Some people might be wondering why I keep referring to My Gymnasium, especially since I haven't found a gymnastics club yet. Don't worry-- I'm here to help!
In Germany, the most common types of schools are Grundschulen, Hauptschulen, Realschulen, Gymnasien, and Gesamtschulen. The exact names of schools and the breakdown of grades differ across the country, so it's difficult to make generalizations about the school system. I'll focus primarily on what happens in Berlin.
From what I understand, most children in Berlin start 1st grade between the ages of 5-7 (the cut-off date is December 31st). They continue in their Grundschule until either fourth grade or sixth grade.
At this point, students are sorted into several tracks for high school. This is partially based on the students' grades and work ethic; teachers can recommend students for a certain type of school. However, in Berlin, it is possible for parents to overrule teachers and elect to send their child to a different type of school. (The process of choosing and getting admitted to a Gymnasium is confusing, so I'll just leave it at that.) In many states, there are three or four types of schools after 6th grade; however, Berlin sorts students into two kinds of schools.
The Gymnasium is the most highly regarded type of school in Germany, and it covers 5th grade to 12/13th grade (beginning this year- 12th grade, formerly- 13th grade). I don't have exact numbers, but we were told at orientation that about 50% of the students in Berlin will attend a Gymnasium (the percentage is lower in other states). It is roughly equivalent to taking AP, Honors, and the most motivated "regular" students from an American high school. Hochbegabte (highly gifted) children and/or (depending on the school) children who want to take an additional foreign language have the opportunity to move to a Gymnasium as 5th graders; other students move to Gymnasien in 7th grade. Gymnasien are essentially college-prep schools that usually end with students taking the Abitur exams. Colloquially, the "Abi" refers specifically to the written and oral tests, which are much more demanding than the SAT/ACT.
The other 50% of Berlin students attend a Sekundarschule, which is also referred to as a Gesamtschule in other German states. The Sekundarschule and Gesamtschule combine two other types of schools: the Hauptschule (the lowest performing 30% of students; the American equivalent would be remedial/special education programs) and the Realschule (approximately 20% of students). The Sekundarschule ends at 10th grade. In other states, the Hauptschule ends at 9th grade, and the Realschule ends at 10th grade.
After graduating from a Sekundarschule, students have the opportunity to attend another school for additional training, and some pursue the Abitur. It is possible for students to move between schools, although it's more common for students from a Gymnasium to move to a Sekundarschule (after failing out of a Gymnasium) than vice versa.
The main criticisms of the German school system are that it's inherently classist and elitist, and that it tracks children at a very young age. (Some states sort all children in 4th grade. Berlin waits to sort most children until 6th grade.) I read an article that stated that children from higher income families are 4.5 times more likely to attend a Gymnasium than children from lower income families, even if they tested the same on IQ tests. (Berlin, by the way, has the lowest social gap out of all of the German states.) There is no German as Foreign Language support at the Gymnasium level, nor do German students have IEPs or other accomodations if they have learning disabilities. What does this mean? If little Hazan moves to Germany in 4th or 5th grade and doesn't speak German, she has virtually no chance of succeeding at a Gymnasium. If she happens to make it into a Gymnasium through the lottery system**, she will struggle immensely because there is no support for immigrants who are learning German.
(** Beginning in 2011-2012, Berlin Gymnasien will be required to take something like 20-30% of students from a lottery. In theory, this is meant to give students from lower income or immigrant families a chance to attend a Gymnasium. In reality, it will probably set up 20% of the Gymnasien students for failure because of the general lack of academic support at Gymnasien.)
Here's the thing: is Germany's system really all that different from what we do in the US? Several other Fulbrighters have mentioned in conversation that they hate how classist and discriminatory the German school system is; they think the US has a fairer system. I'm extremely uncomfortable with a lot of things in the German school system, but let's not pretend that the US's educational system isn't also deeply flawed and unjust. My district tracks students into gifted classes in 1st grade. Despite the fact that my district is quite ethnically and socioeconomically diverse (my high school is less than 50% white, and about 40% of the students come from low income families), the gifted classes were about 95% white and close to 100%-- if not 100%-- came from middle- to upper-middle-class families. It's really easy to see how German schools track students-- they're physically sent to different schools-- and point fingers at the dominant privilege embedded in this system. But we do it, too. The racism and classism in the US educational system is just more subtle.
I'm not sure where to put this, but this might be an important thing to know for my next post: another difference between the US and Germany is that students in the US can be in different levels in different subjects. (Sorry, I'm too tired to make this sentence less repetitive.) In Germany, a student at a Realschule wouldn't be able to take, say, math at a Gymnasium. In the US, students might be in honors English but regular math. American students of different ability levels attend the same public schools, but they take different classes.
Of course, I've left out quite a bit of information and made my share of generalizations about the German and US school systems, but I hope this is a decent enough overview. :)
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