High School GYM Class in Germany vs the US!
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Gym class in Germany was NOT what I was expecting! I hope you guys enjoy this video on the differences between high school gym / sport / health class in Germany vs the United States. Some of the differences I noticed were what sorts of activities we did, how often classes were, co-ed versus all girl classes, uniforms, etc. I definitely preferred “Sport” in Germany but then again I wasn’t taking the exams in my german gymnasium either! :)
Enjoy!
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Who am I?
My name is Montana Showalter, and I was a participant in the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange program in 2019-2020. I started my RUclips channel while living in Germany and continue to make videos on German vs American culture. I love finding aspects of German culture in the US as well as producing videos in German as practice! In the future, I hope to live abroad again :)
I also have a different experience (I'm from Saxony, Germany). In elementary school boys and girls had sport together. At grade 5 we got divided - 2 classes had sport at the same time, all girls together and all boys together. I don't know if it just was a coincident but girls only had female teachers and boys only male. I was at a Gymnasium, too. When the weather was good (mostly spring and autumn) we were outside in the stadiums doing running, long jump, high jump and shot put (Kugelstoßen). The boys sometimes played soccer. In winter and when the weather was bad we were at the gyms. There we did play volleyball, basketball, badminton or table tennis and of course apparatus gymnastics. We girls had vault, beam, uneven bars and floor gymnastics. Boys had vault, bars, rope climbing and a bit of gymnastics and of course ball games.
In Germany you have to visit an actual driving school to learn the rules and how to drive and pass two tests ( theory and practice) to get your license .
Same in Canada
Same in the UK 😊
When I took my practical test we also had show the instructor basic car maintenance like checking the oil/water & tyres etc lol
haha Montana, I didn't think Germany even had gym classes so this was soo enlightening! It always felt like gym class was more or less a joke in experience in Eastern Iowa in the Midwest and high school was really silly because my junior year I believe we just had to write up a workout schedule and turn that in to the gym teacher and after that we didn't attend classes.
I'm German and I didn't even know that there were any written test in gym class *lol* at least during my school years there weren't any
It was a long time ago, but my gym classes in the US were divided by gender. So much easier to get something accomplished from a physical/activity standpoint. In my school, you were exempt from gym if you were in marching band or ROTC or were actively on one of the sports teams during its season.
In Germany you have to go to a "Fahrschulen" if you like to learn how to drive any vehicle like car, motorbike, bus.
You are able to make a motorbike drivers license for little Motorbikes when you are 16 years old and whit 17 years you are able to make "Begleitetes Fahren", whit this you are allowed to drive the car if one of your parents is siting in the car, so that you have one more year to studie driving.
I also think that driving in Germany is a little bit more difficult, because in Germany you are able to drive (on some parts of roads) very fast.
Some cars are able to drive 300 kmh which is like 186,411 mph.
When I went to school, boys and girls were not divided during PE classes, from grade 1 to 13.
Your statement, one of the reasons why I voted out of the gym class was the ugly uniforms, has a certain comedy. Also interesting for a European is the information that they have received parts of a driver training in the gym class.
I still absolutely love that you were in Passau, since that's where my girlfriend lives. 😊
Wow, there are really a lot of differences! Even compared to the Sport units I had to take back up tp 1991 (I graduated then). One thing: To train your body as well as your brain makes them work together better (I don´t know how to explain it in English) I read in a book by Vers Birkenbihl.
Ich fand Sportunterricht immer richtig kacke. War echt froh als das vorbei war.
Really? They still separated girls and boys for P.E. in your school in Bavaria? I didnt even know that was still a thing! I went to school in northern Germany from 1996 until 2009 and I dont think I ever experienced that.
The game you describe is called "Amerikanisches Völkerball"
Bavaria usually splits the classes from year 5 to 10. As far as I know year 5 and 6 can be mixed. A male teacher once explained to us that he is only allowed to teach boys, girls in year 5, girls in mixed groups in year 6 and girls in year 11 and 12. That was five years ago. Maybe they've changed the rules since then.
Mach wieder ein Video mit Kariem! Er ist super nett! 💪😎
I did not needed to take gym if I did a sports after school. That’s was my private school.
From your comments, and others by American exchange students in Europe, I get the impression that in the US education in general 'isn't really a thing' as you put it.
I didn’t think that you were going to say “routine“ after you said about learning how to do jump rope. And I thought do people really need to be taught how to do jump rope.
