A foreign exchange student from Sweden at the school in my town in America told me when she saw her first cheerleader in uniform in the school hallway, she said, "They're real!" And then she had to get a picture of herself with a cheerleader to send to her friends in Sweden to prove that they exist.
That ended soon after I graduated. My former high school started punishing the cheerleaders for wearing their costumes to school, because it violated the dress code. But, the girls pointed out, you force us to wear them in front of everyone! How can you tell us they’re too skimpy to wear to school? The administration admitted, good point. Soon after, all the popular girls quit the cheer squad for the dance team.
Some people are absolutely shocked to discover that high schools in the US are surprisingly similar to the way they're portrayed in Hollywood. Of course movies exaggerate everything, but a lot of it is spot on. Inner city public schools are a whole different thing though.
I never had a school-bus in my grade schools in Marin county CA north of San Francisco. My parents usually took me and my brother to and from school until we could bike on our own which I often did.
Well this statement might be related to the fact that German is an unbound language and also contains some hard and rubbing sounds. So, compared to French it is much less of a melody. However, a nice featue is the composition of words which makes it very logical. Someone riding (fahren) a bicycle (Rad) is a "Radfahrer" and if he participates in a race (Rennen) of cyclists (Radrennen), then he is called a "Radrennfahrer" and the bike used for it is called a "Rennrad" (road bike). So you can also call him a "Rennradfahrer" (someone using a road bike). So you can build sentences like: Ein Radrennfahrer fährt mit dem Rennrad im Radrennen Rad - a cycling racer is cycling in a cycle race with his road bike. 9 instead of 13 words.
When I was in school we usually had a period called Study Hall where you got to work on your homework. So most of the time you got a major chunk of your homework done there. If you had any left at the end of period, you took it home.
Hi Feli! My son goes to a very modern comprehensive school in Germany. In this school, they hardly give any homework apart from learning vocabulary or reading a book. Instead, they get weekly plans they have to work out themselves They get time with two teachers in which they can do their tasks called working time (Arbeitszeit) and I have to say that I kind of like that system better than our traditional system with loads of homework to do at home. It takes off the burden from me as a parent to support my son with his homework and gives him an expert, the teacher, for his questions right when he needs one. And in that school, there are lockers, too. So, school can be experienced very differently in Germany.
I went to Gymnasium in Bavaria and attended a short exchange program (3 weeks) with an American high school (Oregon) in my 11th year. When my exchange partner came to visit, our English exams were returned and he was quite shocked since the test was much harder than his English tests.
You can't really compare that because a) Germany did the "G8 reform" some years ago which basically put all the stuff that was meant to be taught in 13 years into 12 years of school instead, meaning that students had to do all the things they'd do until graduation one year earlier then they'd normally do and b) the German Gymnasium standards are like AP classes in the US. So if your exchange partner took the standard classes in his American school and then went to a German Gymnasium where the curriculum is on AP level + one year ahead it was obviously way harder for him in the German school. But Bavaria is reversing the G8 reform as it turned out that it was just too much for students, the students who are now starting Gymnasium are going to graduate after 13 years (G9) again. With that, 11th grade in these schools will be pretty much the same as 11th grade AP classes in American high schools.
Well, I started school in 1954 at 5 years old. I went to a Parochial School, which was set up just about the way you described German Schools. We also stopped using a pencil in the 2nd Grade and switched to a fountain pen (with a blotter of course). Ballpoint pens were out. In secondary school we had to write in Pen, especially tests, so no pencil there. There were sports in High School (Secondary School) which the students would rally around their school teams. I lived in New York City (Brooklyn) and we did not have school buses. We used public transportation or our feet. The school bus is a recent phenomenon in NYC schools. I graduated in 1967, so this change was made some time ago. As for College, I attended college later in life and was able to pick my courses up until I graduated. Schools changed in the years since I was a student in Grade and Secondary School. Discipline today is lacking and today's kids get away with a lot more than students of my era. Are days gone by better than today? I can't say but I know how to write in cursive, learned French, learned how to add without a PEN or pencil, Know geography and world history, science and writing. Many kids today can't do half of what I learned before the 5th grade. It is a shame.
Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch, who are closely related to the Germans (in fact, the Netherlands used to be part of the Holy Roman Empire, from which modern Germany evolved), so it makes sense that Indonesian and German schools might be similar.
@@NikiAesthette Well I think it is Central European inheritage. The modern school system in Germany is based on Martin Luther and Melanchthon (enforced the duty to go to school) and the early teachers from 18th-19th century like Pestalozzi (who was actually from Switzerland) or Fröbel (who developed kindergarden). The system is rather similar in all Central Europe except that some later political developments like communism in Eastern Central Europe led to slight deviations. Beside that, especially in catholic areas, monasteries played and sometimes still play a role in the school system.
I give the perspective of a third party here: I'm Argentinean, and our primary and secondary schools strongly resemble the German system. No lockers, green chalkboard at the front, a two-persons student's desk, weekly schedule of subjects. It seems to me that a German-like system or similar is also used by most Latin American countries, but of course if some other Latinamerican here have a different experience, please share it, it will be great to know.
Chilean teacher here, living in Germany. ...Ehrm, yes, very similar to the schools in the 50's in Chile 😅, but not nowadays. I would say in Chile is more modern, and the use of innovative methods, and tech is well promoted (also well received by students (: ). In Germany, they are still using chalk and tons of paper. Same methods from our omas for teaching, etc.
@@FelifromGermany Americans might say they took [insert time here] of Spanish while Germans might say the equivalent of they had [insert time here] of French. But they would often say it in German so what is the difference in German between taking a subject and having it.
When I was in high school, and I graduated in 2007, we actually utilized an A and B day schedule. You’d have 4 or 5 classes one day, and 4 or 5 different ones the next day, and while we did have lockers, I never used mine. I just carried all the books I needed for that day with me everywhere. We were also required to take two years of one foreign language, but you could take 3 or 4 if you wanted to. I did 4 years of German, of course! We even had a German Club that would meet on Tuesdays after school. That was probably the most fun I had at school! Another thing, regarding cursive, we learned it in 2nd grade and were required to use it after we learned it, but after 2nd grade, no one really cared how you wrote anymore. And as far as pens and pencils are concerned, after elementary school, you could write with a pen if you wanted, but doing math with a pen was always frowned upon all the way up til 12th grade.
When I was in high school, we had what they called a “block schedule” where students would have four class periods a day and each class was an hour and half long and they would meet every day. And the school day started at 8am and ended at 3pm. Though some days we would only have a half day and get out around lunchtime and the teachers would have time to work on grades and plan upcoming lessons. A lot of schools do something similar or they do the typical hour long class that meets every day. As far as homework, we just carried the books we needed and usually left the ones we didn’t need for whatever reason there at school. In some ways I like the way you all do school because in the US they really strongly encourage students to go to college, which for some college might not be the best choice. It may be better for them to learn a trade or something. Some of the AP (advanced placement) classes in high school you could even get college credit for it, which is nice because in some students situations could earn enough credit to get an Associates degree!
My school had two tracks you could follow. You could do the technical track or the university track. You choose your classes and may share the same basic classes, but those on the tech track eventually had options for shop class, auto mechanics, home Ed, etc. People on the university class didn't get those options. But either track shared alot of the same basic courses like math, English, science.
There are school buses in Germany, too. Maybe not so much in big cities like Munich, as there is enough public transportation available. So it's more in suburbs, small towns or rural areas. Difference to the US is that the school bus has fixed bus stops and they are regular buses and not yellow. ;) A Bachelor's degree in Germany can take from 6 semesters (3 years) to 8 Semesters (4 years) in general. Mine was 7 Semesters (3.5 years). The important part is that if you want a Master's degree you need 10 semesters total at a university (that is 300 credit points or so iirc (30 per semester)). So since the time for Bachelor's is variable Master's degrees also go from 1 year (2 semsters) to 2 years (4 semsters). I switched back to block letters in Oberstufe or so. It's more readable and tbh I can write faster in it than in kursive.
The difference is : German School Busse are the usual line Bus, the just use it for pupils only at certain Times. If Not used during those Times, they use it as a regular Bus. For example we had a school Bus for the villages north of Husum, they took us in between 6:30 and 7:00 drove us to the school and came back after 5th and 6th period. If we had a longer school day or shorter we had to take the regular Bus.
@@wandilismus8726 I guess it depends on the region or from city to city but our school busses were just school busses. They were operated by a different company that just provided school bus services and they also looked different than the normal busses used for public transportation (more seats, no space for wheelchair users or buggys, no wheelchair ramp, usually several steps at the entrances, different design on the outside, same driver every day that was assigned one or two routes and drove that route every day for several years, often decades).
@@wandilismus8726 that's not true for all of Germany. You can find private school buses in many rural areas and sometimes even in bigger cities. If you live in a very remote area with bad public transport (or none at all), simply can't rely on public transportation. Hence the school has to provide some alternative.
When I went to highschool in the 8o's , our homeroom was the first class you had. The teacher took attendance and then he/she taught the first subject of the day. School began at 7:30am and ended around 3. Each semester your schedule changed. A sleeping student wasn't disturbing the class so they weren't punished.
I find it allways sad that not everywhere in Germany "Einschulung"(school enrollment) was celebrated... In the eastern parts of Germany on the weekend before the first day of elementary school, there be a ceremony at the school with all your family members, often also with aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents... where you get your "Schultüte" and afterwards there will be also a little "party" just with your family. This is my first memory where i "take the center stage" and i allways like to think back to this day.
We didn't have a a feast, but it was a special day, too. The Schultüte was the biggest ammount of sweeties I ever got in my whole childhood. And I got a new dress for my first day at school. And they took photos, which was very unusal for my family. I still remember. Oh, and my own children celebrated their last day at Kindergarten in a special way: They were allowed to sleep there overnight.
I live in Lower Saxony and we have school buses, and they're usually very full of people. There's just a few bus stops tho, they don't come to your house. But many students do also prefer to walk or take the bike to school
Yes, I'm from a small village in Northern Germany, and I also always went to school by school bus, as there was no public transportation to the next town.
The school buses in the states don't really come to each house...at least in a neighborhood. They come to a corner & the student walks to the corner. That's just efficient. However in the country, the bus stops at each individual's driveway. But in the country, the houses aren't close together.
I'm American, and went to public school in the 60s and early 70s. As I recall, we used to have to listen to the national anthem and do the pledge of allegiance every morning in elementary school (grades 1 through 6), but I think we only listened to the national anthem at higher grades. We always had the same classmates the whole day up until 10th grade. Sometimes some cheerleaders wore their uniforms in class, but not often. Our high school was huge, and there were 945 in my graduating class. Some in my class I had never even met. At 10th grade, we started mixing with students from other homerooms, and we had to decide what curriculum we wanted to follow. There were several categories to choose: College Prep - As the title says, this category was for those wishing to go to college. The students would have to take more advanced math, chemistry, and maybe a language. Technical - The students would spend half a day in high school, and would take another bus to technical school for a half day. They had to take algebra, chemistry, and other advanced math studies, and learned technical skills in medicine, graphic arts, etc. Business - This is the one I chose. The curriculum was anything involving business management and retail. Students took courses in accounting, typing, and in their senior year, spent half a day in high school, and half a day working a retail job. We got graded on the job also. Since parking was limited at the high school, we were the ONLY students who got parking passes to later go to our jobs. Commercial - This was strictly secretarial, and involved a lot of typing and shorthand. General- This was the lowest curriculum, and most of the students who got into this were either bullies or lazy-ass people going in no direction.
The Gymnasium i went to was the "most state of the art" Gymnasium in whole Lower-Saxony when it opened in 2005 or 2006. Well working and good powered (!) computers in every room, Smartboards everywhere, Wifi for students, a school car sponsored by local companys, interesting and quiet a lot extracurriculars, ... it was kind of a paradies.
In Gymnasium I had afternoon lessons on 4 days and up to 10 periods. And it was the G9 system. 4-6 periods was during year 5 and 6, but if you are older than you have a lot more school.
Same here! And we even only hat a half hour lunch break. No matter if it was a 6 hour or an 8 hour day. It was always 4 periods in the morning, lunch, and 2-4 periods (if you were unlucky even more) in the afternoon. We also had a cafeteria with school lunched being provided (you had to order these in advance though, usually for the upcoming month. There was usually a choice between 2-3 different meals and you would go to the cafeteria with a little paper slip that showed which meal you had picked and you could exchange it for the actual food. Of course you had to pay in advance as well) Lots of people also brought their own lunches though. For the last two years the schedule was more flexible, but there were still afternoon classes - sometimes I had ONLY afternoon classes, which was nice because I could sleep in hahaha
At my school here in Bavaria every room has a document camera, projector, the older rooms have white boards. The newer ones are equipped with interactive boards that go online. Things have changed quickly the last 3 years. Covid pushed everything forward. The old overhead projectors died out about ca 2010 I whould say....
At least in North Rhine-Westphaliathe overhead projectors for sure didn't die out in 2010... I graduated in 2016 and we still used them a lot. My younger sister, who graduated 2018, did too, though they were slowly getting beamers in more rooms. But even than overhead projectors were still used quite often. Idk about know tho..
A little consolation: I never understood, why a white board should be better than a chalk board. Generations of students reached their goals with the chalk boards and young people have good eyes. And no chemistry and plastic is needed to write a sentence on the board and remove it. It produces no rubbish, like a white board does. Ok, projectors and document cameras help a lot and should be standard, I think. But if I want to show my students a website, I just start the internet on my teacher-PC and project it. Theese new smart boards with interactive features cost a lot of money and are ful of gadgetry. A lot of effort to play around a bit. That doesn't make our students more clever in my eyes. I think it is a thing of prestige. In my opinion they should take the money and buy projectors and document cameras for other reagions like NRW, that haven't any. For theese devices are tons better than overhead projectors and make everyday life at school much easier and save resources.
In my old school in NRW overhead projectors are still the norm as well. My cousin attends this school at the moment and if they want or have to do presentations the teacher still has to aply to be allowd to use one of the few rooms with projectors and a laptop so that the students can use Powerpoint for the presentation. At least they got rid of the old TVs and VHS cassettes since I left the school in 2012, but as they didn't get more projectors they now struggle to show films to the students because the rooms with the equipment are usually occupied for presentations. I guess they were busy making sure nobody dies in the school because every now and then parts of the ceiling come down and didn't have the money to digitalize the classrooms...
I think it also depends if the school is a big school in a big city or a small school in a small town. I graduated Realschule in 2018 and no classroom had a whiteboard. They just installed projectors (beamer) in every room, and most teachers didn't know how to use them so they kept using overhead projectors (i better know them as Podylux)
The Realschule I attended in southern Bavaria installed projectors and document cameras as well as desktop PCs in every classroom about or 7 8 years ago when I was in 7th grade. They were such an improvement over the old overhead projectors, I'm still wondering how we managed without them before that. It probably highly depends on how much schools decide to spend on digitalisation, but Bavaria generally seems to be pretty far ahead in that aspect compared to many other German states.
I was a member of my high school's speech and debate team. We competed against students from schools within the state. I enjoyed home football games and the dances afterward. I had friends who were on the football team, cheerleading squad, and the marching band.
RURAL schools are VERY different from city schools in the U.S. They're VERY small - only around 20-25 kids in the entire grade. In my physics classes, I was the ONLY student! School lunches were quality, home made food - like a RESTAURANT buffet - you could return for second and third helpings (FREE) until they ran out! :o) Sports were almost as important as school itself! I remember having 4-6 hour basketball practices EVERY NIGHT until I finally QUIT for it leaving me no time or energy for my schoolwork and OTHER extracurricular activities! :oO From junior-high through high-school we had lockers, which to this day seems strange to me. In gradeschool we kept our materials in our assigned desks. In college we kept our books and materials with us at all times in backpacks. In college be we had to buy our books, and most people sold them back at the end of the semester for a fraction of what they bought them for. I was always in awe that for my four-year bachelor's degree, two years of classes had nothing to do with my major, one year generally applied, and only ONE year SPECIFICALLY applied! What a racket!
Yes, this is true for the most part. However I went to a small poorer country school. Our schools had what we needed. But we had to pay for extra lunch. Our books were sometimes signed by 10 names. So our resources were limited because the teachers were paid well. However all in all, we got a decent education.
@@jeffrutt6331 I suspect the reason we got extra helpings free was that the high school was the last to eat. (The gradeschool and middleschool ate before us.) Thus, whatever we didn't eat the cooks probably took home for their own families or threw away.
@Frank Lincoln I 100% agree. I learned information in college that REVOLUTIONIZED my knowledge and perspective of the world. It gave me knowledge, awareness, and understanding of the world that makes me sorry for those that never got it themselves. However, from a purely PRACTICAL point of view, it still unnerves me that colleges, banks, and employers have colluded to exploit naive, unsuspecting students and their parents for MASSIVE amounts of money for their own benefit. That is, under the clearly FALSE guise that students really need it to perform the tasks of their chosen profession.
When I was an exchange student in the US i was shocked that they literally served pizza every day for lunch. I always brought my own food but who thinks that pizza is an appropriate lunch?!??!
