San Luis Obispo High School in contrast to Hölderlin Gymnasium Heidelberg. Photo collage courtesy of Sophomore Mariann Doring.
Have you ever wondered about how it would be to attend another school in another country? Questioned the system or acknowledged its advance? Based on the perspective of an exchange student, this article will compare San Luis Obispo High School to a school in Germany, and capture different opinions of students on both sides.
In general, a student’s everyday life at SLOHS consists of individual schedules that one works through day after day, with the goal to pass their finals. However, this is not the case in Germany.
“Exams. While most American students have one final to study for, we have four in each main subject every year. I’m glad that side subjects only have two. It is manageable, but exhausting, for sure. Especially when you enter eleventh grade, you stay in school for 10 hours until 5:10 PM” said junior Liam Grösgen from Hölderlin Gymnasium Heidelberg about his biggest challenges.
A big difference between the systems is also the grading, in which the German school values 50% of your grade to oral participation, presence & punctuality and material. Accordingly, the other fifty percent go to the final exams. The scale goes from 1-6, where 1 represents the highest score.
“If I could change something, it could be the introduction of cheat sheets. In math, we have to learn every formula, in chemistry every chemical bond, and in French all the grammar rules. And a late start instead of 7:50 a.m. would be awesome, along with free cafeteria food” said junior Hannah Mussgnug.
The course load can become overwhelming, especially when you have fifteen subjects a week, which is why cheat sheets would help students’ mental health that is little to not talked about, as it gives the security of sorting your thoughts and the opportunity to look back in case you have a blackout.
The pressure is high, and so are the expectations – if you fail one subject at the end of the school year, meaning ‘6’, it is marked as not passing the grade level and you’ll have to retake the entire year. This is particularly problematic in the case of dyslexia, dyscalculia or other academic weaknesses, where school could rather test the students on an appropriate level of their skill, e.g. a fairly personalized test.
Instead of electives, there are different schools with level classification. So if a student fails the year, there is no option to take an “easier” class, but only to retake it or change schools if necessary, which is considered unfortunate. One reason is that for two to five years the same thirty students go to every class together as one – we do not have Middle-& High School, because after elementary school you transfer to a different school from fifth to twelfth grade.
However on the bright side, tardies can be excused orally until one reaches 10, where the parents receive a letter. Furthermore, this school system overall does not support the idea of detention.
Observing the behavior of students here, the German people seem more disciplined – or restricted? Teachers and students in America have more personal relationships, sometimes even so laid-back that out of German standards it would be considered impolite of the High Schoolers. A possible explanation is not only the cultural differences, but more that the way they interact does not influence the grade, while German schools have the mentality to keep a personal distance.
In conclusion, there cannot be made a statement yet whether one system is more successful than the other. In both perspectives there is much room for improvement.