Did you play "Völkerball"?
yes!!
ruclips.net/video/-TsXHjvjvik/видео.html :)
👍👍
I hated gym class in Germany especially uneven bars and leap frogging 😳 but yes we were divided by gender. Never had to learn much for gym but my kids have to learn all the muscles and what you need them for in elementary and again in middle school over here in Texas
leapfrogging omg i could not imagine 😂
Liebe Grüße aus Paderborn/Schloß Neuhaus! Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg bei deinem Studium der, für mich, schönen deutschen Sprache! Viel Glück und Gesundheit für dich und deine Lieben!
vielen dank!!
I'm pretty sure you meant "Hühnerball" when you were talking about the game that's like dodgeball :D
Findest du es besser wenn man auf deutsch oder englisch kommentiert?
Oder ist es dir egal?
Grüße aus NRW
What is interesting: when Germans emigrated to the USA,
the German athletes called themselves "Turner". Like Tina Turner.
Not from the English "to turn" from the German "das Turnen". (ma by same root, but other meaning)
But the German language changed in Europe. "Turnen" became "Sport".
Noooo slavery P.E classes lmao gyms perfect
My experience also differs from the one you described, I attended a gymnasium in Lower-Saxony. E. g. our gym class wasn't devided according to gender and from grade 11 we could elect a certain type of sports that we would do for one semester, so four different sports until graduation. And at least until I graduated in 2014 we didn't have exams in p.e. rather our skills in the sport we did at that moment were evaluated by the teacher.
I think the game you described would be 'Völkerball' 😉
The thing with drivers ed: I assume that driving schools are kind of a thing in the US as well but do you know how common they are? Especially if you have the option to do it in your school, I can't imagine them being that common except for those people who didn't get their drivers license by means of the education system.
Okay, I am German, went to a German Gymnasium as well, but in North-Rhein-Westfalia, and my experience is a bit different.
For the grades 1 to 10 it is pretty much as you described, although we were never seperated in a girls or boys class. But the last two years of highschool we were able to choose different profiles. You could basically choose between a unit of soccer-athletics (Is that how you translate Leichtathletik?), basketball-athletics, volleyball-fitness or badminton-dance. And for those two years you would only do those different sports in gym class. I think those profiles vary from school to school tho. I also know a school that even taught riding horses as a profile for example.
I found that to be very cool as you could dive a little deeper into two certain sports. And I also didn't have to do soccer ever again, which I always hated. Helped me to get much better grades in gym class as well!
Leichtathletik = track and field
leichtathletik is track and field i think! also thank you for sharing :) that’s so crazy you guys had horse riding I could never see that happening in a public us high school!
It was almost the same for me, no profiles though. We had to choose between different sports and would then only do this for the last two years. Most boys chose soccer, most girls volleyball and some chose other stuff like basketball, fitness (everything you can do at a normal gym) or badminton. Track and field, swiming and dance were options but almost nobody wanted to do it so in the end there were no courses for it.
I remember that in our school girls and boys were separated in p.e. (Sport) from 7th to 10th (or 11th?) grade. Makes sense I guess... When puberty hits 😁
Wir hatten sogar Rudern, Radrennen, Schwimmen, Thai Chi, Tischtennis etc in der Oberstufe
By the way: Why is a "Gymnasium" not a gymnasium and why is that so? And what does that have to do with gymnastics? Well, it all goes back to the old Greek. They had what we may call fitness-studios for their urban upper classes that served as spas and libraries as well. The idea was that you did exercises there, kept your body in good shape, had a bath and a massage after that , and all that would mean that your mind was then clear and open for learning. You would sit down to study some book, meet a philosopher for a lenghty discussion in the shade while walking through the garden or do some maths. What a life! And as the Greek did most of their exercises naked (Greek: gymnos) those institutions were called "gymnasion". Some 200 years ago the State of Prussia had two brothers who set standards in the fields of science and learning; Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt. The Berlin university is named after them. While Alexander explored the world, Wilhelm concentrated on reforming secondary education. What he had in mind was a school with a fixed curriculum that enabled its leavers to successfully study law, theology, medicine, history, and the new sciences. The "Abitur" was born, the Austrians call it "Matura", the German term is "Reifeprüfung", examination of maturity. No wonder the focus lay on Greek, Latin and Maths. "Modern languages" such as French and English did not play a big role. And as a name the Latin variation of "gymnasion" was chosen. Time flies, the world is in constant change, and the question what has to be a part of a national curriculum and what can be left out can never be answered. By the early 1900s the split came. On the one side was the "Altsprachliches Gymnasium" where the focus still was on Greek and Latin, while the demand of the ever growing German industry for civil engineers and men of commerce was met with the "Neusprachliches Gymnasium" where you had English as the first foreign language, French( and Latin only as an option) and the "Naturwissenschaftliches Gymnasium" with more Chemistry, Physics and Maths. And what about the girls? Emancipation did not really take place before the 1920s and it was still a long way till it came up to present standards. Secondary education for them took place in a "Lyzeum". Languages and culture, literature and housekeeping qualification were seen as the main elements. Female students were by and by accepted in German universities and the old ressentiments against female scientists, physicians or lawywers slowly eroded.