In Germany, you have to pay for lockers. And it's also not certain that your locker is near your classroom which makes it inefficient to use it. However, my old school had free lockers in each classroom in the new building which is very nice because you don't have to carry around heavy books all the time. Especially for subjects the teacher uses the textbook like once a school year^^
I graduated from a german Gymnasium at the age of 17 one year ago and I just realised how different our schools were XD for example I only had a classroom until year 6 and I had afternoon classes iterally every single day. So most of the time school ended at about 5:15 pm. But overall a very nice video, thumbs up :)
Those yellow school buses aren't a feature everywhere in the US. At least in the Bronx, where I grew up, school kids are just as independent as their German counterparts. Depending on your address (meaning how far away you lived from school), you'd get either a free bus or a subway pass. In the mornings it would be very common to see kids on the public buses or subways on their way to school. I got a bus pass, but was always kinda jealous of friends of mine that got a subway pass. Yellow buses were never a thing in the Bronx though, as far as I can remember. I'm also not sure about the rest of NYC, but I suspect it was similar to the Bronx. Re academic difficulty, I hear all the time from my European friends how easy they found the school curriculum when they did an exchange program in the US, and so they go around thinking and telling everyone that American high schools are so "easy" and how superior the schools are in Europe, etc. But I think I've figured out the misunderstanding. Unlike Europe which separates students into different schools according to their difficulty (Hauptschule vs. Gymnasium), in the US everyone attends the same school. This means under the same roof you'd have a regular school (similar to the Hauptschule in Germany), AS WELL AS advanced college level courses, which we call "Regents" in NY State (similar to Gymnasium in Germany). Exchange students from abroad always attend the regular track in American schools, which is pretty rudimentary. Only honors kids or kids with very good grades are allowed to take Regents classes, or AP classes, which are supposed to prepare you for college/university. Exchange students are almost NEVER placed in the Regents classes, and so they return home thinking that high school in the US is super easy. That, however is NOT the case! Regents physics, biology and math are every bit as difficult as at a German Gymnasium. Just the other day I surprised my doctor with a detailed answer while he was explaining the side-effects of some medication. He asked how I knew that, if I'd studied biochemistry - I replied that I could still remember my biology classes from high school in NY, then I described to him the role of Mitochondrial DNA, RNA and the effects of this medication he was prescribed me. He was very surprised! All of that was thanks to my teacher Miss Perez from my Regents Biology class in high school... There's also a HUGE difference between public and private schools and universities in the U.S. From your descriptions, I suspect that you're mostly familiar with the public school system where the curriculum tends to be easier. That's not the case however at private schools. They cost a lot more money, but in return you get a much higher academic level and more engaging teachers. As far as the US goes, it's seldom a good idea to generalize based on one's experience in only one state or after having attended only public schools.
Interesting Video! On the equipment of German schools: Although a blackboard and an overhead projector are still frequently in use at state schools, modernization is taking place and will continue to do so. At a private school, for example, there are already digital boards, whiteboards and book cameras. [In addition, "Apple TV" with screens and IPads for all teachers (mandatory) and students (voluntary) has now been introduced at my old school]. I think modernization of all schools is important and inevitable, especially in the era of digitalization.
I used to get my butt whooped for bringing homework home because my stepfather didn't understand the concept of homework. Certain magnet schools here in Minnesota have abolished homework. My GPA would have been phenomenal without that being on my score.
@@unityostara6380 - when I was in school, my dad was always an assistant or associate professor at the University we were at (he taught stagecraft, set construction, and speech), and my mom worked at a local library or on campus as a staff person at their local Human Resources department. So, they valued homework. They even bought me my own study carrell to have in my bedroom at home, where I could do my homework, paint lead figures for wargaming club, etc…. I do consider myself to be fortunate that my parents met when they were in college and they both highly valued education. It also helped that my grandfather was a regional manager for World Book Encyclopedia, and so we always had a set that was no more than a couple of years old.
@@shubinternet we had an encyclopedia set. Unfortunately from 1957. I was born with a thirst of knowledge that wasn't exactly appreciated by my blue collar grandparents or my pot smoking/dealer mom and stepdad. I read those encyclopedias back and forth.
@@unityostara6380 - by sixth grade, I had pretty much memorized the entire encyclopedia. They gave me reading tests and they didn’t understand how I could be reading at a college level. I had to explain to them every time about the very well-thumbed set of encyclopedias we always had. But reading at that level didn’t give me the emotional aptitude to deal with people or the other things that come along with being treated as a really bright kid. School was one of the most unpleasant times in my entire life, at least until I found out about D&D and wargaming club.
@@shubinternet I found inline hockey and it did overlap with some d&d guys. I'm really not into the fantasy gaming but it was a breath of fresh air taking to intelligent and interesting people.
I graduated high school in 1974. There was a male student who sat behind me who put his head down on the desk and slept almost every day....The teacher would return tests by giving the first person in the row all the test papesr, they would take their paper and pass the rest back...I'd get mine and see Robert's test and he always had a better grade than me... he was part of a large poor family who didn't even have a TV until high school...He spent a large amount of time reading, especially military books... I think he was just so bored listening to things he already knew and slept... He joined the Marines after high school....thanks for the video
At my American school, they give us a set of textbooks to keep at home which we use for homework. Each individual class provides the needed textbooks as well, so you would not be carrying your books to and from school every day.
When I was in school (graduated high school in 1980, in Orange County in California), using backpacks was about the least cool thing one could do. It immediately defined you as the nerdiest kid in the world. When I got to college, everyone had a backpack, myself included. And now backpacks are ubiquitous in high school and lower levels.
Only time I've ever ridden a school bus was going to football and soccer games with the school team. My elementary school was about a half-mile away, and we walked. Junior high was across the street from elementary school, mostly rode my bike. Once I turned 16, my sophomore year, drove to school everyday. The students' parking lot was much bigger than the teachers' lot, because hundreds of students drove. Now it seems many (most?) kids are driven to school by their parents. This rarely happened when I was in school, even when it rained. But the landscape is different today, in terms of danger. We had pledge of allegiance from the start, but I stopped doing it around 4th grade. Always found it a tad fascistic.
We had a very good football team -- lost just four games, three of them in playoffs, in my four years -- and we'd get 8,000-10,000 at many games. (Not quite like Texas!) Our basketball team wasn't very good, but we had a championship soccer team, which played at the same time of year. Our soccer team drew bigger crowds than the basketball team.
I've never used a fountain pen, and I'm almost 60. We had to learn cursive in first and second grade and were told we'd have to write in cursive as we got older. We didn't. The older we got, the less cursive we saw. I think teachers preferred the "block" writing, because it was (generally) more readable. And then, once in college, everything except in-class essays/tests had to be typed.
I really enjoyed this video! I am a teacher, here in the Sates, but I also lived in Germany for a year, when I was thirteen (in Gottingen) a LONG time ago. My quick 2 cents: As a former 1st-grade teacher, loved the Schultute idea (especially the homemade one). So sweet! About pencil sharpeners in classrooms; So true! Every US classroom has one. And I remember (as a 13 year old American girl attending 8th grade in Germany) marveling at your fountain pen skills. :) You are correct about chalk boards (those are completely obsolete in the US. All public classrooms that I have worked in over the last 15 years, had white boards or interactive "Smart baords" (or both). Though it might be the case that German classrooms have that technology now. One last point; I grew up and attended University in California at a public University; The University of California, Berkeley. While I understand your point and why you might be tempted to generalize about the public universities in the US being easier (I think you said for undergraduates) than in Germany, I don't think that is true. While there are many public universities in the U.S., for which that might be the case, there are also a good number of public universities (my alma mater included) that can compete with the best universities around the world - both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Such an interesting topic!
From the video, it appears there’s a lot more homogeneity in the German school system than in the US one. At the K-12 level in the US there’s a wide variety of quality and rigor in schools. If Feli’s understanding of US schools is mostly based on people attending school in and around Ohio, I’d say that’s not a region that’s well-known for high quality schools - though I’m sure there are some. Similarly at the university level, there are low quality/low rigor public and private schools, as well as high quality/high rigor public and private schools. And it can vary by program at the same university as well. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen University of Cincinnati on a “best of” college lists, so I wouldn’t compare it to say the Universities of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, North Carolina, or Penn State, etc. Published information shows U. of Cincinnati accepts 77% of its applicants, while U. of California Berkeley accepts 16% and U. of Michigan accepts 23%. Not a perfect metric, but it generally correlates with competitiveness and quality of the school.
Hey from Hanover, Germany (not too far from Göttingen, btw!). I can confirm, that at least in Lower Saxony it's very common nowadays for schools to have smart boards and ipads for every kid. Chalk boards on the other hand are usually not in use anymore, except for Elementary Schools.
Our football games were always Friday nights. We play basketball & baseball games twice a week (Tuesdays & Fridays usually). Once it got warmer out, we'd play some extra baseball games on Saturday. Our conference was large and we usually travelled 1-2 hours each way by bus. We had some non-conference games which took 3-4 hours each way.
There were definitely a few more subjects to choose between in Germany, too :D I went to school in NRW and i was able to pick psychology, pedagogy, literature or dutch for example. My sister even had an ancient greek class.
we had psychology at my school in Munich too. Ancient Greek classes are only offered at very few schools. pedagogy is not a subject in Bavaria at all, tough I’ve heard of it being common and popular in nrw.
Older US student here (graduated high school in 1985) Generally speaking, I seldom had homework - what assignments I couldn't finish during that particular class, I could usually find time for during other classes. Most stuff I actually took home to work on was stuff like term papers (theses) or other assignments generally meant to take multiple days to complete. Grade School (1-6) had two class periods, then a 20-minute recess, two more classes, lunch, then two more classes. While not etched in stone, classes were pretty standardized by grade level - Math, Science, History, Social Studies, and English. The sixth class varied by grade level and generally focused on Art, Music, or PE. Junior High (7-9) had three class periods, a one-hour period split between lunch and homeroom, then three more classes - no more recess. Math, English, Science, and History were standardized by grade level. The other two classes were technically electives, though a number of courses were required at some point: you had to take at least two semesters of "skills" (usually shop for the guys, home-ec for the gals), at least two one-semester Art courses, etc. High School (10-12) also had three class periods, a one-hour period split between lunch and homeroom, then three more classes. English was now the only standardized one-per-grade-level course; three math courses (Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry) were required, as were Physics, Chemistry, and at least one more applied science; at least two years of PE; US History, Civics, and World History plus one history elective; and one year of a foreign language (though I got out of it by taking a course in mythology). The rest were open electives - I took Drafting and Architectural Drafting, Computer Programming (back when BASIC was king), Creative Writing, and I totally forget what the other was. Very rarely did I ever ride the bus to school. Prior to 9th Grade, I rode my bike to and from school (unless the weather was bad enough to warrant one of my parents/grandparents driving me). Due to peculiar circumstances, I was able to get my full drivers' license at 14½ - two weeks into starting 10th Grade - and drove myself from then on. Academic standards were definitely higher back when I was in high school - in most courses, the 'baseline' was 80% (B- letter-wise) and, if you wanted a higher grade, you had to earn it! In programing, for example; if your program accomplished the task reliably without error, it was worth 80%. Me, I *ALWAYS* went the extra mile - an intuitive UI (which was quite the challenge back then), error handling, data checking, code efficiency, etc. For writing assignments, it was MLA all the way (again, far more challenging back in the days before the internet) and every fact/assertion needed a cited source. Discipline was also hugely different back when I was in school. The infamous 'Board of Education' was still a thing and, if you were violent or excessively disruptive, you got smacked with it - in most schools, you could hear the crack of someone's ass getting whacked from anywhere within the building. For 'lesser offenses', the teachers would often embarrass you in such a way as you'd never want to risk a second offense: fall asleep in class and you spent the rest of the period (possibly even an entire week) standing up; act up and they moved your desk outside the classroom and shut the door; keep interrupting the lecture and the teacher would trade desks with you ("Since you know so much that you don't need to pay attention, *you* get to teach the class.") Brutal, but highly effective!
I don't remember having to go through a security system in Canada for school, but I went to school in the early '90s to early 2000s, so maybe that was different times. This was an interesting video!
I am also from Canada 🇨🇦 Our system is similar to the US. But school usually starts closer to 9 am and ends between 3-3:30 depending on the busing situation. Last year with covid my daughter's school had the teachers go from class to class so there was less kids in the halls and they didn't use lockers. We has smart boards already when i was in high school in 1995 but only for certain classes. Schools are now all equipped with dry erase boards. The high school i went to was small so there were not many options for extra classes but i now live in a city so my daughter will have a lot more options. Stantards in Canada are generally highly in Canada 🇨🇦 then in the US but if you need some extra courses that you did not get in high school you can either challenge them or take them in college. You can do the option of general studies and take courses needed for your program
Nice to have discovered your channel!! Already learned some things from your videos. Love your enthusiasm and energy in your videos. Well, writing and learning from Hawaii ! ! Have you ever been here? If not, you should : ) ALOHA!
Since the pandemic started many of our teachers started to use projectors more and more often. We also have some rooms with white boards as well. To how long a school day is: I had days where I had to stay until 6pm. This was because I took Chinese lessons, but most of my school days in the Gymnasium where at least until 3pm.
Probably because I'm older than yourself (there was 2 Germanys when I was in school) but we definitely had chalkboards here in US. The dry erase whiteboards are an after my time thing.
As someone that just graduated from a Bavarian Gymnasium we still use blackboards in almost all classrooms they even still build new ones the only difference is that now most rooms have projectors for Computers and OHPs are slowly disappearing (mostly bc after covid started teachers got school funded tablets and there was more money for tech equipment in general)
I never had any of this "tv school" in the US when I went. I never saw a locker in school. Never took a school bus. I walked to school from about 3rd grade until I graduated high school. The only time I even heard the word "prom" was on Happy Days.
I was on a Realschule in NRW and later on a Gesamtschule for my Abitur which I finished in 2010. In 2014, during my BA program I did an internship at my old Realschule for potentially becoming a teacher and there were still classic green boards with chalk and I think they still use these today. I think, the school level and the area where the school is, play huge roles in how well the school is equipped. Families with a good income will put their kids in Gymnasiums and are willing and able to provide schools with some more money to ensure a better education than parents from "Arbeiterkinder".
At all the schools I went to, the school band was a concert band and a year-round thing, or they did concert band for half the year and then the same students did marching band for the other half.
@@shubinternet Me too. So much of what Fili talks about for American schools is much more recent. Some the same like lockers and students changing classes and the loud and crowded hallways. Unfortunately I went to school from 7-12 grade in a completely different town than the one I lived in so lots of travel time and NO extracurriculars for me. I was not alone, however a few years after I graduated @17 they built both a new Junior High and High School. Those terms alone date me. Middle or Intermediate school came about after I graduated as did AP classes and such. I will say except for the "dummy" classes in high school like Fundamentals of Math my high school was more like the way Fili describes gymnasium. 70 or above to pass. Grades of D= 60%-70% did NOT pass in my school. Only A's, B's, or C's were a pass. Not to mention NO sleeping in class or off to the principals office you were sent. Late homework or projects did NOT exist unless you had a serious illness. Even then it was better to have someone bring your homework to school than to simply be sick/missing and not just in high school. Things got a little tougher near the end when missing more than 10 days a semester was an automatic fail. Nowadays they baby the kids all the way through high school. They give out diplomas like candy. That is why colleges have to have so many remedial classes. Just my experience. Fili should mention as I think she did in another video that she was top of her class so perhaps she has a different take on schools in general than someone who barely got by. Just a thought.
In the 60's-70's, when I grew up, in rural Northern Utah, "unique group dynamics" never happened as the bus drivers could and would ban you from riding the bus for however long as your behavior dictated. Riding the Yellow School Buses where I have lived and raised kids is a privilege, not a right. Now, I live outside Chillicothe, Ohio (80-90 miles East of you), and my Granddaughter that lives with us, attends the schools here. Their buses are all assigned seating. Hers putting the little kids up front, the older kids in the middle, and the trusted older kids in the back. Rarely has there been an issue, and again, those problem riders can be banned from the bus. I think one of the reasons for students changing classes in older grades can be traced back to when many students (rural and semi-rural for sure) went to school learning a trade or preparing for work in industry. History, Reading, Math, and Home Ec.,Auto shop, Wood shop, drafting, Ag Science, etc, were classes in Middle and High School. For example, I took two years of electronics/electrical theory, half a year of house wiring, half a year of drafting, half a year of wood shop, etc. That's the way it was for my dad, me, my oldest daughter, but sometime in the late 80's-90's, education moved away from teaching work/life skills to everyone must go to college. Kids leave US school without the basic skills to work in industry, or be an adult, but they can sort recyclables, and use smart phones like their life depended on it, but that's another story.
@Randall Green, I'm older, probably than you. I went to all those classes and still didn't know how to live. As for you bus solution ask those kids if they have been bullied on that bus. the bus driver had the same power as yours trouble was the bully was his son. Most of the jobs we had growing up are no longer available to young people in this country because of the greed we let flourish of corporation that the bottom line is more important than people. We must educate the kids for the future not the past
I never used my locker in school. Senior year I just put all my empty water bottles in it. Filled to the brim with bottles. Probably gave whoever cleaned it out a good scare and a good laugh
Talking about how to go to school, here in Italy some cities and towns have activated a service called Pedibus. This means that children go to school walking together and accompanied by some volunteers who check out that everything is fine and then leave children at their schools.
It seems that, the German "Gesamtschule" and "Ganztagesschule" has more in common with the American High Schools concerning extracurricula and choices of courses
@@katjahuskinson3428 Here in NRW they are getting rid of the Hauptschule and Realschule. They are putting them together and call it Sekundarschule, but the Gymnasium still remains
@@SuperwurstLP well, I only have experience with schooling in Bavaria and Lower Saxony, so I can only speak for those. Right now more Lower Saxony than Bavaria though. So, here we still have all school types seperately, but there are also "integrierte Gesamtschulen" (IGS) and some of them only go up to "Mittlere Reife", so basically they are Haupt- and Realschule, but the trend is going towards all of them also having a " Oberstufe", so the possibility of getting your Abitur as well. It's just so weird to me that Germany really isn't a big country geographically, but we still can't have the same system all over. Makes moving with school kids between Bundesländer a nightmare.
Yeah i agree :) I am actually a student on a Gesamtschule here in Cologne (NRW) and it seems like our school has so much more in common with high schools in the USA than german Gymnasien do..
@@katjahuskinson3428 Gesamtschule vs. dividing into three school types after 4th grade is a cultural fight in Germany since 50 years. In the more conservative/right wing ruled states we have mostly the divided System and in the more left wing states we have more of the integrated schools. Since Bavaria is (kind of like Texas) traditionally right wing ruled, it has the traditional system.
