Education

Coming  from a family of educators and having raised five children in this country my ears naturally perk up when I hear  education mentioned  which happens very often these days, here as well  as in Germany. Since I was born and raised in Germany and have not gone to school here I have no  qualifications  in this country other than having the right to have an opinion.And,of course, a lot of questions.For example, it took me quite a while to understand what it means “to teach to the test” just to mention one of them.The other word mentioned ,in this case with disdain is “rote” or “learning by rote”. Which is, how I was taught. So maybe I can explain why I think “rote” learning was not all that bad.

First I should maybe mention that the idea “school should be fun “never entered anybody’s head. At least I know I was never asked:”did you have fun today?”Neither did other Germans living in this country but having grown up over there. No ,school was serious business already before you had entered first grade. This was the first step toward becoming a more responsible person.I am not trying to convince  anybody,that that was the better way. It was just the way it was and we accepted it.Or had to accept it beause there was that cane with which some of the boys occasionally became acquainted  or standing in the corner as punishment for some misdemeanour, all of which sounds perfectly dreadful but strangely enough, it wasn’t.

Learning  rules by heart or poems ,or vocabulary, it was simply what you did. Learn.

And  what about creativity? Learning to read and write gave you the tools with which to be creative.Learning  grammatical  rules taught you to speak your language  correctly. Learning  a poem by heart it became part of your consciousness or even, your subconscious. Learning  songs opened up a whole new world, or old world  if the song was about some historical moment, such as a famous battle.Or a sad occurrence  such as the death or a comrad in battle. We all knew “Ich  hat einen  Kameraden,einen  bessern finds Du nicht.”I had  a comrad, you won’t find a better one.” Knowing this song nobody will have to  be told about the ravages of war. It is all in the melody and the text.

I realize, this all sounds very dilettantic, That is, because I am a dilettant.But I do know that I learned a lot in school right from the beginning.For e xample , geography. In my elementary school classsroom stood a large ,raised sandbox, about the size of a pingpong table. In our immediate region  two kinds of communities were common: the cluster village and the row village,all  the houses strung alongside the road running through the village.  The objective now was to recreate such a village.  In  art class we had all made little houses. All had gables and a pitched roof. First you drew the prototype, then cut it out, then folded  what needed to be folded and then glued  it. And ,of course, the doors and windows had to be drawn. After we had our houses we gathered around the sandbox  and shaped the actual  village.  And  there you had  a complete lesson  in local geography.

Of course it was no fun,learning  grammatical  rules. I always preferred to use my hands since I  was good making things. I had learned to crotchet at age four sitting on the step stool of  somebody’s  grandmother  whom  I was visiting. But if one wanted to go to Highschool  it was necessary since languages  were taught beginning  in Fifth grade .