I went to school in the Netherlands and my experience is quite different even. I had sports class about 3 hours a week, that's the legal minimum. Boys and girls weren't seperated (I've never heard of that even), I've never experienced this as a problem. I never had any written test or anything. "Health" was part of biology. We did a lot of running, ball games and athletics (rings, back flips, etc.). There wasn't a choice in what sport you would like to do. You just had to do whatever the teacher came up with. We sometimes did "special" sports like karate, ice skating, water polo, jumping the trampoline or mountain biking.
When I went to school in Baden-Württemberg decades ago, there were no health units in Sport (gym classes). That must be something new, or it's specific to Bavaria. Over the years, I've had both mixed and single-sex classes, in the Grundschule (primary school) gym classes were mixed, in the Gymnasium they were supposed to be single-sex (but weren't always because they didn't have enough teachers), and in the last two years you chose specific sports, one team sport and one single-person sport. Most of the boys chose soccer and track and field, so there were two boys-only groups doing this, most of the girls chose volleyball and gymnastics, so there were two girls-only groups doing that, and then you could also choose volleyball and track and field, and that resulted in one group which had both boys and girls.
Mit Sport als Abi-Fach gab es das auch früher schon, zumindest hier in NRW.
Or maybe just forgotten about the theoretical bits? I think if this video hadn't reminded me I would have completely forgotten that there were (rare) theoretical tests in PE; and, yes, I went to school in BaWü (2000s though, so neither that recently nor that long ago, I guess).
@@Sp4mMe 20 years later than me.
I am happy to hear that you would have loved to play handball. Handball is the best sport ever and was invented in Germany!
At this point in Germany gir1s, surely use burkas for gym class.
I guess the game you described is "Völkerball"
I also attended School in Bavaria and until grade 10 it was exactly as you said. In grades 11 and 12 you had to choose a sport for every semester (e.g. I did basketball, dance, karate, basektball) and then you only do that specific sport for the semster. There are rules though so there are 3 Types of sports for A my school offered football, handball, vollyball, basketball; Typ B was field and track, dance, swimming; Typ C Karate, table tennis, Badminton. You had to take at least one from both A and B but which ones and the other 2 semsters were up to you. Because there were so many optiona boys and girls had it together but it was still maybe 20 kids at the highest. If you were really good at your hobby (and it was offered in the boarding school after school program) my school offered that you could take it as an subject in Q11/12 so if you wanted to do horse riding you could do it through that 2h a week and the grades were equal to maths,
... . Most people did orchestra, choir or lighting and soundtechnique though.
Add on: if you wanted to do your final exams in sport you had to do additum which was 2h therotical lessons. But you could also choose sport as the subject to write your scientific paper in. Or as your project subject (my brother did that and they are planing and trying out mountain biking routes around the area so they can take younger kids out for a tour)
*Austria does it how you described the whole 12 years just without written tests
Well.. it's called Gym-nasium, what did you expect 😄
I went to Gymi in Baden Württemberg and for us we had gym class twice a week in 5th and 6th grade and not divided into boys and girls. up from 7th grade we were divided by gender and had two hours once a week. starting in 11th grade we could choose one sport per semester and that one was mixed gender. we usually over a year did basketball, volleyball, Leichtathletik, gymnastics and fun games throughout the year
Soweit ich weiß ist das in Deutschland von der Schule abhängig, ob Jungs und Mädchen im Sportunterricht getrennt werden. Ich war auf zwei verschiedenen Oberschulen und bei der einen wurden wir getrennt und bei der anderen nicht. Ich fand die Trennung eigentlich ganz gut. Jungs und Mädchen haben nunmal Leistungsgrade im Sport.
We also had a huge external gym next to our Gymnasium, which was used in the evenings and on weekends by the local Handball club.
