a big font is totally not like Sinchen. I have to elaborate.
What had been more or less a mildly educated guess in the past… I can now say this with quite some sureness. “Thanks” to the one-and-only public topic I now have some insight into an elementary school.
Other countries in lock down: Online school from day 1.
Germany: Nothing → Debating → Nothing → "Maybe we can open schools someday again?"
A friend and myself, we offered the local elementary school to build an isolated system for streaming lessons. Reactions:
girls *ahem* teachers are responsible for educating the youngest and weakest elements of our society. I always felt bad when I had seen them at the bus stop after school – standing together in a group giggling, talking nonsense not paying attention to children as young as six years who were jumping around like mad. There is quite some traffic there. Idiots speeding along the school area as well as mothers driving their tanks SUVs almost into the school building to pick up their offspring(s). Not a reason for the teachers to care for the children and tell them not to jump onto the street!
At least they made some pretty good videos about long division (is this the correct term for the detailed method of writing down a mildly complex division exercise?) and they have a nice handwriting. Sadly they have no idea how to prepare a video before sharing. Oh my… Normalize the audio and don’t force me to crank up volume to an insanely high value in order to understand a word!
I have some more information about other (secondary) schools, even the one I had to visit as a teenager – which was excellent in terms of the teachers' abilities – and is now a place of stupidity.
I'm feeling so desperate. I'm feeling so ashamed. There is no way to ever repair that. But hey: The grades in Abitur keep getting better and better each year.
School and children’s education in Germany is a laughingstock!
But that sentence in a big font is totally not like Sinchen. I have to elaborate.
What had been more or less a mildly educated guess in the past… I can now say this with quite some sureness. “Thanks” to the one-and-only public topic I now have some insight into an elementary school.
- I’ve seen schoolbooks containing ALL answers and solutions – like one would maybe expect in a teacher’s edition (but what for should a teacher need the answers anyway?).
- I’ve seen the “work” method of the young women that are supposed to be teachers. I got my previous knowledge about/of them by only watching their behavior at the bus stop – which brought me more than a few “mega facepalm” moments.
- Some years ago I’ve seen how incapable students at university were pulled trough instead of being stopped. A professor asked me to have a look at some written tests in mathematics. He was almost stunned when he showed it to me. He should make as many students pass the test as possible. Anybody who did not pass on the first try could repeat the test some weeks later. To get good results professor repeated the exact same exercises (with different numbers). ¾ of the students failed on the second attempt. He almost had tears in his eyes as he said to me: “I cannot possibly allow such people to become teachers.” I read the test. It was MUCH easier than what I had to do in written “Abiturprüfung” (final school exam in Germany).
Other countries in lock down: Online school from day 1.
Germany: Nothing → Debating → Nothing → "Maybe we can open schools someday again?"
A friend and myself, we offered the local elementary school to build an isolated system for streaming lessons. Reactions:
- At first: Nothing
- Then: Pointing to possible privacy issues (We would have had full control over the server and our privacy policy fits into one line: “We don’t share any data. We don’t keep any data.”)
- Privacy… yes of course! Then the teacher said: “The children shall prepare a short presentation”. And she asked the parents to film this and upload the result to Dropbox.
- “If you or the children have questions, contact me on Skype.”
- Preparing a digital classroom. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well… the digital classroom is a f…ing collection of internet links! The mails she sent the weeks before did the same. Now we have a site using cookies and certify.alexametrics.com – this is much better!
At least they made some pretty good videos about long division (is this the correct term for the detailed method of writing down a mildly complex division exercise?) and they have a nice handwriting. Sadly they have no idea how to prepare a video before sharing. Oh my… Normalize the audio and don’t force me to crank up volume to an insanely high value in order to understand a word!
I have some more information about other (secondary) schools, even the one I had to visit as a teenager – which was excellent in terms of the teachers' abilities – and is now a place of stupidity.
I'm feeling so desperate. I'm feeling so ashamed. There is no way to ever repair that. But hey: The grades in Abitur keep getting better and better each year.