When I was student in Germany (Saxony), we had blackboards and overhead projectors as shown until my 10th grade (in 2016) too. But after that they changed a lot. Some rooms really do look like the American version you showed, with document cameras, smartboards and projectors (Beamer). At the school where I teach now they have these old blackboards, but big TV screens above to connect with tablets or laptops and blue ray players. Of course some still look like you described, but I think that will change soon. And we just had a class room until 6th grade. After that we changed rooms and went to the teachers too. We just took our stuff from room to room...and yes, rooms often were locked in the break (especially such rooms for biology, chemistry and physics), so we put our bags in front of the room in the corridor. Picking classes seems to be a little different in the German states too. It's very interesting to hear from a German point of view! I wasn't allowed to drop a science or a language - we dropped either politics or geography and music or arts (as you too). About the schedule and the cafeteria: all schools that I went to (as student or teacher) had a cafeteria with warm meals for lunch and students had six to nine periods per day. I read that this is left from the system of the GDR. Also a 'Hort' for students in primary school doesn't seem as normal in the old states as it is in the new states of Germany. And by the way, we call the 'Schultüte' (school paper bag) 'Zuckertüte' (sugar paper bag)and celebrate the 'Zuckertütenfest' on the weekend before the first school day. ^^ So these are my experiences to add. But yes, all in all these are just little differences - thank you for your video!
I went to Gymnasium in Germany between 1995 and 2004 (yes, I am THAT old D: ) and it's true that the setup of different subjects were pretty homogenous for all students of the same grade up until 10th grade. At my school we had these subjects in each grade from 5th to 13th: 5th grade: German, English, Religion (Catholic or Protestant), Music, Art, Geography, Math, Biology, P.E. 6th grade: German, English, Religion (Catholic or Protestant), Music, Crafts, History, Geography, Math, Biology, P.E. 7th grade: German, English, French or Latin, Religion (voluntary), Music, Crafts, History, Geography, Math, Physics, P.E. - no Biology! 8th grade: German, English, French or Latin, Religion (voluntary), Art, History, Geography, Math, Physics, Biology, P.E. - no Music! 9th grade: German, English, French or Latin, a third foreign language (voluntary). Religion (voluntary), History, Geography, Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, P.E. - neither Art nor Music! 10th grade: German, English, French or Latin, a third foreign language (voluntary), Religion (voluntary), Music, Art, History, Geography, Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, P.E. - definitely the most "crowded" curriculum in my secondary education career :D 11th grade: German, English, a second foreign language (can also be your personal third one), a third foreign language (voluntary), Religion or Philosophy, Music or Art, History, Geography, Economics & Politics, Math, three out of four Science & Technology subjects (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science), P.E. - and finally a rather weird one-year only subject called "VTU" ("Vertiefender Unterricht" - literally something like "consolidate learning class", I don't know any better way to translate it properly), which essentially consists of group work on various subjects and the teacher would teach us how to "properly work together and consider the way you interact with your fellow students in class"... yeah, it was kinda weird and no one took that subject seriously in our class :D 12th grade: German, one foreign language (could be either one that was offered but almost everyone in my year chose English :P ), a second foreign language (voluntary), Religion or Philosophy, Music or Art, History, Geography, Economics & Politics, Math, at least two out of four Science & Technology subjects (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science), P.E. (one of three specialized courses) - also from this grade on you had two "Leistungskurse" (= "advanced courses") in two subjects of your choice (among those that were actually offered) you had an increased number of periods per week in and which would become focus subjects in your final exams ("Abiturprüfung") one year later 13th grade: German, one foreign language, a second foreign language (voluntary), Music or Art (taking either was voluntary), History, Geography or Economics & Politics (voluntarily both), Math, at least one out of four Science & Technology classes (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science), P.E. (one of three specialzed courses), one "Project Course" (specific courses offered by various teachers that focus around a "semi-academic" topic to further enhance group work and how you approach learning something on your own) - also in addition to your two "advanced courses" you had to pick two more subjects for your final exams to be your P3 course (written exam subject) and your P4 course (oral exam subject) I personally had Math and Geography as my advanced courses, German as my additional written exam course and English as my additional oral exam course. :)
Mr Bottomtooth : Abi 98 ! Und du denkst du bist alt. Aber ich habe mein Abi über den dritten Bildungsweg: Erst Hauptschule, dann Mittlere Reife, dann Abi
What a wonderful bit of great information on the differences. I went public school in South Louisiana from the 1960's-1971. Some of the public schools I went did not have air conditioning so they had no school from June-August. We used pencils all thru school and we used ink cartridge pens in Elementary Schools. We had the blackboard all thru school with chalk. I hate those white boards with the markers to write with. I can from a American Indian and European heritage and had encountered a lot of racism issue due to my being biracial from students and sadly from the teachers also.
Kids in Germany have a "breakfast break" Frühstückspause. I was really thrown by this and did not understand why I had to send breakfast for my kids when they already had breakfast at home. I was also shocked to think that kids were sent to school on an empty stomach. I also never got used to the different times kids leave school. I find it really chaotic and I still haven't found a way to make a regular routine for my family.
I almost always went to school without breakfast, I scarcely remember eating before going to school. By the time I was a sophomore in H.S. I finally started to feel the negative side effects of skipping breakfast.
There is one school form in Germany that has the level-separation, at least for the core classes of maths, german, and english, and also often for secondary languages and some more depending on if that school has the teachers to offer this separation. This is the Gesamtschule. The idea for it that you basically combine Realschule and Gymnasium into one, so that you get a better mixture of stronger and weaker students. To give both groups the chance to learn at their pace better, but still not split the community entirely into half, these level-options only exist for select subjects. They usually only start one or two years into this school form, and which levels you take is determined by the grades you get before that. Well, not determined - you can choose freely, but the grades are quite a good measure of what would be your better pick. You usually can also switch between levels later on if your performance swings heavily into either direction, and you don't have to be on the same level for all subjects. You can be Grundkurs (basic level) English but Erweiterungskurs (extended level) Maths at the same time. This distinction however is gone when you continute to attend the school after 10th grade, which is where the Gymnasium exclusive years start. It is all implied extended level from there. When I was at my Gesamtschule ('92-'01), we had group tabels made up of 3x2-seater tables. The hope was to have at least one strong student per group that somewhat carried/tutored their group, but I think this backfired in many instances. We still kept this system through all years, at least for all the subjects taught in our Klassenzimmer. The specialized rooms usually had rows of tables, sometimes staggered like in a tiny uni auditorium. Gesamtschulen also went the whole-day school route fairly early on. We did have a dedicated dining hall (Mensa) with centrally organized lunch (which was mostly horrible but cheap), and school lasted until 4pm on 3 of 5 days of the week (mon, wed, thu) for all years. Later on it wasn't uncommon to also have the Friday afternoon at school. I was very lucky to having lived practically right next to my school for 4 of those years, so it was actually possible to have lunch with my family within that 45min break. That was pure luxury. (And yes, I also sometimes went home to visit the throne! I felt VERY attacked when that film came out! :D )
The pictures of the Schultute are great! Based on the perspective of the first photo image, I did not understand the full size of these things. I thought they were small…about the size of an ice cream cone filled with a couple of pencils and a few pieces of candy. Then, the pictures of 6-year Feli hugging a giant Schultute mouse popped up, and it was so cute! Mom and Dad must have been proud.
I read the US actually has a law or laws against allowing students to carry all of their books for all of their classes at once. The school can potentially get in trouble for this. I think it was enacted around 2000 or slightly after. Too many people were having serious back problems in their 20's, and they traced it back to carrying all the text books in high school. On the other hand, it can be really stressful trying to get to your locker and then get to class with the immense hallway traffic, and sometimes your locker and your next class are on opposite sides of the school.
I don't know if there are actual laws in place or just suggestions, but I heard the same thing. I do remember that, around 2000 when I was starting high school, people were suddenly talking about backpack weights, and that teachers would often tell students to put their books in their lockers, sometimes forcefully so, or would ban kids from having other books in class, so maybe something was enacted? The problem was like you said, 3 minutes between classes to get from one class to another in a large-ish school with crowded hallways, going up and down stairwells, with the prior class's teacher often letting you out late, having to go to the other side of the school to get your locker and books because it's difficult carry around heavy science books AND half a dozen smaller English books, was impossible. Most teachers would just give you a stern "Don't let it happen again" when you came in 10-20seconds late, which of course it always did, but some would hand out detention or would even lock the door the second the hell rang, in which case you had to walk to the administrative office area, tell the secretary what happened and get sent back to class with a pass, then you'd have to sit outside the classroom until the teacher decided to let you in, meanwhile getting yelled at by other teachers for "loitering in the halls." Sorry, I guess this brought up some memories for me. 😅
Rather doubt it's a law, especially since all schools are governed at the state level, or even more local. But there is concern about spinal health....or at least before covid. My son's high school did not allow use of lockers, because students might congregate (i.e. visit). However, the same district's middle school allowed lockers. Strange, that. But, our district does not use text books like other districts or days gone by. They each get a Chrome book to take home in 6th grade thru 12th grade. So all their books are online. They can borrow a physical book for the year to take home. (We are a small district. That's how we can afford that.)
I had a locker until 2001. The reason my school got rid of our lockers was because a kid came to school with a bunch pipe bombs and a 9m gun. He put them in his locker. It wasn't an assault rifle because they were banned in the US until 2004 (thank you Bush 🙄). He was caught before anything happened. It's true about the back issues. In 6th grade I wasn't supposed to get a locker until 4 months after school started. My mom went into school and showed the doctors report from the chiropractor and my neck wasn't in proper alignment due to carrying books.
At least in Texas I went to two high schools and neither had lockers so I don't think there's any law regarding it. We had to carry our books around in our bags. I agree it would be stressful to get to your locker if it was on the opposite side of the school.
Felicia - I went to a small Catholic rural school, although we had very narrow lockers to store our coats and boots, we stored all of our books and other materials at our desks. We stayed in the same classroom all days, except for music class.
I personally like the home room system better after experiencing both, it’s easier for me to make new friends and it promotes unity over individuality 👍
@@unityostara6380 Some German schools have (or at least have tried) the American system where students switch classrooms for each subject. The school I went to tested out such a system from when I was in 7th grade up until 9th grade, then students could vote on whether they wanted to keep the system or revert back to the old one. The majority voted for the old system, so in my final year we had a homeroom system again. Compared to America, there was one big difference with the system we tried, though. Even though we switched rooms for each subject, we still had those subjects as one single class, so we still stayed in our group of ~25 students, not like in America where there's different people in every subject you take.
@@leDespicable they tried a one classroom system experiment thing in my high school. It was only for about 30 kids. It was a complete disaster. My friend was one of them and most didn't even graduate. They didn't pick the right teachers for it. Most only had a few years experience.
In rural areas as an older student you might need to walk up to half a mile to the nearest intersection to get picked up by the school bus. There was also a wait from 5 to 20 minutes for the bus to come, which could be quite invigorating in winter 0 to -20 or -30 degrees C.
German here, Baden-Württemberg. I graduated with the Abitur in 2013 - the first generation of students to graduate after 12th grade, rather than 13th grade. My elementary school (grades 1-4) went from 8:20 to 11:50 most of the time, but we always had one "long" day per week, which either started 50 minutes earlier or ended 50 minutes later. Lunch was offered once a week, which 2 moms would cook voluntarily. But those handful of students who went to that lunch were stigmatized as "poor" because "their mom had to work, so they couldn't cook lunch at home". Which is bullshit of course. But that's indoctrinated classism and sexism for you. The public Gymnasium I went to in 5th and 6th grade went from 7:30 to 12:40 most days, but there would be one long day every week that ended at 3:40. That school was also super classist and sexist because it was expected for moms to be homemakers who would pick up their kid during lunch break, feed them at home, and then bring them back to school for the afternoon lessons. Like my elementary school, that Gymnasium also offered lunch only once a week, cooked by moms, and those who went there were stigmatized. The other public Gymnasium I went to up until 11th grade was more urban (well, not particularly urban, but not as rural and sheltered as the other two schools). The schedule was 7:30 to 12:40 twice a week, and 7:30 to 3:40 three times a week. Older students would usually have one day per week that ended as late as 5:30. The school offered a lunch, but it was just the same cheap frozen pizza every single day. Literally. And one such pizza cost 3 euros. Hardly anyone ate at the cafeteria because of this. We usually would take the bus to the next McDonald's or walk to the grocery store for donuts and candy. Talk about a healthy lunch, am I right? Now, private school was pretty different. I went to one during my 11th grade and to another during 12th grade. The first private school's times were 8:30 to 4:00 on Mondays through Thursdays, with a shorter day on Fridays that ended at 1:00. There were moms there who cooked a fresh and healthy meal every day, and everyone HAD to participate in lunch, no one was allowed to leave school grounds during lunch break. But the lunch was pretty good! The second private school went from 8:00 to 5:00, except for Fridays when it would end at 1:30. We had a catering service for lunch as well as a salad bar. But the food wasn't that good, so we would often go to a (non-fast food) restaurant for lunch (this school was right in the city center). I always felt sorry for the younger kids, who all had the exact same schedule, and it wasn't unusual to have very long commuting hours as well at that school. Those kids were stripped of their childhood, being away for school for longer hours than most adults work. And yes, they did have actual CLASSES for that long every day. Extracurriculars were not an actual thing in any of my schools. My private schools tried to popularize them, but frankly, there just wasn't any time. The school system in Baden-Württemberg requires waaaay too many classes.
My high school burned to the ground in my sophomore year. I had a Bible in my locker which was the only book not burned beyond recognition. It smelled really bad but was still useable.
@@Maicowerk if I had a dime for everytime I thought about burning my high school down...sheet. I still have nightmares about that place and I m 41. Queue Bowling for Soup "High School never ends"
Many years ago something similar happened to a friend of a friend of the family. Her apartment caught on fire and everything was saturated with smoke and charred something fierce. My brother and I helped her clean up (she was blind). She mentioned that she had a Braille New Testament series of books somewhere and we eventually found them. When we took the books out of the box, they were completely intact and we could not even SMELL smoke on them!!
@@NipkowDisk I like burning things every now and then but their is a certain smell when things that should not have been burned that smells awful. Can't come up with a scientific reason for that.
@@unityostara6380 God Damm! My nightmares from school didn't start easing up till I was in my 70s! Nobody should have to suffer like that! CindyBradyTooh at yahoo.com if ya want to talk.
In most grades, I had to take home all of my books for homework. However, one year, I attended a school that was worried so much about gun violence that we were not allowed to bring any bag bigger than a tiny purse. That year, we had one set of book that we left at home and the classroom had one shared set of books.
Friends of mine that have done education in the US, they say there is HUGE pressure all the time to excel and be the best... They drive people really hard. But you don't really LEARN anything compared to education over in Europe which is just... Far more modern. Its all about "making it" and being "top of your class" in the US. Multiple choice tests is the death of education.
European countries and the US have more 'modern' educational systems in different ways, it's not as clear cut as Europe being ahead. Like she said, Americans get to choose a lot more of what level of classes to take and when. I'd argue that that's more modern than the same thing for every kid, since it's acknowledging that every kid is different. But I'd assume you'd spin that in some negative way because America bad
@@JonahNelson7 I dont know what video you have watched. But in this one, she is pretty much saying in every possible way the European style is far superior. And that's not just German education vs American. its all across the board. The Obama administration said US education ranked rock bottom out of the 46 countries they liked to call "Developed countries" So that's behind all of Europe and half of Asia. But there are several countries that fall outside that list too. That also have better education. Russia and a lot of the ex-Soviet states for example are heavy on education. And as a social, cultural thing... Its just not very popular in the US to be intellectual. They laugh at that stuff. Education is mostly seen as a waste of time and money. Meanwhile over here... I don't know anyone that isn't properly educated.
There are Leistungsdaten- and Grundkurs in Germany. So you can decide what level you want to attend and we also had a choice to learn a second and even a third foreign language it we wanted. English mandatory, and French, Spanish or Russian on was possible on a voluntary basis.
That is not the sense that I got from watching Feli’s video. She seems to suggest American schooling is easier and that it’s in Germany where they drive the students much harder.
I was an army brat living in Frankfurt. My sister and I attended a German elementary school as a 3rd and 4th grader after our school year ended in May. We went to classes until they took their summer break which started at the beginning of July. We struggled doing our math lessons with ink pens in a notebook that needed to be submitted the next day. No loose-leaf notebook paper and no erasers. Neatness was important.
Ich glaube es hat sich geöndert, zuminedst bei uns in Südtirol werden immer mehr elektronische (weiße) Tafeln installiert, (hilft auch, wenn die halbe Klasse zu Hause unterrichtet wird)
During COVID our Math teacher improvised a little bit. He used his smartphone to film his notebook. He connected his smartphone with a computer and projected the picture on a canvas in our classroom and also streamed it online so the students in quarantine were able to “be in the classroom”
I lucked out: We always lived so close to the school, that I never had to ride the bus. I liked having a locker and extra-curriculars at school. There is a big difference in academic standards between state/public universities and private universities, which definitely tend to be more demanding. I found my year at the University of Tübingen to be much less stressful than classes at my private liberal arts university in the US. Back in the 80s at a German university, if you didn't get your term paper done on time, you just went to the professor and asked for an extension. Plus, to this day, if you fail an exam at a German university, you can repeat it up to 2 times. If you fail your final at an American university, you flunked the class and would have to take the whole class again.
Almost nobody knows how to use a fountain pen in the US. I have one that I bought to use at work because ball points are a pain in the butt and when people would borrow it they would try to use it upside down with the nib below the feed (so the nib was curving away from the paper instead of towards it) or they would push so hard with it they would bend the nib and it would stop writing because the feed wouldn't be touching the nib anymore. People would also look at me like I was handing them a bottle of ink and a quill.
On our school bus, it was quiet in the morning with the kids glumly looking forward to a new day in purgatory. But the ride home was a zoo, with the animals released from their cages. Fights weren't uncommon (1960s). Homework wasn't due every day for every subject, and you could do a lot in study halls and homeroom. So usually you could get by with bringing a subset of your books home in the evening. What you learned in junior high and high school was careful planning for when things were due, to make sure you brought the right books home with you to prepare your homework in a timely fashion. We didn't have the same schedule every day. We used a "rotating schedule" - the order of the subjects was the same, but for instance what was first period on Monday was second period on Tuesday and third period on Wednesday, etc. What was last period on Monday was first period on Tuesday. I, as a former college professor, am triggered by the grade inflation and lax discipline I'm seeing in American schools.