There were also two huge, seprating "walls" you could let down to seprate the gym into 3 sections - each had its own entrance and changing rooms, so 3 classes could be taught there without disturbing or annoying each other.
I think from 8th grade on boys and girl were seperated and in 12th and 13th grade you could chose courses (gymnastics and dancing, ballsports and athletics, swimming and athletics).
We also had two soccer fields next to our school from the local soccer club where we would play sometimes or run on the 400m track or do high jump and long jump.
The swimming pool was a public bath around 10min of walking or 2min by car away from school.
Bei mir in Niederachsen war es damals so: jedes Halbjahr eine andere Sportart: Basketball, Tennis, Rudern, Fußball, Leichtathletik usw.
My experiences were quite different in Germany as well, but that is about 20 years ago now and was in NRW. There was no separation, and also no Health Class. We did a tiny bit of what you could consider "health" as in "how many calories are in food" and so on in Biology. I never liked sports. One reason was also because for some strange reason we had a strong focus on basketball. I feel like 1. Priority was basketball, 2nd was volleyball...and with much less priority there was football. But I think there were never any grades for football related stuff. Your experience might also vastly differ by the trainer you got and how he is motivating the class.
This is nothing like where I live which is in Northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein)😂
I went to a Gymnasium in Bavaria (Würzburg). In the 12th grade I chose rowing. At two days a week we went to the river Main and had rowing training for 2 hours each. In the last year I chose Volleyball.
People in Germany drive at 18? This is not entirely true. You can get a license earlier but it is a special license that only allows you to drive with a person that has already some driving experience
Also from North-Rhine-Westfalia, but finished school in 1986 already.
We never really had any health related units in "Sport", and the only theory I remember was learning basic rules of Handball, Basketball, Volleyball, Field Hockey. Boys and girls had Sport together until 8th grade as far as I remember, then it was separated for grades 8 to 10, and then in "Oberstufe" you'd basically picked specific courses, usually focused on one team sport, combined with another team sport, and individual athletics, as minor topics, and it was usually boys and girls together again. (I did Volleyball, with additional Field Hockey and Athletics, which was basically where all the "lazy guys" ended up).
Health topics on the other hand were rather covered in Biology (muscles and bones, basic nutrition, sex education ...), and driving school, well, that's an entirely private business over here, you only get some basic traffic education while in primary school (basic rules, meaning of street signs that are important to know for pedestrians and bikers, basic bicycle security training -- but they assume that you already learned how to bike in general out of school)
But then again: different decade (century even :o ), and different state. Bavarians usually make fun of NRW Abitur as Bavaria seems to have so much higher standards.
Driver. Ed. We. Can. Rise. The. Driving. Age. To. 18. To. 20. Years. Of. Age. As. Far. As. Gym. Class. Goes. I. Took. Gym. High. School. And. Middle. School. We. Had. No. Privacy. To. Take. Showers. That’s. What. Did. Not. Like. About. Gym. Glass.
Munich is a whole other experience
i bet! what was it like?
@@MontanaShowalter Hi Montana, ich weiß es ist super spät, aber für den Fall der Fälle, dass du das hier lesen magst, möchte ich auch meine Erfahrungen mit dir Teilen!
Bei uns (einer Gesamtschule in NRW) waren Jungs und Mädchen von der 5 bis zur 8 Klasse zusammen aber in der 9 und 10 waren wir dann getrennt. Meistens mussten wir Laufen, oder haben Fußball/ Basketball gespielt.
Zum Aufwärmen haben wir Brennball, Zombieball oder Hütchenklau gespielt (letzteres ist wohl worauf die in deinem Video angespielt hast).
In der Oberstufe hatten wir dann mehr Theorie, wo wir auch Präsentationen über verschiedene Sportarten machen mussten und wie da die Bewegungen sind etc. Übrigens waren wir in am der Oberstufe wieder zusammen (an einer Gesamtschule ist dies die 11, 12 und 13 Klasse)
Ich hoffe ich konnte dir einen kleinen Einblick über meine Erfahrungen geben und freue mich schon mal wieder was neues von dir zu hören!
Viele Grüße
3:10 That's also the case in Germany - however I think the people are maybe a bit less competitive compared to the USA. Gym classes are also usually mixed.
