Comparison between us, our parents' and our grandparents' schooltime

Our Parents told us:

When we were at school we had almost the same subjects as you have now. Only some were different , e.g. “ Staatsbürgerkunde” – similar to social sciences but very biased( you had to say and write only what you were told : “a socialist point of view”), we had lessons in production too, it means we really had to work, often boring, but at least everybody got this experience. . Every student had to learn Russian whereas English was not compulsory.In the secondary level we had some weeks of “ Wehrerziehung” actually it was somehow a preparation for the army( build tents, shoot with air guns, learn how to make fire or to hide ...) even girls had to take part in !

Mostly we had 6 lessons( 45 min.) from Monday till Friday, in addition we had to go to school on Saturday for 4 lessons! Of course we didn`t like that a lot, but we were used to it.

There wasn`t a real cafeteria at our school, but we got milk every day . For lunch we went to the Kindergarten nearby, this was extremely cheap( 55 Pfennig-about 30 cents). We had normal class rooms and a special room for chemistry, physics and biology.

I liked my school because it was small, teachers and children knew each other well, there were only 8 classes. Many of us took part in extracurricular activities: sportsclubs, choir, handicrafts etc.All pupils walked to school or went by bike to school.

We had marks from 1 to 5 (1 is the best, 5 is the worst), but we also got an assessment  on our school report at the end of a school year.

All in all I see my childhood and my schooltime rather positive, there was a good personal relationship among the students and the teachers as well. We had lots of friends we did so many  things together , some friends of my schooltime are still very close friends until the present.

My grandma and grandpa :

They had 6 lessons a day  and mostly 4 lessons on Saturday. Pupils from the 1^st to the 8^th form learned at their school. Sometimes there were  45 puplis in one class! My grandparents went to school shortly after the Second World War that meant they were often very hungry and the food at school was sometimes the only food they had( a scone or roll) during the day.It was free.

Many subjects they were taught were the same as  nowadays, but they had no ethics and English. Girls had to attend needle work. For P.E. they went to a sportsground or to a gymnasium, but not all schools had one at that time, sometimes they had P.E. in the hall of a pub. There were marks 1 to 5 in the subjects and marks 1 to 3 for behaviour. If they did something wrong or they forgot their homework they often had to do extra homework or sit longer in the classroom and write a text or so. Before the war they often got harder punishments and were even beaten by their teachers . It was especially difficult for students to get a good education during the war, there were no lessons for weeks and months and then the classes were crowded, because there were not enough teachers. Another problem was the lack of coal or wood so the rooms were freezing cold sometimes.

After the lessons they could do activities like drawing, singing, football, chess and other sports.

My grandparents could not really say if  school at their time was worse or better than now.

All in all they felt prepared for their life, friendships started which last forever.

An old school of our town

Why todays school is better than 20 years ago?

-you learn more in a shorter time and you've better technic (for example computer, sciences rooms)

-there's no war and so you can go to school every time

-there is better service for example the meals or the internet

-there are more options to study after the school