I’m wondering if it deals with quantity vs quality. When I was in middle and high school we had six 45 classes everyday with some of these changing every 6 weeks. So it was hard to be bored and act up. My own kids today have 90 minute core classes! I probably would fall asleep too as a 12 year old having to take 90 minute classes. And they get to pick two electives and are stuck with them the whole year. These electives are treated as blow off classes. Actually the whole day is, except Math and English where they are tested nonstop. I blame standardized testing.
Interesting! How do you find all these topics again and again. You are more than creative! Of course the topics are obvious! But if I look at your entire clips!!!! Respect! You've found your profession 🧐🧐🧐
At my high school in the late 70's we had a smoking area. I became a high school teacher and when I told my students that, they didn't believe me. I also told my students that in my high school we didn't have police or adult supervisors on campus and maybe there was a connection to the smoking area. Some got the humor.
In my high school, 1980s, we had "open campus". Those who could drive could go out for lunch. Yes, there was a smoking section for kids who smoked, too.
Re homework: in the U.S. a student will have to manage bringing home some of their books each night for homework. It's typical to have 6 classes, but 1 of those might be p.e. and another might be some kind of arts class, band, or magazine -- something that doesn't involve books to carry. And not every class will have homework every day. Often the homework in high school is bigger projects or packets that are due weekly or after a longer time rather than daily. That means you can plan your time so that you don't usually have to carry every single book home every night. I was most blown away by the fountain pens. Fountain pens! Whoa. Those are so rare! And expensive, too. And writing in cursive, too. We were taught cursive in elementary school, but never required to use it after that. And the statement that German students are not allowed to use pencils because you would be able to erase things. Well yes, that's the whole point. Especially in math, you usually want to erase your mistakes. I have always preferred a pen, even for math (and I have a master's in math), and people thought I was strange, all through college and grad school, using my pens and lots and lots of paper rather than ever being able to erase anything. I guess Germany puts a big emphasis on getting things right the first time? No room for mistakes?
The thing is, that there is room for mistakes 😉 if you got to wrong solution or made a mistake, you just cross it out in a clearly way. That shows the teacher, you just did it again und sees the way you had to get to your solution. Using a pencil you can easily erase and (i think it's the wrong word) you can betray easily. 😉
Yeah, its more about preventing cheating afterwards - all students have the right to receive their exams back after getting their grade, and it would be just TOO easy to quickly erase that one word or number that might have been the mistake that prevented you from getting a better grade, and going back to the teacher and telling them they must have made a mistake in grading. This actually happened in my school, where a student was using not a pencil, but an erasable ballpoint pen (these were new at this point and the teachers didn't know about it). Anyway, if no onw can prove the student wrong and parenty might get involved, this business can get ugly quite quickly, so insisting on fountain pens or ballpoint pens, where you can see if there was something obviously corrected is the safer option. (And just like fillefanz said, you can correct your mistakes of course, the correction is just made visible ;)
Oh, that’s an interesting take. At my public schools in the US, we were required to use pencil and not allowed to use pens in any subject until 5th or 6th grade. At that point we could choose, but were still encouraged to use pencil for science and math. I suppose the focus was more on the neatness and/or clear readability of the final result? I don’t think it would occur to many students to falsify their exam responses after the fact. Typically, your grade was your grade. No negotiation. And anyway, erasing still leaves tell-tale marks on the paper. If your paper had eraser marks and you tried to claim some grading mistake, the teachers would likely see right through you. Perhaps the difference is that individual tests and quizzes aren’t worth as much in the US as in Germany? Your semester grade could be made up of 10 quizzes, 4 tests, and 20-30 homework assignments and/or class presentations. If you did badly on one assignment, it wouldn’t hurt your grade too much. I’d just ask the teacher for extra help understanding the subject and do better next time. That’s not to say that some students won’t try to cheat, I think it’s just much more likely to happen before or during the test, than after.
In middle school I had five assigned classes and the sixth class was an elective, which means I could choose from a list of options. Electives are fully graded, so they are not like extracurricular activities.
I did an exchange as an electrical engineering student from Germany in the US and the courses are way easier. There are way less assignments and due to the curve grading it was easy to get good grades. I didn’t see anyone learning 4+weeks for an exam in the US just to pass (not talking about As). In Germany that’s pretty much standard. The teaching itself is in no way worse than in Germany but I do think that the students put less effort into it as your grade also depends on other peoples performance. In Germany that’s simply not the case. 80% will always be a B, no matter what other students do in the exam.
Wow, German schools sound awesome, with a wide vaiety of subjects! I went to American schools in three locations (4 if you count university.) Hawaii- We would never wear home shoes. It's uncommon in America in general, but many schools in Hawaii are "open." You have buildings with classrooms, but when you step out of the room, you're outside. Bathrooms are in another building, and the cafeteria is yet another. You learn basics such as reading, writing, art, etc. The two major differences for me was that my school was on a military base, and for reading, (kindergarten to 2nd) I had a different curriculum. A few times a week I would have separate sessions, and then the rest of the time I would tutor students from the 5th-6th grades. Washington DC- we had regular buildings, with my school being 4 floors. It was...dismal. It was in a poorest area of the city. We shared old textbooks held together with duct tape, and broken windows. They had additional classes for gifted kids, which was pretty good and a great escape. Corporal punishment was used liberally. It was also the first and last time that I wore a uniform. I don't know if uniforms are a thing in Germany, but it varies between local districts. They are a standard in private schools. Maryland- this is where I was first introduced to many of the things seen in movies. I had multiple classes, but with A-B days that had different classes. However, English was a daily class. I had a locker that changed each year. We had a cafeteria and vending machines. Cheerleaders wore their uniforms on game/competition days. We had some sports like football, basketball, etc. However, we didn’t have lacrosse, field hockey, or swimming. My county was primarily Black and Latino, and those sports just aren't popular or accessible. Driving was permitted from junior year, but unlike many American schools, Driver's Ed was not offered. However, we did have a bunch of before/after school activities. Band was usually both before and after school. Unlike thee "standard" high school popularity structure where the band would be at the bottom of the pyramid, it was reversed at my school. The marching band was by far the most popular. and football was ate the bottom. Our band traveled to competitions frequently. Another feature of my school was that there was a vocational education division that was very popular in the county. We had courses such as automotive repair, cosmetology (makeup, hair, nails, fashion,) culinary arts ( they would cater things like weddings, professional conventions, and the like) refrigeration and HVAC, carpentry, welding, electric repair, etc. These were very respected and offered a great path to employment. ROTC was also a thing. My path was mostly academic, taking AP couses and having after school clubs like computer club, mock trial, science and tech... I don’t know the average size of a German school, but we had a pretty large(?) student body, around 1,200-1,300. Bonus! College/University- I went to a small women's college. Wedidnt have male residential students, and for the first day, you had limited male visitation weekends, based on the GPA of the floor. The small size allowed stdents to have more hands-on projects and be listed in projects and papers with professors. We had a wet campus--alcohol was allowed if you were of age. In fact, we would have events that were school-sponsored and featured alcohol, and we learned how to hold our alcohol, table manners, event planning, etc. I loved that school. It's really great to see so many different education structures!!
Sorry long comment coming Ok. This is coming from an American. I’m giving my own personal experience because schools are different depending on the state. I’m from CA. First of all every grade isn’t in the same school. K-5 is is elementary school and it is it’s own separate thing, 6-8 is middle school/Jr. high school and it is it’s own separate thing and 9-12 is high school and it is it’s own separate thing. For elementary school we don’t have a lot of books and any books we do use stay in the classroom in our desks. In middle school (and some classes in high school) we get a set of books for home and one stays in the classroom, and high school most teachers require you to carry the books back and fourth. Homework is assigned at school and has to be completed at home (but sometimes teachers let you work on it for a bit in class depending on the assignment.) In middle and high school we have a set schedule and don’t really get to choose our classes. In my experience we had to take math, English, history, science and PE until 11th grade and we were only allowed to choose our 2 elective classes (my school had 6 periods.) We also had to take geography & health in 9th grade which took up one of our elective slots. Starting in 11th grade we were only required to take English and history and in 12th grade we had to take economics and government in place of history. And after that we could either choose 4 more electives or just leave for the day after we completed the 2 required classes. As for sports there are a lot of things offered through the schools but there are a lot of club teams too. In elementary and middle school there are really no sports or anything (besides marching band, choir and orchestra) offered through the school so all extracurricular activities are done separately outside of school and usually done in the evenings during the week and games and stuff are on weekends. In high school is when all the real extracurriculars are offered but a lot of times they aren’t immediately after school. A lot of times practices etc are in the evenings/weekends. Most students also leave to go home after school unless their sport/club whatever happens to have a meeting directly after but it’s not like the majority of students stay after school. You can also do club sports while doing high school sports too. All of my schools got out at 2:30 in the afternoon.
I am also from CA, & can verify that this comment is exactly what I experienced 30 years ago, and what my kids experienced also. Although the specifics, wording & timing of things changed a bit for them.
My school bus driver was the same for many years. When the kids got bad, she would STOP the bus, slowly walk down the aisle with the most stern look on her face, so mad. She would find out who was being bad and make them sit up front. The toughest old lady I ever knew, but also really nice.
Nice Video !!! Still want to see you go to Frankenmuth Michigan and see your reaction to Michigan's little Bavaria !! German girl goes to an American German city 😎!
I have experience Frankenmuth and Berlin and a small town outside of berlin Dallgow-Doeberitz and Frankenmuth is NOT GERMAN. It does or did have in 1965 a very good restaurant and Christmas store that was open all year and brewery. ( and I should say a very good PR person or company)
It is not that thrilling if you are a German national. I got dragged there there once in the earlier 90s and went again a decade later because all the grandkids went to see how taffy was made . Frankenmuth had gotten even more fake. It is everything that Germany is not .
@@jimgeiser487 Frankenmuth was founded by German Americans !!! They even spoke German until around World War 2 . It is American German Bavarian themed City , Yes They still have those restaurants and the Largest Christmas store Bronner's !
Yes, Frankenmuth was founded by people from Franconia but that was in the 18th century.Why should someone from Germany visit Frankenmuth? The half-timbered structures are painted on and for a German visitor it all looks very fake. As a German you shrug your shoulders, shake your head ( if you are not from the state of Bavaria and there are 16 states in Germany) and think that Americans have some strange views of Germany. Do not get me wrong, Frankenmuth is great if you are US American .It is the US vision/version of Germany and many people visit and enjoy their stay in Frankenmuth but it has little to do with Germany. In a way it is like the Sound of Music hardly any German ist familar with the movie or the Trapp family yet it is very popular with Americans. Do not get me wrong I am not trying to put anything down Germans are guilty as well. US week at ALDI in Germany .Hot dogs in vacuum sealed jars ,in brine so very American don't you think ???
Here in the US, many k-12 school textbooks are online and accessed by way of school -supplied laptops (Chromebooks, etc). Textbooks are slowly going away - to the relief of student backs and shoulders.
Something like school-supplied laptops is pretty much unheard of in Germany. Wouldn't really work since most schools don't even have a good internet connection. Many German states criminally underfund their schools. When there's not even money to replace the old overhead projectors with document cameras and projectors, there won't be any laptops anytime soon...
Regarding the academic discipline portion and deadlines (from a teacher’s perspective), a lot of this is a recent development (last 10-15 years or so). There’s been a big shift in our society that has placed blame on a student’s failure on the teacher instead of the student. When I was growing up, if the teacher got on to a student or reached out to a parent regarding their kid, the parent generally sided with the teacher. Now it isn’t like that. Most of the time the parent will side with the kid. This has bled over into grades/assignments. Parents are not as involved in their kid’s education as they once were. They’re not checking in to make sure they are doing their homework and when the kid has a 15 in the class because they turned in no work, the teacher gets in trouble for not reaching out (which they do) and are expected to allow the student to make up the work. Basically teachers in the US are no longer viewed as authority figures (in both discipline and knowledge). Also, it doesn’t help that teachers in the US are grossly underpaid so the brightest minds no longer consider it as a career option.
American here, and I walked alone to school since the age of 5, and until my school was too far from our home to walk. That wasn't until Jr. High School. We also had chalk (black) boards, but I'm pretty old by now! Many of us did not attend after school activities. We just went home. Once I was 16, my after school activity was a job at McDonald's. Once at university, my university actually required me to jump right into the classes of my major (architecture) with very few general requirement classes that first year. Those classes were 2 semesters of English, 2 semesters of physical education, a semester of science, and 2 semesters of electives, and that was about it. Everything else was within my major.
I grew up in New York and each Winter after a snowstorm each person would bring an extra pair of shoes to wear at school that day because we were required to remove our snow boots upon entering the building. The boots would be placed by the classroom door in the hallway. At the end of the school day if it wasn't snowing, the student could either change into their snow boots again and go home or the could just grab the boots and leave wearing the regular shoes. We were told to use pencils because you had to show all your "work" on math tests/exams. Failure to show your work is meant the answer was completely wrong. We could choose whether to write in script or print. The teacher/professor only demanded that the handwriting was neat and readable. If he or she couldn't read it, you failed the exam/test.
I was in karate as a kid outside of school. It was nice meeting friends outside of school, and ones who had at least one of my interests. It was also nice to be one of the cool kids there because in school, I was an outcast. So yeah, the US has stuff like that, but a lot of stuff is available at the school you go to. Another thing was elementary schools usually didn't have sports teams, so there would be kids sports leagues... usually teams were sponsored by businesses in the community. You'd see teams with names like Kentucky Fried Chicken, lawyer names, store names, etc. I don't think that's common in most of the US.
Some kids in American schools also walk to school too. I did, even though I lived in a bad neighborhood full of crime outside of Chicago. The difference is our schools are never so far away where we have to take public transport. If a child was taking the bus or train, there was usually suspicion they were going to school outside of their district or county, which in some states is not allowed.
Although, in truth, it is also fairly common that class groups will walk around between classrooms. In some schools, certain classrooms are assigned to teachers and even when not, there are usually specialty rooms (e.g. for chemistry) that certain subjects will take place in. So you do get a lot of walking around, because classes are also fairly big (around 30 students is common). IN my schools, there were even a few separate buildings across sections of town, so there was always droves of school kids walking through the streets between those buildings, and that setup is also not that uncommon in smaller towns.
As the short person who was always hit by backpacks walking through the hallway I agree. Though I suppose I do think it would reduce the amount of freedom students have in choosing classes as feli sort of mentioned. If everyone had to take the same classes (stay in the same classroom) there isn't as much flexibility in what level of class u can take or what kind u can eg.: U excel in math so u want to take AP calc but u also suck at English so u don't want to take AP Eng Lit. I feel like to a certain extent it would make it harder to excel at the things ur good at without being weighed down by the things ur bad at if all of ur classes had to be taken at the same level.
Coming back to Germany being farther in the Curriculum, I think it´s probably true. On the other hand Germany is in the top ranking of the countries pupils don´t like to go to school / are afraid to go to school because of stress. Oftentimes I wonder if it´s really worth it.
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A foreign exchange student from Sweden at the school in my town in America told me when she saw her first cheerleader in uniform in the school hallway, she said, "They're real!" And then she had to get a picture of herself with a cheerleader to send to her friends in Sweden to prove that they exist.
Unicorns are real!!
That's hilarious.
That ended soon after I graduated. My former high school started punishing the cheerleaders for wearing their costumes to school, because it violated the dress code. But, the girls pointed out, you force us to wear them in front of everyone! How can you tell us they’re too skimpy to wear to school? The administration admitted, good point. Soon after, all the popular girls quit the cheer squad for the dance team.
No cheerleaders in school is Europe's biggest flaw. Cheerleader Deficiency is real, people!!
Some people are absolutely shocked to discover that high schools in the US are surprisingly similar to the way they're portrayed in Hollywood. Of course movies exaggerate everything, but a lot of it is spot on. Inner city public schools are a whole different thing though.
"unique group dynamics" on the school bus... yeah, that's a nice way to say it, I suppose.
Yes it is!
Not sure unique is the way I would put it either. Constant torment of underclassmen is a better description in my opinion.
I never had a school-bus in my grade schools in Marin county CA north of San Francisco. My parents usually took me and my brother to and from school until we could bike on our own which I often did.
I hate the people who say German is an ugly language I’m from the USA but my dream is to learn German it’s so beautiful
German is a beautiful language
@@ajayvasanthakumar0717 im currently learning german and its amazing its so great.
I love the language so much as well
Well this statement might be related to the fact that German is an unbound language and also contains some hard and rubbing sounds. So, compared to French it is much less of a melody. However, a nice featue is the composition of words which makes it very logical. Someone riding (fahren) a bicycle (Rad) is a "Radfahrer" and if he participates in a race (Rennen) of cyclists (Radrennen), then he is called a "Radrennfahrer" and the bike used for it is called a "Rennrad" (road bike). So you can also call him a "Rennradfahrer" (someone using a road bike). So you can build sentences like: Ein Radrennfahrer fährt mit dem Rennrad im Radrennen Rad - a cycling racer is cycling in a cycle race with his road bike. 9 instead of 13 words.
@@florianmeier3186 _Fahren_ is also a verb transitive, so _ein Rennrad fahren_ is valid for operating a road-racing bicycle.
When I was in school we usually had a period called Study Hall where you got to work on your homework. So most of the time you got a major chunk of your homework done there. If you had any left at the end of period, you took it home.
Hi Feli! My son goes to a very modern comprehensive school in Germany. In this school, they hardly give any homework apart from learning vocabulary or reading a book. Instead, they get weekly plans they have to work out themselves They get time with two teachers in which they can do their tasks called working time (Arbeitszeit) and I have to say that I kind of like that system better than our traditional system with loads of homework to do at home. It takes off the burden from me as a parent to support my son with his homework and gives him an expert, the teacher, for his questions right when he needs one. And in that school, there are lockers, too. So, school can be experienced very differently in Germany.
