Choosing a school two years ago was a little overwhelming. I like many things about our kids' school. We opted for an international school, as opposed to a local German school or a US based DoDs military base school. There are several international schools, as well as other private, faith-based schools.
Who attends an international school? Ours is about one third German, one third American, and one third other countries, from China to Mexico to Spain to Wales. It's a symphony of languages and cultures, though the primary language is English. About a third of the students are new each year, as there are many expatriate families moving in and out of Germany.
What do I like?
- I like that the kids have Friday afternoons to work on a project of their choosing starting in grade 5 under the mentorship of an adult. Grades 1-4 work on a project assigned to them. Ren designed and built a submarine out of a couple of 2-liter bottles. Though it didn't work exactly as planned, that didn't matter. He presented his project to a small group of parents and talked about what he learned in the process and how he could get the submarine to fully submerge next time.
- They speak multiple languages in class. Last year, Kate had a Spanish-speaking classmate who spoke neither German nor English. This little girl was encouraged to work with another Spanish speaking classmate to understand a concept in English. The entire classroom is labeled in German and English. There are two teachers per classroom in grades 1-5, one German and one English. They team teach. Watching how it works, it's incredibly challenging and often a little messy.
- They have art, drama, and music. I recently heard the head of school talk about the grade 6 class doing a final assessment on their drama unit of improvisation. The kids had been reading a book in English about the environment. For the assessment, they were each given a character in the book to play. They had 15 minutes to come up with an improvisation, as a team. They had to show their understanding of the characters in the book, the science behind the whole story, and do it as an improvisation using all the techniques learned. All their teachers were there evaluating them. They rocked it.
- I like that they do small group projects. The children are forced to interact with each other. While I place great value in individual learning and accomplishment, I have grown to really appreciate that my kids have to figure out how to get along in a complex and changing environment.
- I like that I have had to learn to relax a little about standards. I worried so much in the beginning about how the kids were performing (aka "grades"). I still struggle with this, as the school is far more relaxed about testing. The American in me wants to make sure that our kids are performing within the spectrum of their peers, so I'm more likely to look first at the test scores. I've had to take a deep breath and be more patient as I watch the children learn. They may be behind in some areas when we return to the US, but I'm confident now that we can address those areas if we need to.
- The kids use more notebooks and fewer worksheets. Remember the old "blue books"? That's kind of like what the kids use. It's so great at the end of the year to look at how they've progressed, and there are just one or two books per subject rather than hundreds of loose papers.
- They teach cursive handwriting.
- They have morning and afternoon recess and recess at lunch.
- They have sport, or PE. The older kids get to walk to a local gym. They actually get to play dodgeball and kickball.
- Multicultural events. The Americans recently hosted a Thanksgiving potluck which was attended by a number of different cultures. Spring brings an international May Day, with food and games from other cultures.
- I love that they do cool field trips. Open air museums, churches and mosques, biking weeks, bakeries, and farms. Recently Ren's class went out to a train station to do some experiments to introduce the next math unit of statistics and probability.
The school isn't perfect. We have to supplement math fact memorization and American history, and they have a much more lenient discipline policy. Kids sometimes listen to music in art that I would keep out of our playlist at home. Sometimes there's a book on the class reading shelf that I would prefer our kiddos not read.
Still, I am enjoying the very good things, for as long as we are here.
