Tomorrow the new school years starts in my neck of the woods and hell I’m nervous. This year I finally got an unlimited contract (but not tenure because working for ages on limited contracts I’m now deemed too old and high risk for tenure, but that’s a different conversation), but it also meant that I have to change schools and I really didn’t want to, despite the new school having much nicer working conditions.
My old school was a hell of a commute, 90 to 120 minutes each day, and it had two different locations which meant that I often had to spend my rare breaks commuting as well. We were also a school next to a poor part of the state capital with all the challenges of working with underprivileged families, lots of refugee families with language barriers and also plainly neglected and abused kids. And while having the qualifications for teaching high school up to year 13, I usually only got to teach up to grade 9 and never Spanish, because that’s year 11.
My new school is pretty close, 10 minutes by car and I’m planning on getting an E-bike next year. The small town has less social problems (though of course they exist everywhere), more space and I get to teach high school and Spanish.
So why on earth did I not want to change? Well, people. I had amazing colleagues and I actually genuinely like kids. I am a notorious “Gutmensch”, a goodie two shoes, bleeding heart progressive person who wants to see kids thrive, regardless of where they’re from. But I’ve accepted the change and am looking forward to new colleagues and new kids and so the term starts tomorrow with my brand new 8th grade who mostly don’t want to be in my class, because they, same as me, had to change.
The German school system is horribly stratified with social background having a huge influence on kids’ school career. While I’m not opposed to our different school leaving certs and vocational training system, putting the kids in different schools after year 4 is bad. It used to be 3 different schools: for the kids of workers who should become workers, for the kids of employees and clerks who should become employees and clerks, and the kids of academics who should become academics. While there’s only two types now in most states, the Gymnasium (yes, that’s a very false friend) where you get the highest leaving cert and the comprehensive schools where you get all the others and often have the possibility to go for the highest cert as well (like in my new school), people still think the Gymnasium is the best and the comprehensive school is the rest. The Gymnasium considers itself an elite school and if you have problems you don’t belong there. Not a type of school where I want to work, despite having the formal qualifications. I much prefer working with all kids and getting some of them to the highest leaving cert despite all odds. Anyway, because of these structures, around year 7 and 8, we see a steady influx of former Gymnasium kids in comprehensive schools, as well as the overwhelming majority of refugees and migrant kids, which means it’s not uncommon for comprehensive schools to form a new class in year 7 or 8 and that’s my class. Now, schools hand it differently how they do that. My old school used to form a new class with the new kids and then put all new arrivals into that class. My new school put kids from the already existing classes as well as new kids into my class. Both ways have their pros and cons, the biggest con for me right now being that I’m going to have a class where a lot of kids don’t want to be in because they lost at the raffle. That’s going to be a challenge. But hey, I’m taking it on, it’s not like there’s an alternative anyway, I’m just here voicing my feelings of being very, very nervous.
So, wish me luck!
Good luck!
Best of luck.
¡buena suerte!
Although we like to say “you never know what someone else is going through,” you do in fact know a lot about these kids, and bring well-honed skills to the challenge. You’ll do fine, and good luck in the bargain.
Good luck from me too. You sound like the type of teacher I wish I had encountered more often.
I left school 30 years ago and find it kinda depressing that the social stratification and elitism in Gymnasium is still alive and well today.
Good luck with the new school!
Wishing you luck!
I lived in Germany for a few years, but it was a few decades ago. I heard various stories about what it was like to be in school there, and what I heard made me glad I did not grow up in Germany. I had a fair amount of trouble in my school (USA), not so much academically as that I just couldn’t fit into the routine — forgetting assignments, mainly, and getting a lot of crap from teachers and administrators. I got better by the time I was in high school (years 10-12, ages 15-17), mainly because I’d switched schools a few years earlier to one where the admins had bigger problems than me and were willing to mostly ignore me and pass me on to the next grade.
My impression was that the German school system was kind of a one-strike-you’re-out system — if you messed up at any stage, you would end up kicked downstairs into Realschule or worse. And there was no way to get back up. There was the so-called Zweiter Bildungsweg, but everyone I talked to said that it was so hard to go through that practically no one who tried actually got a higher certification. I suspect I would have ended up committing suicide one way or another if that had happened to me — I made enough suicide plans as a kid, as it was.
BTW, by “highest leaving cert”, do you mean Abitur? (Does that exist any more?)
Good Luck! :)
I am all the same, nervous as fuck. Tomorrow I start out fresh at the other end of our school system as a teacher at a Berufsschule. I did not choose Gymnasium for pretty much your reasons as well. Our school system es very … strange. As is teacher training tbh.
Allison
Yep, that’s basically it. In the late 80s and early 90s the first comprehensive schools started, which made things a bit better. I know there’s fabulous colleagues at the Gymnasium who really care and in the end, the master’s tools won’t take down the master’s house. It’s especially bad if a kid’s grades crash because they have problems. Now they are still depressed but they also have to leave their friends and social circle! You can get the good old Abitur at most comprehensive schools as well. My own kids have always been straight A students, but we sent them to a comprehensive school for reasons. My eldest is neurodiverse and she would never have made it there. When schools closed during Covid, the Gymnasium would just upload assignments and expect kids to finish by the end of the day. I was more than glad that we had teachers who cared for their wellbeing first and assignments second. It’s also pretty open. At my old school I just had two kids who started as special needs students who struggled academically and they just graduated with the Middle Leaving Cert. They made me so proud.
avalus
That’s like saying Trump has unconventional ideas… Have you already made it through or are you starting the Ref now? Good luck either way.
All the best for tomorrow Giliell. The reason I think you will be ok is because you helped those children do the best they could in the system you have. Kids pick up on which teachers care.
I went through the having a bunch of new kids join the school I went to part way through, although it was because of school reorganisation in my case, and the school handled it as yours is by mixing up the new and old in classes. We really didn’t want the new girls (it was just girls for reasons) and they didn’t want to be there. I don’t think the school handled it well, but they didn’t have it happen every year so I hope the experience your new school has will help.
We still have some authorities with grammar schools and along with the public (a particular set of private schools) and the private schools I think they split up society in a way that most people do not ever recover from. One of my few hopes of the Labour Government is that their plan to tax private schools will see some of them go under, and that will lead to the realisation that they are actually mostly Bad Things.
Thank you. First day is over and I have lovely pupils, I feel like I made the right choice. I hope you feel the same :)
Starting Ref, but I have over a year of PES work with RS+ pupils on my plate (and many years of teaching uni students). Still feel anxious about StudRef and I have much to learn to make fun, engaging chemistry lessons :D.
First day done. The class understandably feels a bit awkward, I’ll try to lure them out of their shells. One question: what are they feeding those kids? I’m used to them being taller than me by year 8 but towering over me? My colleagues are nice and nothing digital is working, so I’m feeling right at home.
Avalus
Congrats! I hope you have some nice Fachleiter*innen. Mine were, well… The one for Spanish didn’t have a life and expected us to be the same and I firmly believe that the one for English was showing classical symptoms of dementia.
Came here to check, glad today was ok for both of you!
Yes, all are pretty much chill, very helpful and thankfully no hard core constructivists. ADD is annoying as per usual.
@Towering Kids: Yes, very much the same! In one class, every pupil is half a head taller then me XD
avalus
There isn’t much to say in favour of my ministry of education, but at least it’s not the ADD