I went to Gymnasium in Bavaria and attended a short exchange program (3 weeks) with an American high school (Oregon) in my 11th year. When my exchange partner came to visit, our English exams were returned and he was quite shocked since the test was much harder than his English tests.
You can't really compare that because a) Germany did the "G8 reform" some years ago which basically put all the stuff that was meant to be taught in 13 years into 12 years of school instead, meaning that students had to do all the things they'd do until graduation one year earlier then they'd normally do and b) the German Gymnasium standards are like AP classes in the US. So if your exchange partner took the standard classes in his American school and then went to a German Gymnasium where the curriculum is on AP level + one year ahead it was obviously way harder for him in the German school. But Bavaria is reversing the G8 reform as it turned out that it was just too much for students, the students who are now starting Gymnasium are going to graduate after 13 years (G9) again. With that, 11th grade in these schools will be pretty much the same as 11th grade AP classes in American high schools.
Where in Oregon? I used to live there.
Well, I started school in 1954 at 5 years old. I went to a Parochial School, which was set up just about the way you described German Schools. We also stopped using a pencil in the 2nd Grade and switched to a fountain pen (with a blotter of course). Ballpoint pens were out. In secondary school we had to write in Pen, especially tests, so no pencil there. There were sports in High School (Secondary School) which the students would rally around their school teams. I lived in New York City (Brooklyn) and we did not have school buses. We used public transportation or our feet. The school bus is a recent phenomenon in NYC schools. I graduated in 1967, so this change was made some time ago. As for College, I attended college later in life and was able to pick my courses up until I graduated. Schools changed in the years since I was a student in Grade and Secondary School. Discipline today is lacking and today's kids get away with a lot more than students of my era. Are days gone by better than today? I can't say but I know how to write in cursive, learned French, learned how to add without a PEN or pencil, Know geography and world history, science and writing. Many kids today can't do half of what I learned before the 5th grade. It is a shame.
I didn't realize how similar Indonesian school systems and German school systems are. Very interesting.
Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch, who are closely related to the Germans (in fact, the Netherlands used to be part of the Holy Roman Empire, from which modern Germany evolved), so it makes sense that Indonesian and German schools might be similar.
@@ACGreyhound04 Oh really? that's interesting! Btw Im Indonesian and I know that Indonesia was colonized by the dutch
@@NikiAesthette Well I think it is Central European inheritage. The modern school system in Germany is based on Martin Luther and Melanchthon (enforced the duty to go to school) and the early teachers from 18th-19th century like Pestalozzi (who was actually from Switzerland) or Fröbel (who developed kindergarden). The system is rather similar in all Central Europe except that some later political developments like communism in Eastern Central Europe led to slight deviations. Beside that, especially in catholic areas, monasteries played and sometimes still play a role in the school system.
The Algerian system is veryyy similar too!
@@finora16 and that is because it was derived from the French system and all those European school systems German, French, Dutch are quite similar.
I give the perspective of a third party here: I'm Argentinean, and our primary and secondary schools strongly resemble the German system. No lockers, green chalkboard at the front, a two-persons student's desk, weekly schedule of subjects. It seems to me that a German-like system or similar is also used by most Latin American countries, but of course if some other Latinamerican here have a different experience, please share it, it will be great to know.
Chilean here... most of what GGIA said applies to my experience in school...
pretty much the same in Poland
Probably because many Germans migrated there
I have a guess or two as to why the system in GERMANY and ARGENTINA might be similar.
Chilean teacher here, living in Germany.
...Ehrm, yes, very similar to the schools in the 50's in Chile 😅, but not nowadays. I would say in Chile is more modern, and the use of innovative methods, and tech is well promoted (also well received by students (: ). In Germany, they are still using chalk and tons of paper. Same methods from our omas for teaching, etc.
4am, Germany... GGIA comes up.. and I have to watch :D
Love the commitment! 💪
😎🇩🇪👍
You sound like a true fan! 😎🇩🇪🇺🇸
@@FelifromGermany Americans might say they took [insert time here] of Spanish while Germans might say the equivalent of they had [insert time here] of French. But they would often say it in German so what is the difference in German between taking a subject and having it.
When I was in high school, and I graduated in 2007, we actually utilized an A and B day schedule. You’d have 4 or 5 classes one day, and 4 or 5 different ones the next day, and while we did have lockers, I never used mine. I just carried all the books I needed for that day with me everywhere. We were also required to take two years of one foreign language, but you could take 3 or 4 if you wanted to. I did 4 years of German, of course! We even had a German Club that would meet on Tuesdays after school. That was probably the most fun I had at school!
Another thing, regarding cursive, we learned it in 2nd grade and were required to use it after we learned it, but after 2nd grade, no one really cared how you wrote anymore.
And as far as pens and pencils are concerned, after elementary school, you could write with a pen if you wanted, but doing math with a pen was always frowned upon all the way up til 12th grade.
When I was in high school, we had what they called a “block schedule” where students would have four class periods a day and each class was an hour and half long and they would meet every day. And the school day started at 8am and ended at 3pm. Though some days we would only have a half day and get out around lunchtime and the teachers would have time to work on grades and plan upcoming lessons. A lot of schools do something similar or they do the typical hour long class that meets every day. As far as homework, we just carried the books we needed and usually left the ones we didn’t need for whatever reason there at school. In some ways I like the way you all do school because in the US they really strongly encourage students to go to college, which for some college might not be the best choice. It may be better for them to learn a trade or something. Some of the AP (advanced placement) classes in high school you could even get college credit for it, which is nice because in some students situations could earn enough credit to get an Associates degree!
My school had two tracks you could follow. You could do the technical track or the university track. You choose your classes and may share the same basic classes, but those on the tech track eventually had options for shop class, auto mechanics, home Ed, etc. People on the university class didn't get those options. But either track shared alot of the same basic courses like math, English, science.
There are school buses in Germany, too. Maybe not so much in big cities like Munich, as there is enough public transportation available. So it's more in suburbs, small towns or rural areas. Difference to the US is that the school bus has fixed bus stops and they are regular buses and not yellow. ;)
A Bachelor's degree in Germany can take from 6 semesters (3 years) to 8 Semesters (4 years) in general. Mine was 7 Semesters (3.5 years). The important part is that if you want a Master's degree you need 10 semesters total at a university (that is 300 credit points or so iirc (30 per semester)). So since the time for Bachelor's is variable Master's degrees also go from 1 year (2 semsters) to 2 years (4 semsters).
I switched back to block letters in Oberstufe or so. It's more readable and tbh I can write faster in it than in kursive.
The difference is :
German School Busse are the usual line Bus, the just use it for pupils only at certain Times. If Not used during those Times, they use it as a regular Bus. For example we had a school Bus for the villages north of Husum, they took us in between 6:30 and 7:00 drove us to the school and came back after 5th and 6th period. If we had a longer school day or shorter we had to take the regular Bus.
@@wandilismus8726 I guess it depends on the region or from city to city but our school busses were just school busses. They were operated by a different company that just provided school bus services and they also looked different than the normal busses used for public transportation (more seats, no space for wheelchair users or buggys, no wheelchair ramp, usually several steps at the entrances, different design on the outside, same driver every day that was assigned one or two routes and drove that route every day for several years, often decades).
@@wandilismus8726 that's not true for all of Germany. You can find private school buses in many rural areas and sometimes even in bigger cities. If you live in a very remote area with bad public transport (or none at all), simply can't rely on public transportation. Hence the school has to provide some alternative.
When I went to highschool in the 8o's , our homeroom was the first class you had. The teacher took attendance and then he/she taught the first subject of the day. School began at 7:30am and ended around 3. Each semester your schedule changed. A sleeping student wasn't disturbing the class so they weren't punished.
I find it allways sad that not everywhere in Germany "Einschulung"(school enrollment) was celebrated... In the eastern parts of Germany on the weekend before the first day of elementary school, there be a ceremony at the school with all your family members, often also with aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents... where you get your "Schultüte" and afterwards there will be also a little "party" just with your family.
This is my first memory where i "take the center stage" and i allways like to think back to this day.
Oh that is sort of like Kindergarten roundup in the USA. When 5 year olds meet their classmates at the end of the school year before Kindergarten
We didn't have a a feast, but it was a special day, too. The Schultüte was the biggest ammount of sweeties I ever got in my whole childhood. And I got a new dress for my first day at school. And they took photos, which was very unusal for my family. I still remember. Oh, and my own children celebrated their last day at Kindergarten in a special way: They were allowed to sleep there overnight.
I live in Lower Saxony and we have school buses, and they're usually very full of people. There's just a few bus stops tho, they don't come to your house. But many students do also prefer to walk or take the bike to school
Yes, I'm from a small village in Northern Germany, and I also always went to school by school bus, as there was no public transportation to the next town.
The school buses in the states don't really come to each house...at least in a neighborhood. They come to a corner & the student walks to the corner. That's just efficient.
However in the country, the bus stops at each individual's driveway. But in the country, the houses aren't close together.
Also, in NYC almost everyone took public transportation to school.
Same in Chicago, miss my high school days
I'm American, and went to public school in the 60s and early 70s. As I recall, we used to have to listen to the national anthem and do the pledge of allegiance every morning in elementary school (grades 1 through 6), but I think we only listened to the national anthem at higher grades. We always had the same classmates the whole day up until 10th grade. Sometimes some cheerleaders wore their uniforms in class, but not often. Our high school was huge, and there were 945 in my graduating class. Some in my class I had never even met.
At 10th grade, we started mixing with students from other homerooms, and we had to decide what curriculum we wanted to follow. There were several categories to choose:
College Prep - As the title says, this category was for those wishing to go to college. The students would have to take more advanced math, chemistry, and maybe a language.
Technical - The students would spend half a day in high school, and would take another bus to technical school for a half day. They had to take algebra, chemistry, and other advanced math studies, and learned technical skills in medicine, graphic arts, etc.
Business - This is the one I chose. The curriculum was anything involving business management and retail. Students took courses in accounting, typing, and in their senior year, spent half a day in high school, and half a day working a retail job. We got graded on the job also. Since parking was limited at the high school, we were the ONLY students who got parking passes to later go to our jobs.
Commercial - This was strictly secretarial, and involved a lot of typing and shorthand.
General- This was the lowest curriculum, and most of the students who got into this were either bullies or lazy-ass people going in no direction.
The Gymnasium i went to was the "most state of the art" Gymnasium in whole Lower-Saxony when it opened in 2005 or 2006. Well working and good powered (!) computers in every room, Smartboards everywhere, Wifi for students, a school car sponsored by local companys, interesting and quiet a lot extracurriculars, ... it was kind of a paradies.
In Gymnasium I had afternoon lessons on 4 days and up to 10 periods. And it was the G9 system. 4-6 periods was during year 5 and 6, but if you are older than you have a lot more school.
Same here! And we even only hat a half hour lunch break. No matter if it was a 6 hour or an 8 hour day. It was always 4 periods in the morning, lunch, and 2-4 periods (if you were unlucky even more) in the afternoon.
We also had a cafeteria with school lunched being provided (you had to order these in advance though, usually for the upcoming month. There was usually a choice between 2-3 different meals and you would go to the cafeteria with a little paper slip that showed which meal you had picked and you could exchange it for the actual food. Of course you had to pay in advance as well)
Lots of people also brought their own lunches though.
For the last two years the schedule was more flexible, but there were still afternoon classes - sometimes I had ONLY afternoon classes, which was nice because I could sleep in hahaha
At my school here in Bavaria every room has a document camera, projector, the older rooms have white boards. The newer ones are equipped with interactive boards that go online. Things have changed quickly the last 3 years. Covid pushed everything forward. The old overhead projectors died out about ca 2010 I whould say....
Felicia was talking about the olden days BC (before covid)
At least in North Rhine-Westphaliathe overhead projectors for sure didn't die out in 2010...
I graduated in 2016 and we still used them a lot. My younger sister, who graduated 2018, did too, though they were slowly getting beamers in more rooms. But even than overhead projectors were still used quite often. Idk about know tho..
A little consolation: I never understood, why a white board should be better than a chalk board. Generations of students reached their goals with the chalk boards and young people have good eyes. And no chemistry and plastic is needed to write a sentence on the board and remove it. It produces no rubbish, like a white board does. Ok, projectors and document cameras help a lot and should be standard, I think. But if I want to show my students a website, I just start the internet on my teacher-PC and project it. Theese new smart boards with interactive features cost a lot of money and are ful of gadgetry. A lot of effort to play around a bit. That doesn't make our students more clever in my eyes. I think it is a thing of prestige. In my opinion they should take the money and buy projectors and document cameras for other reagions like NRW, that haven't any. For theese devices are tons better than overhead projectors and make everyday life at school much easier and save resources.
In my old school in NRW overhead projectors are still the norm as well. My cousin attends this school at the moment and if they want or have to do presentations the teacher still has to aply to be allowd to use one of the few rooms with projectors and a laptop so that the students can use Powerpoint for the presentation. At least they got rid of the old TVs and VHS cassettes since I left the school in 2012, but as they didn't get more projectors they now struggle to show films to the students because the rooms with the equipment are usually occupied for presentations. I guess they were busy making sure nobody dies in the school because every now and then parts of the ceiling come down and didn't have the money to digitalize the classrooms...
I think it also depends if the school is a big school in a big city or a small school in a small town. I graduated Realschule in 2018 and no classroom had a whiteboard. They just installed projectors (beamer) in every room, and most teachers didn't know how to use them so they kept using overhead projectors (i better know them as Podylux)
The Realschule I attended in southern Bavaria installed projectors and document cameras as well as desktop PCs in every classroom about or 7 8 years ago when I was in 7th grade. They were such an improvement over the old overhead projectors, I'm still wondering how we managed without them before that. It probably highly depends on how much schools decide to spend on digitalisation, but Bavaria generally seems to be pretty far ahead in that aspect compared to many other German states.
I was a member of my high school's speech and debate team. We competed against students from schools within the state.
I enjoyed home football games and the dances afterward. I had friends who were on the football team, cheerleading squad, and the marching band.
RURAL schools are VERY different from city schools in the U.S. They're VERY small - only around 20-25 kids in the entire grade. In my physics classes, I was the ONLY student!
School lunches were quality, home made food - like a RESTAURANT buffet - you could return for second and third helpings (FREE) until they ran out! :o)
Sports were almost as important as school itself! I remember having 4-6 hour basketball practices EVERY NIGHT until I finally QUIT for it leaving me no time or energy for my schoolwork and OTHER extracurricular activities! :oO
From junior-high through high-school we had lockers, which to this day seems strange to me. In gradeschool we kept our materials in our assigned desks. In college we kept our books and materials with us at all times in backpacks.
In college be we had to buy our books, and most people sold them back at the end of the semester for a fraction of what they bought them for.
I was always in awe that for my four-year bachelor's degree, two years of classes had nothing to do with my major, one year generally applied, and only ONE year SPECIFICALLY applied! What a racket!
Yes, this is true for the most part. However I went to a small poorer country school. Our schools had what we needed. But we had to pay for extra lunch. Our books were sometimes signed by 10 names. So our resources were limited because the teachers were paid well. However all in all, we got a decent education.
@@jeffrutt6331 I suspect the reason we got extra helpings free was that the high school was the last to eat. (The gradeschool and middleschool ate before us.) Thus, whatever we didn't eat the cooks probably took home for their own families or threw away.
@Frank Lincoln I 100% agree. I learned information in college that REVOLUTIONIZED my knowledge and perspective of the world. It gave me knowledge, awareness, and understanding of the world that makes me sorry for those that never got it themselves.
However, from a purely PRACTICAL point of view, it still unnerves me that colleges, banks, and employers have colluded to exploit naive, unsuspecting students and their parents for MASSIVE amounts of money for their own benefit. That is, under the clearly FALSE guise that students really need it to perform the tasks of their chosen profession.
@@nathan2813 that's cool! Sounds like a nice school to go to!
When I was an exchange student in the US i was shocked that they literally served pizza every day for lunch. I always brought my own food but who thinks that pizza is an appropriate lunch?!??!
In Germany, you have to pay for lockers. And it's also not certain that your locker is near your classroom which makes it inefficient to use it.
However, my old school had free lockers in each classroom in the new building which is very nice because you don't have to carry around heavy books all the time. Especially for subjects the teacher uses the textbook like once a school year^^
I graduated from a german Gymnasium at the age of 17 one year ago and I just realised how different our schools were XD for example I only had a classroom until year 6 and I had afternoon classes iterally every single day. So most of the time school ended at about 5:15 pm. But overall a very nice video, thumbs up :)
Those yellow school buses aren't a feature everywhere in the US. At least in the Bronx, where I grew up, school kids are just as independent as their German counterparts. Depending on your address (meaning how far away you lived from school), you'd get either a free bus or a subway pass. In the mornings it would be very common to see kids on the public buses or subways on their way to school. I got a bus pass, but was always kinda jealous of friends of mine that got a subway pass. Yellow buses were never a thing in the Bronx though, as far as I can remember. I'm also not sure about the rest of NYC, but I suspect it was similar to the Bronx.
Re academic difficulty, I hear all the time from my European friends how easy they found the school curriculum when they did an exchange program in the US, and so they go around thinking and telling everyone that American high schools are so "easy" and how superior the schools are in Europe, etc. But I think I've figured out the misunderstanding. Unlike Europe which separates students into different schools according to their difficulty (Hauptschule vs. Gymnasium), in the US everyone attends the same school. This means under the same roof you'd have a regular school (similar to the Hauptschule in Germany), AS WELL AS advanced college level courses, which we call "Regents" in NY State (similar to Gymnasium in Germany). Exchange students from abroad always attend the regular track in American schools, which is pretty rudimentary. Only honors kids or kids with very good grades are allowed to take Regents classes, or AP classes, which are supposed to prepare you for college/university. Exchange students are almost NEVER placed in the Regents classes, and so they return home thinking that high school in the US is super easy. That, however is NOT the case! Regents physics, biology and math are every bit as difficult as at a German Gymnasium. Just the other day I surprised my doctor with a detailed answer while he was explaining the side-effects of some medication. He asked how I knew that, if I'd studied biochemistry - I replied that I could still remember my biology classes from high school in NY, then I described to him the role of Mitochondrial DNA, RNA and the effects of this medication he was prescribed me. He was very surprised! All of that was thanks to my teacher Miss Perez from my Regents Biology class in high school...
