Our group of American students, in addition to Betsy, Raphaela, and Anja, toured a Stadtteilschule today. I talked to my host dad a little bit about the system before the visit, and, as he explained it, Germany used to have three basic levels: the Hauptschule, Gemeinschaftsschule, and the Gymnasium. These schools exist on kind of a spectrum of low-performing to high-performing and similarly vocation-focused to academic/university-focused. My host dad described Stadtteilschulen (translated as “district schools") as a combination of the two lower levels and still in contrast to the Gymnasium schools.

One of the first impressions I had of the Stadtteilschule is that it was larger than most schools in Germany. I think it is still smaller than most American schools, but it seemed large because the school was contained in one building, while many American schools have several buildings spread out or have a “mobile land" as part of their school in which many classrooms are just trailers or mobiles.

I also noticed that this school has great resources. This was later explained by the structure of school funding here. There are four forms or levels based on the composition of the students body, taking into consideration factors such as the socioeconomic status (SES) of the student body or the number of students who have immigrated into Germany. Form 1 schools have more students with low SES and more students with immigration backgrounds. My host school is a Form 4 school, while the Stadtteilschule we visited is a Form 1 school. So students are generally segregated into different schools based on their backgrounds (which is arguably bad based on a US perspective of inclusion), but the state also recognizes that students with more difficult backgrounds need more school-provided resources. Some of the resources the Stadtteilschule had are classrooms for metalworking and woodworking, cooking classrooms, art classrooms, music classrooms (including a recording studio), a shop for working on bikes, and a cafe run by “inclusive" students where parties are sometimes held.

Students with special needs, or "inclusive" students, all attend Stadtteilschulen I think. Inclusive students are identified based on input from parents and teachers, which sounds a little less formal than the IEP or 504-plan process we have in the U.S. Every class at the Stadtteilschule has an assistant teacher who has a specialized education in helping inclusive students (this would be awesome / is necessary for the U.S.!)

The first class Raphaela, Libby, and I attended was an English class. In comparison to English classes at my host school, the students and teachers spoke a lot of German. The students worked on a task in groups writing paragraphs about each other. The students were not incredibly self-motivated and did not receive that much prompting from either of the classroom teachers. Some of the students were really friendly as we walked around, asking if they needed any help. A girl from Pakistan asked why I was here, and we talked a little, and she asked me a few questions about her writing assignment. This lesson lasted about 45 minutes, and then the students had about a 5 minute break. Then in the same room with the same class and teacher, we attended a 45-minute history lesson. This history lesson was basically showing part of a movie about a Jewish boy who ended up joining the Hitler Youth. At the end of class, the teacher asked what the movie was about, and one or two students responded. The movie style was a little confusing in our opinion, so we were surprised that there was not a longer class discussion about it.

Our group then had a coffee and cookie break with our host at the school. (I tried to get hot chocolate but accidentally got a carton of chocolate milk, so this was a nice throwback to my time in school.)

After this, Raphaela, Kara, and I observed a class for German language learners. This was a Verbundschule BiSS (Bildung in Sprache und Schrift), or a class for program training in language and writing. On this class, there were students from Syria, Romania, Turkey, and Russia (and probably other countries I forgot). I liked this class because it was immersive in that the teacher gave instructions in German, but she had a simple and direct style that still helped the students understand what was going on through other means besides language. Through this, I think they were able to connect the language and meaning. Repetition was highly emphasized in this class, which I also think is a priority in this kind of memory-demanding learning. Also, the language was broken down conceptually as the teacher explained it. For example, the teacher talked about the different German words for “store" and then drew lines from these words. She then provided and asked for examples of specific types of stores, representing the relationship between these different vocabulary words by drawing the lines in the diagram. Sitting in this class also helped Kara and me learn a bit more German!

After our classes, we met with our host at the school and one of the teachers at the school to ask questions and discuss what we observed. We talked about teacher preparation and perception, the structure of our school systems, and the way we approach inclusion, among other things. The representatives from the Stadtteilschule were interested in asking us questions, too, which was awesome, and I think we all had a great conversation.

After the visit, we went to meet some of the German buddies for ice cream at Jungfernstieg at the inner Alster. This was a great time to visit and eat more Eis!

Later this evening, I also had the pleasure of meeting my host mom’s mom this evening. She is fabulous, down to the glittery pink sneakers. She used to teach at a Hauptschule and another type of school, and we talked for a little while over some bread and jam.