PS: Dancing is an actual sport. If you don't believe me - just watch a few high level dancing competitions in ballroom dancing or something like the Rock'n-Roll championships or something like that.
oh i believe it! dancing is so much harder than it looks
Oh ? 8-o Yes, I really learnt some Things new about Gym Classes, even BOTH in American AND Germany. 8-/ WOW , Astounding !?: I wasn´t aware that you Guys in the USA had CO-educated Gym Classes, ...and at least 3 whole Classes with all their Pupils/Students at once ... and also that you learn about HEALTH (?in Theory?) during these ...and even more: Driving-Lessons for your Licence !?!? 8-o I also am astounded to hear, that you can drop the Gym Classes entirely after your second Year of Highschool... I thought, Americans would rather hold their School Sports HIGH in Esteem ? 8-/ Or is the Emphasis on the voluntary Choice of Participation ?
Your Bavarian Gym Teacher seems to have been extra enthusiastic about Change and Variety in her Class, but they also seem to have quite changed the Subjects in the Gym Lessons in general: Because I only know of 1 single Time, when I was asked to do a THEORETICAL, WRITTEN Test in Gym Class during my whole School Time. 8-/
Awww ? Really sad, that the whole new Corona-Trouble of 2020 had eventually deprived and hindered you of doing Handball as a Team Sport in Germany. Let´s hope you´ll get enough Opportinities in the near Future to catch up on that ! ^__^
That Dodge-Ball-like Game you played in Passau might have been "Völkerball", I guess. :">
Hahaha =D Funny, how you describe your "horrible" Experience with that Sports-Uniforms. ;-) Unless it´s for a better Distinction in a Team-Sport´s Game, I also am NOT a Fan of School-Uniforms, whatsoever. 8-(P
You cant take this for the entire US. This was for Virginia. My school in South Florida had separate genders, 1 class per gym (we had 10 kids in a class), and I had to take some kind of outdoor class all 4 years. The first year it was gym and health class. We had to run, do situps, pushups, and stretches. Our final was we had to run a mile in 9-10 minutes, we had to be able to do a certain amount of pullups, situps, and pushups. The other 3 years I got to choose what I wanted to do. 2nd year it was weight lifting, 3rd year it was outdoor things (we fished, went camping, went snorkeling, played hockey, swam laps in the pool, play basketball, tennis, handball, flag football, soccer, we did whatever the class wanted), 4th year (last year of highschool) I took Zumba and I barely passed. I didnt care about the class. I maybe showed up 1/2 the year.
@@jessicaely2521 Oh, WOW ? 8-o So really each U.S.-State has it´s own, unique Design of Gym Lessons and Subjects ? 8-/ I thought, it was more equal than in Germany, where each of the 16 Bundesländer (Federal-States) more or less has it´s very own School-System. :"> Hmmm... OK, and at least in Florida they concentrate & focus more on the Individuals, than in Virginia ?! Virginia Gym Class sounds like a Mass-Assembly-Line-Procedure ! 8-o WHOAH !
But sad, that in Florida they taught you killing Fish with a Hook in their Mouths, calling that "physical Education". It´s not that you´d starve without the Fish, right ?
U mean Völkerball/brennball isn't that dodgeball
Nope, different game. Similar, but not the same.
Additionally - I went to high school in the US, albeit in the 90s... I'm surprised to hear though that your US gym classes were co-ed... Where I lived in Missouri, gym classes were gender-specific after elementary school. 😅
Middle school gym class was so much nucer because we played dodgeball or burnball 90% of the time which is something I genuinely miss even 3 years after 😪 high school was choosing different sports but the teacher was super biased and graded most people horribly so that part sucked a lot
We don’t have a uniform for gym in public schools in New York State.
Hey, so i am learning german. And I've watched your videos auf Deutsch and i request you to make a video regarding how you managed to get so fluent in german
did you play "Raufball" (Scuffle-ball") in german school ?
Da Du ja in einem Video gesagt hast, dass du gerne das deutsche Brot und Brötchen liebst...empfehle ich dir den Kanal von "@UC-X3Hzdqo6rTjRLI5dRVb3w"
ruclips.net/video/zCoTy0Tz4h8/видео.html
Da kannst du ohne viel Zauber Brötchen und vielleicht auch mal ein Brot daheim bei dir selber backen. Hab deine Deutschkünste gehört also sollte es kein Problem für dich sein Thomas zu verstehen. ;-)
Nice video! :)
Always a pleasure to watch your Vlogs, Montana!
God, I hate sports! Always been my worst mark. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Braun was in my class, at a 5km run she lapped me five times.