There's also a HUGE difference between public and private schools and universities in the U.S. From your descriptions, I suspect that you're mostly familiar with the public school system where the curriculum tends to be easier. That's not the case however at private schools. They cost a lot more money, but in return you get a much higher academic level and more engaging teachers. As far as the US goes, it's seldom a good idea to generalize based on one's experience in only one state or after having attended only public schools.
Hey where in bronx
@@bharatkapoor4062 Eastchester, on the border to Yonkers.
@@CurtisCT are you now in europe
@@bharatkapoor4062 Correct.
Interesting Video!
On the equipment of German schools:
Although a blackboard and an overhead projector are still frequently in use at state schools, modernization is taking place and will continue to do so.
At a private school, for example, there are already digital boards, whiteboards and book cameras.
[In addition, "Apple TV" with screens and IPads for all teachers (mandatory) and students (voluntary) has now been introduced at my old school].
I think modernization of all schools is important and inevitable, especially in the era of digitalization.
I only did public schools, and we took whatever books home that we needed, and we did our homework at home. That’s why it’s called “homework”. 🤣🤣🤣
I used to get my butt whooped for bringing homework home because my stepfather didn't understand the concept of homework. Certain magnet schools here in Minnesota have abolished homework. My GPA would have been phenomenal without that being on my score.
@@unityostara6380 - when I was in school, my dad was always an assistant or associate professor at the University we were at (he taught stagecraft, set construction, and speech), and my mom worked at a local library or on campus as a staff person at their local Human Resources department. So, they valued homework. They even bought me my own study carrell to have in my bedroom at home, where I could do my homework, paint lead figures for wargaming club, etc….
I do consider myself to be fortunate that my parents met when they were in college and they both highly valued education. It also helped that my grandfather was a regional manager for World Book Encyclopedia, and so we always had a set that was no more than a couple of years old.
@@shubinternet we had an encyclopedia set. Unfortunately from 1957. I was born with a thirst of knowledge that wasn't exactly appreciated by my blue collar grandparents or my pot smoking/dealer mom and stepdad. I read those encyclopedias back and forth.
@@unityostara6380 - by sixth grade, I had pretty much memorized the entire encyclopedia. They gave me reading tests and they didn’t understand how I could be reading at a college level. I had to explain to them every time about the very well-thumbed set of encyclopedias we always had.
But reading at that level didn’t give me the emotional aptitude to deal with people or the other things that come along with being treated as a really bright kid. School was one of the most unpleasant times in my entire life, at least until I found out about D&D and wargaming club.
@@shubinternet I found inline hockey and it did overlap with some d&d guys. I'm really not into the fantasy gaming but it was a breath of fresh air taking to intelligent and interesting people.
I graduated high school in 1974. There was a male student who sat behind me who put his head down on the desk and slept almost every day....The teacher would return tests by giving the first person in the row all the test papesr, they would take their paper and pass the rest back...I'd get mine and see Robert's test and he always had a better grade than me... he was part of a large poor family who didn't even have a TV until high school...He spent a large amount of time reading, especially military books... I think he was just so bored listening to things he already knew and slept... He joined the Marines after high school....thanks for the video
This was a Great episode! Loved it!
At my American school, they give us a set of textbooks to keep at home which we use for homework. Each individual class provides the needed textbooks as well, so you would not be carrying your books to and from school every day.
For me the highlight of the video is seeing pictures of little/ young Feli…😀 For anyone who agrees, say it with me “AWWWWW”😀😂
When I was in school (graduated high school in 1980, in Orange County in California), using backpacks was about the least cool thing one could do. It immediately defined you as the nerdiest kid in the world. When I got to college, everyone had a backpack, myself included. And now backpacks are ubiquitous in high school and lower levels.
Only time I've ever ridden a school bus was going to football and soccer games with the school team. My elementary school was about a half-mile away, and we walked. Junior high was across the street from elementary school, mostly rode my bike. Once I turned 16, my sophomore year, drove to school everyday. The students' parking lot was much bigger than the teachers' lot, because hundreds of students drove. Now it seems many (most?) kids are driven to school by their parents. This rarely happened when I was in school, even when it rained. But the landscape is different today, in terms of danger.
We had pledge of allegiance from the start, but I stopped doing it around 4th grade. Always found it a tad fascistic.
We had a very good football team -- lost just four games, three of them in playoffs, in my four years -- and we'd get 8,000-10,000 at many games. (Not quite like Texas!) Our basketball team wasn't very good, but we had a championship soccer team, which played at the same time of year. Our soccer team drew bigger crowds than the basketball team.
I've never used a fountain pen, and I'm almost 60. We had to learn cursive in first and second grade and were told we'd have to write in cursive as we got older. We didn't. The older we got, the less cursive we saw. I think teachers preferred the "block" writing, because it was (generally) more readable. And then, once in college, everything except in-class essays/tests had to be typed.
I really enjoyed this video! I am a teacher, here in the Sates, but I also lived in Germany for a year, when I was thirteen (in Gottingen) a LONG time ago. My quick 2 cents: As a former 1st-grade teacher, loved the Schultute idea (especially the homemade one). So sweet! About pencil sharpeners in classrooms; So true! Every US classroom has one. And I remember (as a 13 year old American girl attending 8th grade in Germany) marveling at your fountain pen skills. :) You are correct about chalk boards (those are completely obsolete in the US. All public classrooms that I have worked in over the last 15 years, had white boards or interactive "Smart baords" (or both). Though it might be the case that German classrooms have that technology now. One last point; I grew up and attended University in California at a public University; The University of California, Berkeley. While I understand your point and why you might be tempted to generalize about the public universities in the US being easier (I think you said for undergraduates) than in Germany, I don't think that is true. While there are many public universities in the U.S., for which that might be the case, there are also a good number of public universities (my alma mater included) that can compete with the best universities around the world - both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Such an interesting topic!
From the video, it appears there’s a lot more homogeneity in the German school system than in the US one. At the K-12 level in the US there’s a wide variety of quality and rigor in schools. If Feli’s understanding of US schools is mostly based on people attending school in and around Ohio, I’d say that’s not a region that’s well-known for high quality schools - though I’m sure there are some. Similarly at the university level, there are low quality/low rigor public and private schools, as well as high quality/high rigor public and private schools. And it can vary by program at the same university as well. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen University of Cincinnati on a “best of” college lists, so I wouldn’t compare it to say the Universities of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, North Carolina, or Penn State, etc. Published information shows U. of Cincinnati accepts 77% of its applicants, while U. of California Berkeley accepts 16% and U. of Michigan accepts 23%. Not a perfect metric, but it generally correlates with competitiveness and quality of the school.
Hey from Hanover, Germany (not too far from Göttingen, btw!). I can confirm, that at least in Lower Saxony it's very common nowadays for schools to have smart boards and ipads for every kid. Chalk boards on the other hand are usually not in use anymore, except for Elementary Schools.
Our football games were always Friday nights. We play basketball & baseball games twice a week (Tuesdays & Fridays usually). Once it got warmer out, we'd play some extra baseball games on Saturday. Our conference was large and we usually travelled 1-2 hours each way by bus. We had some non-conference games which took 3-4 hours each way.
There were definitely a few more subjects to choose between in Germany, too :D
I went to school in NRW and i was able to pick psychology, pedagogy, literature or dutch for example. My sister even had an ancient greek class.
we had psychology at my school in Munich too. Ancient Greek classes are only offered at very few schools. pedagogy is not a subject in Bavaria at all, tough I’ve heard of it being common and popular in nrw.
Older US student here (graduated high school in 1985)
Generally speaking, I seldom had homework - what assignments I couldn't finish during that particular class, I could usually find time for during other classes. Most stuff I actually took home to work on was stuff like term papers (theses) or other assignments generally meant to take multiple days to complete.
Grade School (1-6) had two class periods, then a 20-minute recess, two more classes, lunch, then two more classes. While not etched in stone, classes were pretty standardized by grade level - Math, Science, History, Social Studies, and English. The sixth class varied by grade level and generally focused on Art, Music, or PE.
Junior High (7-9) had three class periods, a one-hour period split between lunch and homeroom, then three more classes - no more recess. Math, English, Science, and History were standardized by grade level. The other two classes were technically electives, though a number of courses were required at some point: you had to take at least two semesters of "skills" (usually shop for the guys, home-ec for the gals), at least two one-semester Art courses, etc.
High School (10-12) also had three class periods, a one-hour period split between lunch and homeroom, then three more classes. English was now the only standardized one-per-grade-level course; three math courses (Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry) were required, as were Physics, Chemistry, and at least one more applied science; at least two years of PE; US History, Civics, and World History plus one history elective; and one year of a foreign language (though I got out of it by taking a course in mythology). The rest were open electives - I took Drafting and Architectural Drafting, Computer Programming (back when BASIC was king), Creative Writing, and I totally forget what the other was.
Very rarely did I ever ride the bus to school. Prior to 9th Grade, I rode my bike to and from school (unless the weather was bad enough to warrant one of my parents/grandparents driving me). Due to peculiar circumstances, I was able to get my full drivers' license at 14½ - two weeks into starting 10th Grade - and drove myself from then on.
Academic standards were definitely higher back when I was in high school - in most courses, the 'baseline' was 80% (B- letter-wise) and, if you wanted a higher grade, you had to earn it! In programing, for example; if your program accomplished the task reliably without error, it was worth 80%. Me, I *ALWAYS* went the extra mile - an intuitive UI (which was quite the challenge back then), error handling, data checking, code efficiency, etc. For writing assignments, it was MLA all the way (again, far more challenging back in the days before the internet) and every fact/assertion needed a cited source.
Discipline was also hugely different back when I was in school. The infamous 'Board of Education' was still a thing and, if you were violent or excessively disruptive, you got smacked with it - in most schools, you could hear the crack of someone's ass getting whacked from anywhere within the building. For 'lesser offenses', the teachers would often embarrass you in such a way as you'd never want to risk a second offense: fall asleep in class and you spent the rest of the period (possibly even an entire week) standing up; act up and they moved your desk outside the classroom and shut the door; keep interrupting the lecture and the teacher would trade desks with you ("Since you know so much that you don't need to pay attention, *you* get to teach the class.")
Brutal, but highly effective!
I don't remember having to go through a security system in Canada for school, but I went to school in the early '90s to early 2000s, so maybe that was different times. This was an interesting video!
In Junior High/Middle School we have police officers all over the school
I am also from Canada 🇨🇦
Our system is similar to the US. But school usually starts closer to 9 am and ends between 3-3:30 depending on the busing situation.
Last year with covid my daughter's school had the teachers go from class to class so there was less kids in the halls and they didn't use lockers.
We has smart boards already when i was in high school in 1995 but only for certain classes. Schools are now all equipped with dry erase boards.
The high school i went to was small so there were not many options for extra classes but i now live in a city so my daughter will have a lot more options.
Stantards in Canada are generally highly in Canada 🇨🇦 then in the US but if you need some extra courses that you did not get in high school you can either challenge them or take them in college. You can do the option of general studies and take courses needed for your program
Nice to have discovered your channel!! Already learned some things from your videos. Love your enthusiasm and energy in your videos. Well, writing and learning from Hawaii ! ! Have you ever been here? If not, you should : ) ALOHA!
Since the pandemic started many of our teachers started to use projectors more and more often. We also have some rooms with white boards as well.
To how long a school day is: I had days where I had to stay until 6pm. This was because I took Chinese lessons, but most of my school days in the Gymnasium where at least until 3pm.
When I went to Gymnasium we had 6 periods from Monday to Friday and 4 periods on Saturday. That has been over 40 years ago.
Probably because I'm older than yourself (there was 2 Germanys when I was in school) but we definitely had chalkboards here in US. The dry erase whiteboards are an after my time thing.
As someone that just graduated from a Bavarian Gymnasium we still use blackboards in almost all classrooms they even still build new ones the only difference is that now most rooms have projectors for Computers and OHPs are slowly disappearing (mostly bc after covid started teachers got school funded tablets and there was more money for tech equipment in general)
A few of our local schools still have chalk boards here in WA state. I think due to teacher preference.
Same. Well, the wall came down when I was in high school, so 2 when I started, 1 when I graduated.
I did as well. I didn’t see dry erase boards until grad school.
I never had any of this "tv school" in the US when I went. I never saw a locker in school. Never took a school bus. I walked to school from about 3rd grade until I graduated high school. The only time I even heard the word "prom" was on Happy Days.
Where are you from??? I had all of those things. You were robbed, lol😂😂
I was on a Realschule in NRW and later on a Gesamtschule for my Abitur which I finished in 2010. In 2014, during my BA program I did an internship at my old Realschule for potentially becoming a teacher and there were still classic green boards with chalk and I think they still use these today. I think, the school level and the area where the school is, play huge roles in how well the school is equipped. Families with a good income will put their kids in Gymnasiums and are willing and able to provide schools with some more money to ensure a better education than parents from "Arbeiterkinder".
At all the schools I went to, the school band was a concert band and a year-round thing, or they did concert band for half the year and then the same students did marching band for the other half.
Oh, I forgot that I should mention that I graduated high school in 1984, so my experience there is now quite out of date.
@@shubinternet Me too. So much of what Fili talks about for American schools is much more recent. Some the same like lockers and students changing classes and the loud and crowded hallways. Unfortunately I went to school from 7-12 grade in a completely different town than the one I lived in so lots of travel time and NO extracurriculars for me. I was not alone, however a few years after I graduated @17 they built both a new Junior High and High School. Those terms alone date me. Middle or Intermediate school came about after I graduated as did AP classes and such. I will say except for the "dummy" classes in high school like Fundamentals of Math my high school was more like the way Fili describes gymnasium. 70 or above to pass. Grades of D= 60%-70% did NOT pass in my school. Only A's, B's, or C's were a pass. Not to mention NO sleeping in class or off to the principals office you were sent. Late homework or projects did NOT exist unless you had a serious illness. Even then it was better to have someone bring your homework to school than to simply be sick/missing and not just in high school. Things got a little tougher near the end when missing more than 10 days a semester was an automatic fail. Nowadays they baby the kids all the way through high school. They give out diplomas like candy. That is why colleges have to have so many remedial classes. Just my experience. Fili should mention as I think she did in another video that she was top of her class so perhaps she has a different take on schools in general than someone who barely got by. Just a thought.
When I was in school at all levels, yes we hauled any work we couldn't complete during school home.
In the 60's-70's, when I grew up, in rural Northern Utah, "unique group dynamics" never happened as the bus drivers could and would ban you from riding the bus for however long as your behavior dictated. Riding the Yellow School Buses where I have lived and raised kids is a privilege, not a right.
Now, I live outside Chillicothe, Ohio (80-90 miles East of you), and my Granddaughter that lives with us, attends the schools here. Their buses are all assigned seating. Hers putting the little kids up front, the older kids in the middle, and the trusted older kids in the back. Rarely has there been an issue, and again, those problem riders can be banned from the bus.
I think one of the reasons for students changing classes in older grades can be traced back to when many students (rural and semi-rural for sure) went to school learning a trade or preparing for work in industry. History, Reading, Math, and Home Ec.,Auto shop, Wood shop, drafting, Ag Science, etc, were classes in Middle and High School. For example, I took two years of electronics/electrical theory, half a year of house wiring, half a year of drafting, half a year of wood shop, etc.
That's the way it was for my dad, me, my oldest daughter, but sometime in the late 80's-90's, education moved away from teaching work/life skills to everyone must go to college. Kids leave US school without the basic skills to work in industry, or be an adult, but they can sort recyclables, and use smart phones like their life depended on it, but that's another story.
@Randall Green, I'm older, probably than you. I went to all those classes and still didn't know how to live. As for you bus solution ask those kids if they have been bullied on that bus. the bus driver had the same power as yours trouble was the bully was his son. Most of the jobs we had growing up are no longer available to young people in this country because of the greed we let flourish of corporation that the bottom line is more important than people. We must educate the kids for the future not the past
We’re having a bunch of German students come to my high school in the fall during Homecoming week, they’re minds are gonna blow
I never used my locker in school. Senior year I just put all my empty water bottles in it. Filled to the brim with bottles. Probably gave whoever cleaned it out a good scare and a good laugh
Talking about how to go to school, here in Italy some cities and towns have activated a service called Pedibus. This means that children go to school walking together and accompanied by some volunteers who check out that everything is fine and then leave children at their schools.
It seems that, the German "Gesamtschule" and "Ganztagesschule" has more in common with the American High Schools concerning extracurricula and choices of courses
"Gesamtschulen" aren't a thing in every Bundesland. They don't have any in Bayern, for example, while in Niedersachsen they are quite popular.
@@katjahuskinson3428 Here in NRW they are getting rid of the Hauptschule and Realschule. They are putting them together and call it Sekundarschule, but the Gymnasium still remains
@@SuperwurstLP well, I only have experience with schooling in Bavaria and Lower Saxony, so I can only speak for those. Right now more Lower Saxony than Bavaria though. So, here we still have all school types seperately, but there are also "integrierte Gesamtschulen" (IGS) and some of them only go up to "Mittlere Reife", so basically they are Haupt- and Realschule, but the trend is going towards all of them also having a " Oberstufe", so the possibility of getting your Abitur as well.
It's just so weird to me that Germany really isn't a big country geographically, but we still can't have the same system all over. Makes moving with school kids between Bundesländer a nightmare.
Yeah i agree :) I am actually a student on a Gesamtschule here in Cologne (NRW) and it seems like our school has so much more in common with high schools in the USA than german Gymnasien do..
