Comments on: School Daze

By: Old School — PapaScott

Old School — PapaScott — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:48:30 +0000

[...] year I mentioned the upcoming choice of a secondary school for our son after the fourth grade… well, now the fourth grade is nearly over, and the [...]

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:31:20 +0000

@Christina: Montessouri is better-no doubt. But Montessouri is only for the first four years, while Waldorf is up to the 12th or even 13th grade. Evaluating both, we made the decision for Waldorf and haven´t regreted it. @J: The 3 tiered system is much older. It is because of historical matters. The only reason is to hold up the German hundreds of years old class system. It´s not to support children, it´s to keep the system up.

By: Karl

Karl — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:08:54 +0000

This is still one of the things I find most bizarre about Germany: instead of all children of a town going to one (Gesamt-) school, everyone goes to different schools. A redeeming quality might be that extracurricular activities, sports and music, don't revolve around the schools. To play soccer or be in the music band you'll have to join your local club.

Good luck making the choice. We have two "theoretiker" and one how works best with his hands (Realschule), so our choice was/is easy. We agonized about it at first though too.

An acquantaince of ours went to the Hauptschule and is now a well-paid engineer at Daimler.

I guess you can't let school get in the way of your child's education.

By: Christina | AmiExpat

Christina | AmiExpat — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:07:06 +0000

Good luck with your decision. I’ve thought about what to do for Oliver and he’s only 18 months! I’d prefer a Montessori school to a Waldorf one, but that’s just personal preference. I’m hoping they’ll be some reforms before Oliver gets to 5th grade.

By: J

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:11:26 +0000

I agree with you about the 3 tiered system. I'm not a fan of it either.

I assume that it was established sometime after WW2 to make sure that jobs of all kind were covered or something like that, but I don't know.

Good luck in finding a suitable school for Chris. Please look around as much as possible.