#2 It wasn't the EU getting involved in German schools that was the problem. The problem was inherent in the German education establishment, which was going for equality rather than excellence. In the 90's (we left Germany in 1995, so it may have changed since, although I doubt it) schools were teacher-, rather than student-, oriented. School days were very short (in the elementary grades the children were often done by 10 or 11 in the morning), and starting in the first grade the children were expected to sit quietly and absorb lectures -- if they had questions they could ask their mothers at home, later (A decade ago, only some 30% of German women ever had held a paying job... and there was no tradition of volunteerism. Hence the extraordinary number of housewives qualified to teach at the college prep. level). If a child was extraordinarily gifted, or handicapped, no provision was made to accomodate that. So the bright were bored, the non-academic were lost (until they escaped to the trade school track after 4th grade), the truly handicapped sent to institutions, and the big group in the middle learned to absorb masses of information without questioning. Granted, some 70% of German students went on to university, but as there had been no significant increase in professorial staff since the '70s, that learning experience was considerably less than ideal as well. And I'm not certain, but I believe home-schooling was illegal.
In Frankfurt there was an American-style international school, but it taught to the International Bacchalaureate, not the German curriculum -- and in English with German as the primary foreign language. Nonetheless, there was a plentiful sprinkling of German kids enrolled there, amongst the genuine foreigners. I suspect there were Germans enrolled at the French and British schools as well, but then Frankfurt is the banking center of Germany, and several of the wealthiest communities in Germany are suburban to Frankfurt. |