@@katjahuskinson3428 Gesamtschule vs. dividing into three school types after 4th grade is a cultural fight in Germany since 50 years. In the more conservative/right wing ruled states we have mostly the divided System and in the more left wing states we have more of the integrated schools. Since Bavaria is (kind of like Texas) traditionally right wing ruled, it has the traditional system.
When I was student in Germany (Saxony), we had blackboards and overhead projectors as shown until my 10th grade (in 2016) too. But after that they changed a lot. Some rooms really do look like the American version you showed, with document cameras, smartboards and projectors (Beamer). At the school where I teach now they have these old blackboards, but big TV screens above to connect with tablets or laptops and blue ray players. Of course some still look like you described, but I think that will change soon.
And we just had a class room until 6th grade. After that we changed rooms and went to the teachers too. We just took our stuff from room to room...and yes, rooms often were locked in the break (especially such rooms for biology, chemistry and physics), so we put our bags in front of the room in the corridor.
Picking classes seems to be a little different in the German states too. It's very interesting to hear from a German point of view! I wasn't allowed to drop a science or a language - we dropped either politics or geography and music or arts (as you too).
About the schedule and the cafeteria: all schools that I went to (as student or teacher) had a cafeteria with warm meals for lunch and students had six to nine periods per day. I read that this is left from the system of the GDR. Also a 'Hort' for students in primary school doesn't seem as normal in the old states as it is in the new states of Germany. And by the way, we call the 'Schultüte' (school paper bag) 'Zuckertüte' (sugar paper bag)and celebrate the 'Zuckertütenfest' on the weekend before the first school day. ^^
So these are my experiences to add. But yes, all in all these are just little differences - thank you for your video!
I went to Gymnasium in Germany between 1995 and 2004 (yes, I am THAT old D: ) and it's true that the setup of different subjects were pretty homogenous for all students of the same grade up until 10th grade. At my school we had these subjects in each grade from 5th to 13th:
5th grade: German, English, Religion (Catholic or Protestant), Music, Art, Geography, Math, Biology, P.E.
6th grade: German, English, Religion (Catholic or Protestant), Music, Crafts, History, Geography, Math, Biology, P.E.
7th grade: German, English, French or Latin, Religion (voluntary), Music, Crafts, History, Geography, Math, Physics, P.E. - no Biology!
8th grade: German, English, French or Latin, Religion (voluntary), Art, History, Geography, Math, Physics, Biology, P.E. - no Music!
9th grade: German, English, French or Latin, a third foreign language (voluntary). Religion (voluntary), History, Geography, Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, P.E. - neither Art nor Music!
10th grade: German, English, French or Latin, a third foreign language (voluntary), Religion (voluntary), Music, Art, History, Geography, Math, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, P.E. - definitely the most "crowded" curriculum in my secondary education career :D
11th grade: German, English, a second foreign language (can also be your personal third one), a third foreign language (voluntary), Religion or Philosophy, Music or Art, History, Geography, Economics & Politics, Math, three out of four Science & Technology subjects (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science), P.E. - and finally a rather weird one-year only subject called "VTU" ("Vertiefender Unterricht" - literally something like "consolidate learning class", I don't know any better way to translate it properly), which essentially consists of group work on various subjects and the teacher would teach us how to "properly work together and consider the way you interact with your fellow students in class"... yeah, it was kinda weird and no one took that subject seriously in our class :D
12th grade: German, one foreign language (could be either one that was offered but almost everyone in my year chose English :P ), a second foreign language (voluntary), Religion or Philosophy, Music or Art, History, Geography, Economics & Politics, Math, at least two out of four Science & Technology subjects (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science), P.E. (one of three specialized courses) - also from this grade on you had two "Leistungskurse" (= "advanced courses") in two subjects of your choice (among those that were actually offered) you had an increased number of periods per week in and which would become focus subjects in your final exams ("Abiturprüfung") one year later
13th grade: German, one foreign language, a second foreign language (voluntary), Music or Art (taking either was voluntary), History, Geography or Economics & Politics (voluntarily both), Math, at least one out of four Science & Technology classes (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science), P.E. (one of three specialzed courses), one "Project Course" (specific courses offered by various teachers that focus around a "semi-academic" topic to further enhance group work and how you approach learning something on your own) - also in addition to your two "advanced courses" you had to pick two more subjects for your final exams to be your P3 course (written exam subject) and your P4 course (oral exam subject)
I personally had Math and Geography as my advanced courses, German as my additional written exam course and English as my additional oral exam course. :)
Mr Bottomtooth : Abi 98 ! Und du denkst du bist alt. Aber ich habe mein Abi über den dritten Bildungsweg: Erst Hauptschule, dann Mittlere Reife, dann Abi
Oh, so viele junge Leute hier 😏. Abi '90 hier 😎.
What a wonderful bit of great information on the differences. I went public school in South Louisiana from the 1960's-1971. Some of the public schools I went did not have air conditioning so they had no school from June-August. We used pencils all thru school and we used ink cartridge pens in Elementary Schools. We had the blackboard all thru school with chalk. I hate those white boards with the markers to write with. I can from a American Indian and European heritage and had encountered a lot of racism issue due to my being biracial from students and sadly from the teachers also.
Kids in Germany have a "breakfast break" Frühstückspause. I was really thrown by this and did not understand why I had to send breakfast for my kids when they already had breakfast at home. I was also shocked to think that kids were sent to school on an empty stomach.
I also never got used to the different times kids leave school. I find it really chaotic and I still haven't found a way to make a regular routine for my family.
I almost always went to school without breakfast, I scarcely remember eating before going to school.
By the time I was a sophomore in H.S. I finally started to feel the negative side effects of skipping breakfast.
In South Africa, we too stay in class and the teacher comes to us. We do not have lockers.
There is one school form in Germany that has the level-separation, at least for the core classes of maths, german, and english, and also often for secondary languages and some more depending on if that school has the teachers to offer this separation. This is the Gesamtschule. The idea for it that you basically combine Realschule and Gymnasium into one, so that you get a better mixture of stronger and weaker students. To give both groups the chance to learn at their pace better, but still not split the community entirely into half, these level-options only exist for select subjects.
They usually only start one or two years into this school form, and which levels you take is determined by the grades you get before that. Well, not determined - you can choose freely, but the grades are quite a good measure of what would be your better pick. You usually can also switch between levels later on if your performance swings heavily into either direction, and you don't have to be on the same level for all subjects. You can be Grundkurs (basic level) English but Erweiterungskurs (extended level) Maths at the same time.
This distinction however is gone when you continute to attend the school after 10th grade, which is where the Gymnasium exclusive years start. It is all implied extended level from there.
When I was at my Gesamtschule ('92-'01), we had group tabels made up of 3x2-seater tables. The hope was to have at least one strong student per group that somewhat carried/tutored their group, but I think this backfired in many instances. We still kept this system through all years, at least for all the subjects taught in our Klassenzimmer. The specialized rooms usually had rows of tables, sometimes staggered like in a tiny uni auditorium.
Gesamtschulen also went the whole-day school route fairly early on. We did have a dedicated dining hall (Mensa) with centrally organized lunch (which was mostly horrible but cheap), and school lasted until 4pm on 3 of 5 days of the week (mon, wed, thu) for all years. Later on it wasn't uncommon to also have the Friday afternoon at school. I was very lucky to having lived practically right next to my school for 4 of those years, so it was actually possible to have lunch with my family within that 45min break. That was pure luxury. (And yes, I also sometimes went home to visit the throne! I felt VERY attacked when that film came out! :D )
For younger children, there is generally a monitor on the bus. It can be a teacher, a student/teacher, a parent, or sometimes somebody else.
I am a 5th Generation German American and find these videos very interesting
The pictures of the Schultute are great! Based on the perspective of the first photo image, I did not understand the full size of these things. I thought they were small…about the size of an ice cream cone filled with a couple of pencils and a few pieces of candy. Then, the pictures of 6-year Feli hugging a giant Schultute mouse popped up, and it was so cute! Mom and Dad must have been proud.
I read the US actually has a law or laws against allowing students to carry all of their books for all of their classes at once. The school can potentially get in trouble for this. I think it was enacted around 2000 or slightly after. Too many people were having serious back problems in their 20's, and they traced it back to carrying all the text books in high school. On the other hand, it can be really stressful trying to get to your locker and then get to class with the immense hallway traffic, and sometimes your locker and your next class are on opposite sides of the school.
I don't know if there are actual laws in place or just suggestions, but I heard the same thing. I do remember that, around 2000 when I was starting high school, people were suddenly talking about backpack weights, and that teachers would often tell students to put their books in their lockers, sometimes forcefully so, or would ban kids from having other books in class, so maybe something was enacted?
The problem was like you said, 3 minutes between classes to get from one class to another in a large-ish school with crowded hallways, going up and down stairwells, with the prior class's teacher often letting you out late, having to go to the other side of the school to get your locker and books because it's difficult carry around heavy science books AND half a dozen smaller English books, was impossible. Most teachers would just give you a stern "Don't let it happen again" when you came in 10-20seconds late, which of course it always did, but some would hand out detention or would even lock the door the second the hell rang, in which case you had to walk to the administrative office area, tell the secretary what happened and get sent back to class with a pass, then you'd have to sit outside the classroom until the teacher decided to let you in, meanwhile getting yelled at by other teachers for "loitering in the halls."
Sorry, I guess this brought up some memories for me. 😅
Rather doubt it's a law, especially since all schools are governed at the state level, or even more local. But there is concern about spinal health....or at least before covid. My son's high school did not allow use of lockers, because students might congregate (i.e. visit). However, the same district's middle school allowed lockers. Strange, that.
But, our district does not use text books like other districts or days gone by. They each get a Chrome book to take home in 6th grade thru 12th grade. So all their books are online. They can borrow a physical book for the year to take home. (We are a small district. That's how we can afford that.)
I had a locker until 2001. The reason my school got rid of our lockers was because a kid came to school with a bunch pipe bombs and a 9m gun. He put them in his locker. It wasn't an assault rifle because they were banned in the US until 2004 (thank you Bush 🙄). He was caught before anything happened.
It's true about the back issues. In 6th grade I wasn't supposed to get a locker until 4 months after school started. My mom went into school and showed the doctors report from the chiropractor and my neck wasn't in proper alignment due to carrying books.
At least in Texas I went to two high schools and neither had lockers so I don't think there's any law regarding it. We had to carry our books around in our bags. I agree it would be stressful to get to your locker if it was on the opposite side of the school.
@@killian_reid Might not be a national law, but I'm sure there are state or local laws in many parts of the country.
Felicia - I went to a small Catholic rural school, although we had very narrow lockers to store our coats and boots, we stored all of our books and other materials at our desks. We stayed in the same classroom all days, except for music class.
Love your content!
Brava! Another great informative video. So articulate
I personally like the home room system better after experiencing both, it’s easier for me to make new friends and it promotes unity over individuality 👍
Homeroom was awesome! Only had that in middle school. It was in our science teachers room and he made it fun!
@@unityostara6380 Some German schools have (or at least have tried) the American system where students switch classrooms for each subject. The school I went to tested out such a system from when I was in 7th grade up until 9th grade, then students could vote on whether they wanted to keep the system or revert back to the old one. The majority voted for the old system, so in my final year we had a homeroom system again. Compared to America, there was one big difference with the system we tried, though. Even though we switched rooms for each subject, we still had those subjects as one single class, so we still stayed in our group of ~25 students, not like in America where there's different people in every subject you take.
@@leDespicable they tried a one classroom system experiment thing in my high school. It was only for about 30 kids. It was a complete disaster. My friend was one of them and most didn't even graduate. They didn't pick the right teachers for it. Most only had a few years experience.
@@unityostara6380 Interesting, how come they messed up that badly?
@@leDespicable lack of effort all around. For something new to work you need people to really believe in it.
In rural areas as an older student you might need to walk up to half a mile to the nearest intersection to get picked up by the school bus. There was also a wait from 5 to 20 minutes for the bus to come, which could be quite invigorating in winter 0 to -20 or -30 degrees C.
German here, Baden-Württemberg. I graduated with the Abitur in 2013 - the first generation of students to graduate after 12th grade, rather than 13th grade.
My elementary school (grades 1-4) went from 8:20 to 11:50 most of the time, but we always had one "long" day per week, which either started 50 minutes earlier or ended 50 minutes later. Lunch was offered once a week, which 2 moms would cook voluntarily. But those handful of students who went to that lunch were stigmatized as "poor" because "their mom had to work, so they couldn't cook lunch at home". Which is bullshit of course. But that's indoctrinated classism and sexism for you.
The public Gymnasium I went to in 5th and 6th grade went from 7:30 to 12:40 most days, but there would be one long day every week that ended at 3:40. That school was also super classist and sexist because it was expected for moms to be homemakers who would pick up their kid during lunch break, feed them at home, and then bring them back to school for the afternoon lessons. Like my elementary school, that Gymnasium also offered lunch only once a week, cooked by moms, and those who went there were stigmatized.
The other public Gymnasium I went to up until 11th grade was more urban (well, not particularly urban, but not as rural and sheltered as the other two schools). The schedule was 7:30 to 12:40 twice a week, and 7:30 to 3:40 three times a week. Older students would usually have one day per week that ended as late as 5:30. The school offered a lunch, but it was just the same cheap frozen pizza every single day. Literally. And one such pizza cost 3 euros. Hardly anyone ate at the cafeteria because of this. We usually would take the bus to the next McDonald's or walk to the grocery store for donuts and candy. Talk about a healthy lunch, am I right?
Now, private school was pretty different. I went to one during my 11th grade and to another during 12th grade.
The first private school's times were 8:30 to 4:00 on Mondays through Thursdays, with a shorter day on Fridays that ended at 1:00. There were moms there who cooked a fresh and healthy meal every day, and everyone HAD to participate in lunch, no one was allowed to leave school grounds during lunch break. But the lunch was pretty good!
The second private school went from 8:00 to 5:00, except for Fridays when it would end at 1:30. We had a catering service for lunch as well as a salad bar. But the food wasn't that good, so we would often go to a (non-fast food) restaurant for lunch (this school was right in the city center). I always felt sorry for the younger kids, who all had the exact same schedule, and it wasn't unusual to have very long commuting hours as well at that school. Those kids were stripped of their childhood, being away for school for longer hours than most adults work. And yes, they did have actual CLASSES for that long every day.
Extracurriculars were not an actual thing in any of my schools. My private schools tried to popularize them, but frankly, there just wasn't any time. The school system in Baden-Württemberg requires waaaay too many classes.
POST MORE VIDEOS...I look forward to them!!
My high school burned to the ground in my sophomore year. I had a Bible in my locker which was the only book not burned beyond recognition. It smelled really bad but was still useable.
Wow that’s some divine intervention
@@Maicowerk if I had a dime for everytime I thought about burning my high school down...sheet. I still have nightmares about that place and I m 41. Queue Bowling for Soup "High School never ends"
Many years ago something similar happened to a friend of a friend of the family. Her apartment caught on fire and everything was saturated with smoke and charred something fierce. My brother and I helped her clean up (she was blind). She mentioned that she had a Braille New Testament series of books somewhere and we eventually found them. When we took the books out of the box, they were completely intact and we could not even SMELL smoke on them!!
@@NipkowDisk I like burning things every now and then but their is a certain smell when things that should not have been burned that smells awful. Can't come up with a scientific reason for that.
@@unityostara6380 God Damm! My nightmares from school didn't start easing up till I was in my 70s! Nobody should have to suffer like that! CindyBradyTooh at yahoo.com if ya want to talk.
In most grades, I had to take home all of my books for homework. However, one year, I attended a school that was worried so much about gun violence that we were not allowed to bring any bag bigger than a tiny purse. That year, we had one set of book that we left at home and the classroom had one shared set of books.
Friends of mine that have done education in the US, they say there is HUGE pressure all the time to excel and be the best... They drive people really hard. But you don't really LEARN anything compared to education over in Europe which is just... Far more modern. Its all about "making it" and being "top of your class" in the US. Multiple choice tests is the death of education.
European countries and the US have more 'modern' educational systems in different ways, it's not as clear cut as Europe being ahead. Like she said, Americans get to choose a lot more of what level of classes to take and when. I'd argue that that's more modern than the same thing for every kid, since it's acknowledging that every kid is different. But I'd assume you'd spin that in some negative way because America bad
@@JonahNelson7
I dont know what video you have watched. But in this one, she is pretty much saying in every possible way the European style is far superior. And that's not just German education vs American. its all across the board.
The Obama administration said US education ranked rock bottom out of the 46 countries they liked to call "Developed countries" So that's behind all of Europe and half of Asia. But there are several countries that fall outside that list too. That also have better education. Russia and a lot of the ex-Soviet states for example are heavy on education.
And as a social, cultural thing... Its just not very popular in the US to be intellectual. They laugh at that stuff. Education is mostly seen as a waste of time and money. Meanwhile over here... I don't know anyone that isn't properly educated.
There are Leistungsdaten- and Grundkurs in Germany. So you can decide what level you want to attend and we also had a choice to learn a second and even a third foreign language it we wanted. English mandatory, and French, Spanish or Russian on was possible on a voluntary basis.
That is not the sense that I got from watching Feli’s video. She seems to suggest American schooling is easier and that it’s in Germany where they drive the students much harder.
I was an army brat living in Frankfurt. My sister and I attended a German elementary school as a 3rd and 4th grader after our school year ended in May. We went to classes until they took their summer break which started at the beginning of July. We struggled doing our math lessons with ink pens in a notebook that needed to be submitted the next day. No loose-leaf notebook paper and no erasers. Neatness was important.
Ich glaube es hat sich geöndert, zuminedst bei uns in Südtirol werden immer mehr elektronische (weiße) Tafeln installiert, (hilft auch, wenn die halbe Klasse zu Hause unterrichtet wird)
During COVID our Math teacher improvised a little bit. He used his smartphone to film his notebook. He connected his smartphone with a computer and projected the picture on a canvas in our classroom and also streamed it online so the students in quarantine were able to “be in the classroom”
An unique german feeling is THIS HUGE RELIEF knowing you don't have Tafeldienst. 😂😂😂 I can't explain!
