Germany vs. USA: the Differences

As a new student at Lincoln who is here as part of the Ayusa Exchange program, I want to write about some of the differences between German and American schools. I will focus on school because this is the place where I spent a lot of time in both countries, and I think it would be best to start with something a high school student knows well. These characteristics do not describe every German school; I can only draw from my own experiences.

I would like to give you an impression of what the German school system looks like. Children begin their schooling when they are 6 years old.  In Germany, you can graduate after 10 years of school if you want to, and continue with training for a job after that. If you want to take your studies further, you have to spend 3 more years at school, which makes it 13 years overall.

Of course, your parents have to agree that you are allowed to attend the school longer, but usually, parents do not have problems if their child wants to have a better education. Most people decide to skip the additional 3 years because they are sick of school and want to earn their own money. You have to qualify for these 3 extra years as well, with at least a “C” grade point average.

The grading system in Germany works differently than in the U.S.  Your grade is determined by “written” and “vocal” categories.  Each are worth 50 percent of the end grade.

The written part includes exams, tests, quality of homework, and your texts.  Texts are when a student either writes poems and short stories during class, or writes about poems and short stories in class.

The vocal part is far more complicated. Your teachers take into account, under the vocal part, how often you participate during class, what your folders look like, if you volunteer to do things like presentations, how you work during group phases, and the quality of what you are saying.

Our report card marks are also different. While Americans use the letters A-F, we use the numbers 1-6 in Germany. 1 is the best grade and would be worth an A, while a 6 would be an F, which is obviously the worst possible grade. To pass a year in Germany, you need at least a “D” average.

My school in Germany starts every day at 8 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., which is quite long, but I have to acknowledge that we receive a 5 minute break between each class, and have three “big” breaks. The first is 15, the second 10, and the last 60 minutes long. We receive homework in each of our 10 subjects, even in P.E., and, of course, we have exams.

This brings me to my next point: my schedule. In Germany, I took 10 different subjects, usually 9 classes per day. They are rotating, which means I followed a different schedule each day. This is pretty confusing, at least if you are not used to it.

Our classes were 45 minutes each. That might appear short at first, but remember that we usually have 9 classes and it is very common for the main classes –English, German, and Math– to be double classes that last 90 minutes, which is good for exams but pretty exhausting during a normal day.

Of course there is lunch at school. It is the 60 minute break, but you would be wiser to avoid the school food because it is bad, and by bad, I mean really bad. It is not only my personal opinion, but the opinion of nearly every student. The meal is also too expensive for what it has to offer. You have to pay 3.50 Euro per lunch meal, which should be around 5 U.S. dollars. This would be a fine price if you could expect to receive a good quality slice of pizza or other meal. However, you would be disappointed after seeing what the German schools call a “healthy meal.”

Because of the few customers and the bad critics, my school decided that our lunch hall will close after this year’s Winter Break.

One other reason why the lunch hall will close is that students have the opportunity to leave campus during lunch once they have reached grade 11. Since there are a lot of eating places and stores to buy food around the school, all eligible students often use this privilege. If you are not in the “upper classes” (that is how we refer to the grades 11-13), you are not allowed to leave campus. If you leave anyway, you will be met with harsh consequences and eventually kicked out of school after the teachers catch you the fifth time.

Overall, the rules of my school in Germany are not as strict as those of American schools. There is not such a thing as a dress code, and you have to heavily violate common sense before a teacher will tell you to change. For example, wearing overtly racist symbols is not allowed. We do not have P.E. uniforms either; you can wear what you want during sport. The only items of clothing not allowed are black shoes. I don’t know why; this rule is weird, but it exists at nearly every school.

On my first day of school here in the U.S., I was shocked when I saw that a lot of students were wearing headphones during class. In Germany that would be a disrespectful way of showing that you are not interested in what the teacher is trying to teach you. We would not do that, because in Germany the students know that the teachers do not work to annoy them; they want to teach them something.

Teachers in Germany will get pretty upset if they see you pull out your phone. They will take it and make you wait 2 days until your parents can pick it up at the office. However, some students still try to evade teachers and use their phones.

German students are afraid to be kicked out of school. In Germany, we are taught early that we will have a hard time accomplishing anything in our lives, so we try to do our best. Of course, not all students are like that. There are some that do not care about what will happen to them, but the number is not that high, and they are not respected once their classmates reach the age of about 14.

I hope you enjoyed reading part 1 of my comparison between German and American schools. Now you know a little bit more about how things work in Germany.

Stay tuned for part 2!