Erst nass abwischen, dann trocken drüber wischen
I lucked out: We always lived so close to the school, that I never had to ride the bus.
I liked having a locker and extra-curriculars at school.
There is a big difference in academic standards between state/public universities and private universities, which definitely tend to be more demanding. I found my year at the University of Tübingen to be much less stressful than classes at my private liberal arts university in the US. Back in the 80s at a German university, if you didn't get your term paper done on time, you just went to the professor and asked for an extension. Plus, to this day, if you fail an exam at a German university, you can repeat it up to 2 times. If you fail your final at an American university, you flunked the class and would have to take the whole class again.
Almost nobody knows how to use a fountain pen in the US. I have one that I bought to use at work because ball points are a pain in the butt and when people would borrow it they would try to use it upside down with the nib below the feed (so the nib was curving away from the paper instead of towards it) or they would push so hard with it they would bend the nib and it would stop writing because the feed wouldn't be touching the nib anymore. People would also look at me like I was handing them a bottle of ink and a quill.
I've written cursive my whole life, having learned in elementary.......after learning "block" what we called print in my elementary days......1960's.
I always took what I needed for homework home
I slept in some classes lol
@@bandit1blue01079 At least that did't distract the teacher from teaching, just you from learning.
This was over 20 years ago
@@bandit1blue01079 Hopefully that did not manifest consequences now.
On our school bus, it was quiet in the morning with the kids glumly looking forward to a new day in purgatory. But the ride home was a zoo, with the animals released from their cages. Fights weren't uncommon (1960s).
Homework wasn't due every day for every subject, and you could do a lot in study halls and homeroom. So usually you could get by with bringing a subset of your books home in the evening. What you learned in junior high and high school was careful planning for when things were due, to make sure you brought the right books home with you to prepare your homework in a timely fashion.
We didn't have the same schedule every day. We used a "rotating schedule" - the order of the subjects was the same, but for instance what was first period on Monday was second period on Tuesday and third period on Wednesday, etc. What was last period on Monday was first period on Tuesday.
I, as a former college professor, am triggered by the grade inflation and lax discipline I'm seeing in American schools.
I’m wondering if it deals with quantity vs quality. When I was in middle and high school we had six 45 classes everyday with some of these changing every 6 weeks. So it was hard to be bored and act up. My own kids today have 90 minute core classes! I probably would fall asleep too as a 12 year old having to take 90 minute classes. And they get to pick two electives and are stuck with them the whole year. These electives are treated as blow off classes. Actually the whole day is, except Math and English where they are tested nonstop. I blame standardized testing.
Interesting! How do you find all these topics again and again. You are more than creative! Of course the topics are obvious! But if I look at your entire clips!!!! Respect! You've found your profession 🧐🧐🧐
At my high school in the late 70's we had a smoking area. I became a high school teacher and when I told my students that, they didn't believe me. I also told my students that in my high school we didn't have police or adult supervisors on campus and maybe there was a connection to the smoking area. Some got the humor.
In my high school, 1980s, we had "open campus". Those who could drive could go out for lunch. Yes, there was a smoking section for kids who smoked, too.
Re homework: in the U.S. a student will have to manage bringing home some of their books each night for homework. It's typical to have 6 classes, but 1 of those might be p.e. and another might be some kind of arts class, band, or magazine -- something that doesn't involve books to carry. And not every class will have homework every day. Often the homework in high school is bigger projects or packets that are due weekly or after a longer time rather than daily. That means you can plan your time so that you don't usually have to carry every single book home every night.
I was most blown away by the fountain pens. Fountain pens! Whoa. Those are so rare! And expensive, too. And writing in cursive, too. We were taught cursive in elementary school, but never required to use it after that.
And the statement that German students are not allowed to use pencils because you would be able to erase things. Well yes, that's the whole point. Especially in math, you usually want to erase your mistakes. I have always preferred a pen, even for math (and I have a master's in math), and people thought I was strange, all through college and grad school, using my pens and lots and lots of paper rather than ever being able to erase anything. I guess Germany puts a big emphasis on getting things right the first time? No room for mistakes?
The thing is, that there is room for mistakes 😉 if you got to wrong solution or made a mistake, you just cross it out in a clearly way. That shows the teacher, you just did it again und sees the way you had to get to your solution.
Using a pencil you can easily erase and (i think it's the wrong word) you can betray easily. 😉
Yeah, its more about preventing cheating afterwards - all students have the right to receive their exams back after getting their grade, and it would be just TOO easy to quickly erase that one word or number that might have been the mistake that prevented you from getting a better grade, and going back to the teacher and telling them they must have made a mistake in grading.
This actually happened in my school, where a student was using not a pencil, but an erasable ballpoint pen (these were new at this point and the teachers didn't know about it).
Anyway, if no onw can prove the student wrong and parenty might get involved, this business can get ugly quite quickly, so insisting on fountain pens or ballpoint pens, where you can see if there was something obviously corrected is the safer option.
(And just like fillefanz said, you can correct your mistakes of course, the correction is just made visible ;)
Oh, that’s an interesting take. At my public schools in the US, we were required to use pencil and not allowed to use pens in any subject until 5th or 6th grade. At that point we could choose, but were still encouraged to use pencil for science and math. I suppose the focus was more on the neatness and/or clear readability of the final result? I don’t think it would occur to many students to falsify their exam responses after the fact. Typically, your grade was your grade. No negotiation. And anyway, erasing still leaves tell-tale marks on the paper. If your paper had eraser marks and you tried to claim some grading mistake, the teachers would likely see right through you. Perhaps the difference is that individual tests and quizzes aren’t worth as much in the US as in Germany? Your semester grade could be made up of 10 quizzes, 4 tests, and 20-30 homework assignments and/or class presentations. If you did badly on one assignment, it wouldn’t hurt your grade too much. I’d just ask the teacher for extra help understanding the subject and do better next time. That’s not to say that some students won’t try to cheat, I think it’s just much more likely to happen before or during the test, than after.
I despised pencils. Even for math. I always used ink.
In middle school I had five assigned classes and the sixth class was an elective, which means I could choose from a list of options. Electives are fully graded, so they are not like extracurricular activities.
As far a US college professors not being that demanding, try some engineering classes.
Organic Chemistry...
My thoughts exactly.
basically stem
I did an exchange as an electrical engineering student from Germany in the US and the courses are way easier. There are way less assignments and due to the curve grading it was easy to get good grades. I didn’t see anyone learning 4+weeks for an exam in the US just to pass (not talking about As). In Germany that’s pretty much standard. The teaching itself is in no way worse than in Germany but I do think that the students put less effort into it as your grade also depends on other peoples performance. In Germany that’s simply not the case. 80% will always be a B, no matter what other students do in the exam.
Wow, German schools sound awesome, with a wide vaiety of subjects! I went to American schools in three locations (4 if you count university.)
Hawaii- We would never wear home shoes. It's uncommon in America in general, but many schools in Hawaii are "open." You have buildings with classrooms, but when you step out of the room, you're outside. Bathrooms are in another building, and the cafeteria is yet another. You learn basics such as reading, writing, art, etc. The two major differences for me was that my school was on a military base, and for reading, (kindergarten to 2nd) I had a different curriculum. A few times a week I would have separate sessions, and then the rest of the time I would tutor students from the 5th-6th grades.
Washington DC- we had regular buildings, with my school being 4 floors. It was...dismal. It was in a poorest area of the city. We shared old textbooks held together with duct tape, and broken windows. They had additional classes for gifted kids, which was pretty good and a great escape. Corporal punishment was used liberally. It was also the first and last time that I wore a uniform. I don't know if uniforms are a thing in Germany, but it varies between local districts. They are a standard in private schools.
Maryland- this is where I was first introduced to many of the things seen in movies. I had multiple classes, but with A-B days that had different classes. However, English was a daily class. I had a locker that changed each year. We had a cafeteria and vending machines. Cheerleaders wore their uniforms on game/competition days. We had some sports like football, basketball, etc. However, we didn’t have lacrosse, field hockey, or swimming. My county was primarily Black and Latino, and those sports just aren't popular or accessible. Driving was permitted from junior year, but unlike many American schools, Driver's Ed was not offered. However, we did have a bunch of before/after school activities. Band was usually both before and after school. Unlike thee "standard" high school popularity structure where the band would be at the bottom of the pyramid, it was reversed at my school. The marching band was by far the most popular. and football was ate the bottom. Our band traveled to competitions frequently.
Another feature of my school was that there was a vocational education division that was very popular in the county. We had courses such as automotive repair, cosmetology (makeup, hair, nails, fashion,) culinary arts ( they would cater things like weddings, professional conventions, and the like) refrigeration and HVAC, carpentry, welding, electric repair, etc. These were very respected and offered a great path to employment. ROTC was also a thing. My path was mostly academic, taking AP couses and having after school clubs like computer club, mock trial, science and tech...
I don’t know the average size of a German school, but we had a pretty large(?) student body, around 1,200-1,300.
Bonus! College/University- I went to a small women's college. Wedidnt have male residential students, and for the first day, you had limited male visitation weekends, based on the GPA of the floor. The small size allowed stdents to have more hands-on projects and be listed in projects and papers with professors. We had a wet campus--alcohol was allowed if you were of age. In fact, we would have events that were school-sponsored and featured alcohol, and we learned how to hold our alcohol, table manners, event planning, etc. I loved that school.
It's really great to see so many different education structures!!
Sorry long comment coming
Ok. This is coming from an American. I’m giving my own personal experience because schools are different depending on the state. I’m from CA. First of all every grade isn’t in the same school. K-5 is is elementary school and it is it’s own separate thing, 6-8 is middle school/Jr. high school and it is it’s own separate thing and 9-12 is high school and it is it’s own separate thing. For elementary school we don’t have a lot of books and any books we do use stay in the classroom in our desks. In middle school (and some classes in high school) we get a set of books for home and one stays in the classroom, and high school most teachers require you to carry the books back and fourth. Homework is assigned at school and has to be completed at home (but sometimes teachers let you work on it for a bit in class depending on the assignment.) In middle and high school we have a set schedule and don’t really get to choose our classes. In my experience we had to take math, English, history, science and PE until 11th grade and we were only allowed to choose our 2 elective classes (my school had 6 periods.) We also had to take geography & health in 9th grade which took up one of our elective slots. Starting in 11th grade we were only required to take English and history and in 12th grade we had to take economics and government in place of history. And after that we could either choose 4 more electives or just leave for the day after we completed the 2 required classes. As for sports there are a lot of things offered through the schools but there are a lot of club teams too. In elementary and middle school there are really no sports or anything (besides marching band, choir and orchestra) offered through the school so all extracurricular activities are done separately outside of school and usually done in the evenings during the week and games and stuff are on weekends. In high school is when all the real extracurriculars are offered but a lot of times they aren’t immediately after school. A lot of times practices etc are in the evenings/weekends. Most students also leave to go home after school unless their sport/club whatever happens to have a meeting directly after but it’s not like the majority of students stay after school. You can also do club sports while doing high school sports too. All of my schools got out at 2:30 in the afternoon.
I am also from CA, & can verify that this comment is exactly what I experienced 30 years ago, and what my kids experienced also. Although the specifics, wording & timing of things changed a bit for them.
My school bus driver was the same for many years. When the kids got bad, she would STOP the bus, slowly walk down the aisle with the most stern look on her face, so mad. She would find out who was being bad and make them sit up front. The toughest old lady I ever knew, but also really nice.
Nice Video !!! Still want to see you go to Frankenmuth Michigan and see your reaction to Michigan's little Bavaria !! German girl goes to an American German city 😎!
I have experience Frankenmuth and Berlin and a small town outside of berlin Dallgow-Doeberitz and Frankenmuth is NOT GERMAN. It does or did have in 1965 a very good restaurant and Christmas store that was open all year and brewery. ( and I should say a very good PR person or company)
It is not that thrilling if you are a German national. I got dragged there there once in the earlier 90s and went again a decade later because all the grandkids went to see how taffy was made . Frankenmuth had gotten even more fake. It is everything that Germany is not .
@@jimgeiser487 Frankenmuth was founded by German Americans !!! They even spoke German until around World War 2 . It is American German Bavarian themed City , Yes They still have those restaurants and the Largest Christmas store Bronner's !
Yes, Frankenmuth was founded by people from Franconia but that was in the 18th century.Why should someone from Germany visit Frankenmuth? The half-timbered structures are painted on and for a German visitor it all looks very fake. As a German you shrug your shoulders, shake your head ( if you are not from the state of Bavaria and there are 16 states in Germany) and think that Americans have some strange views of Germany. Do not get me wrong, Frankenmuth is great if you are US American .It is the US vision/version of Germany and many people visit and enjoy their stay in Frankenmuth but it has little to do with Germany. In a way it is like the Sound of Music hardly any German ist familar with the movie or the Trapp family yet it is very popular with Americans. Do not get me wrong I am not trying to put anything down Germans are guilty as well. US week at ALDI in Germany .Hot dogs in vacuum sealed jars ,in brine so very American don't you think ???
Here in the US, many k-12 school textbooks are online and accessed by way of school -supplied laptops (Chromebooks, etc).
Textbooks are slowly going away - to the relief of student backs and shoulders.
Something like school-supplied laptops is pretty much unheard of in Germany. Wouldn't really work since most schools don't even have a good internet connection. Many German states criminally underfund their schools. When there's not even money to replace the old overhead projectors with document cameras and projectors, there won't be any laptops anytime soon...
Regarding the academic discipline portion and deadlines (from a teacher’s perspective), a lot of this is a recent development (last 10-15 years or so). There’s been a big shift in our society that has placed blame on a student’s failure on the teacher instead of the student. When I was growing up, if the teacher got on to a student or reached out to a parent regarding their kid, the parent generally sided with the teacher. Now it isn’t like that. Most of the time the parent will side with the kid. This has bled over into grades/assignments. Parents are not as involved in their kid’s education as they once were. They’re not checking in to make sure they are doing their homework and when the kid has a 15 in the class because they turned in no work, the teacher gets in trouble for not reaching out (which they do) and are expected to allow the student to make up the work. Basically teachers in the US are no longer viewed as authority figures (in both discipline and knowledge).
Also, it doesn’t help that teachers in the US are grossly underpaid so the brightest minds no longer consider it as a career option.
How can you say that? The average salary for K-12 teachers in the US is 60k per year, compared with around 35k in Germany!
@@amirhosseinhosseinzadeh7627 5th grade teacher here and I make 42k a year.
It depends on the state, I made way less in Florida than California, but rent was also twice the price so it evened out.
American here, and I walked alone to school since the age of 5, and until my school was too far from our home to walk. That wasn't until Jr. High School. We also had chalk (black) boards, but I'm pretty old by now!
Many of us did not attend after school activities. We just went home. Once I was 16, my after school activity was a job at McDonald's.
Once at university, my university actually required me to jump right into the classes of my major (architecture) with very few general requirement classes that first year. Those classes were 2 semesters of English, 2 semesters of physical education, a semester of science, and 2 semesters of electives, and that was about it. Everything else was within my major.
I used fountain pens for most of my school times.
I grew up in New York and each Winter after a snowstorm each person would bring an extra pair of shoes to wear at school that day because we were required to remove our snow boots upon entering the building. The boots would be placed by the classroom door in the hallway. At the end of the school day if it wasn't snowing, the student could either change into their snow boots again and go home or the could just grab the boots and leave wearing the regular shoes.
We were told to use pencils because you had to show all your "work" on math tests/exams. Failure to show your work is meant the answer was completely wrong.
We could choose whether to write in script or print. The teacher/professor only demanded that the handwriting was neat and readable. If he or she couldn't read it, you failed the exam/test.
I was in karate as a kid outside of school. It was nice meeting friends outside of school, and ones who had at least one of my interests. It was also nice to be one of the cool kids there because in school, I was an outcast.
So yeah, the US has stuff like that, but a lot of stuff is available at the school you go to.
Another thing was elementary schools usually didn't have sports teams, so there would be kids sports leagues... usually teams were sponsored by businesses in the community. You'd see teams with names like Kentucky Fried Chicken, lawyer names, store names, etc. I don't think that's common in most of the US.
Cityleague is pretty common where I am, but I remember Elementary Basketball being offered by the school, too.
Some kids in American schools also walk to school too. I did, even though I lived in a bad neighborhood full of crime outside of Chicago. The difference is our schools are never so far away where we have to take public transport. If a child was taking the bus or train, there was usually suspicion they were going to school outside of their district or county, which in some states is not allowed.
It would definitely reduce hallway traffic immensely if only the teachers had to change class rooms in the US.
Although, in truth, it is also fairly common that class groups will walk around between classrooms. In some schools, certain classrooms are assigned to teachers and even when not, there are usually specialty rooms (e.g. for chemistry) that certain subjects will take place in. So you do get a lot of walking around, because classes are also fairly big (around 30 students is common). IN my schools, there were even a few separate buildings across sections of town, so there was always droves of school kids walking through the streets between those buildings, and that setup is also not that uncommon in smaller towns.
As the short person who was always hit by backpacks walking through the hallway I agree. Though I suppose I do think it would reduce the amount of freedom students have in choosing classes as feli sort of mentioned. If everyone had to take the same classes (stay in the same classroom) there isn't as much flexibility in what level of class u can take or what kind u can eg.: U excel in math so u want to take AP calc but u also suck at English so u don't want to take AP Eng Lit. I feel like to a certain extent it would make it harder to excel at the things ur good at without being weighed down by the things ur bad at if all of ur classes had to be taken at the same level.
Wishing you happy new month of July 2021...hope you have a safe, cheerful, exciting month and may it bring you good health and prosperity all round.
Coming back to Germany being farther in the Curriculum, I think it´s probably true. On the other hand Germany is in the top ranking of the countries pupils don´t like to go to school / are afraid to go to school because of stress. Oftentimes I wonder if it´s really worth it.
Interestingly, my homeroom period during high school was called the "prefect's period". I went to high school in 1978 to 1981 in Brooklyn, NY.
Great time to be a teen in Brooklyn! So many great bands from that time period 🤘🍻