The German Vocational Training Act opens the apprenticeship with a trial phase: Das Berufsausbildungsverhältnis beginnt mit der Probezeit. Sie muss mindestens einen Monat und darf höchstens vier Monate betragen. (Vocational training begins with the probationary period. It must last at least one month and at most four months.) During this time, either side can end the training at any moment, without notice. After it, the apprentice faces the years summed up in a common proverb: Lehrjahre sind keine Herrenjahre, the years of apprenticeship are not the years of a gentleman.
education
From Observing to Teaching
A German teacher does not go straight from university to a classroom of their own. First comes the Referendariat, a preparatory service at a school. It usually lasts 18 months. In Hesse it lasts 21 months, in Bavaria 24, and in Brandenburg only 12. The sequence is fixed: Hospitation, Ausbildungsunterricht, eigenständiger Unterricht. The trainee first observes lessons, then teaches under supervision, and finally teaches alone. Trainers visit lessons along the way and give advice. The service ends with the Second State Examination. Lawyers go through the same kind of preparatory service, which lasts two years.
The School Entry Phase
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the first two years of primary school are not simply first and second grade. The school law says: Die Klassen 1 und 2 werden als Schuleingangsphase geführt. Die Schuleingangsphase dauert in der Regel zwei Jahre. Sie kann auch in einem Jahr oder in drei Jahren durchlaufen werden. (Grades 1 and 2 are run as the school entry phase. The school entry phase normally lasts two years. It can also be completed in one year or in three.) In July 2026, the state amended the law. The principal can now decide as early as enrollment that a child will stay in the entry phase for three years.
A Serious Word for Serious Work
Friedrich Schiller’s Das Lied von der Glocke (The Song of the Bell, 1799) was a staple of the German Gymnasium until about 1950. It follows the casting of a bell. After the master’s opening call to his journeymen, the first reflection of the poem reads: Zum Werke, das wir ernst bereiten, / Geziemt sich wohl ein ernstes Wort; / Wenn gute Reden sie begleiten, / Dann fließt die Arbeit munter fort. / So laßt uns jetzt mit Fleiß betrachten, / Was durch die schwache Kraft entspringt. (For the work that we prepare in earnest, a serious word is fitting. When good words go with it, the work flows on briskly. So let us now consider with care what comes from our weak strength.)
Settling In at Daycare
When a small child starts at a German daycare center, the first weeks follow a plan called the Eingewöhnung, the settling-in. The best-known model is the Berlin model, named after Hans-Joachim Laewen, Beate Andres and Eva Hédervári-Heller. It begins with a basic phase of about three days. The child spends one or two hours a day in the group, and the parent stays in the room, passive but attentive to the child. The first short separation comes only on the fourth or fifth day. If the child protests, the parent comes back after a few minutes. The separations then grow longer step by step. The settling-in is complete when the child accepts the teacher as a sichere Basis, a secure base. The city of Bielefeld tells parents to plan mindestens 2 – 4 Wochen, at least two to four weeks. Its leaflet adds: Ihr Kind bestimmt das Tempo! (Your child sets the pace!)
No Money Without a Plan
The DigitalPakt Schule, the federal program of 2019 to bring digital technology into schools, had a clear rule: Keine Förderung ohne Qualifizierung der Lehrenden und ohne technisch-pädagogisches Einsatzkonzept. (No funding without training for the teachers and without a technical and teaching plan for how the equipment will be used.) The school authority and the teaching staff had to draw up this plan together before funding was granted. In July 2020, the teachers’ news site News4teachers called the required media development plan eine bürokratische Kopfgeburt, a bureaucratic invention of the mind. A blank template from Baden-Württemberg ran to 37 pages. The state media center said that only six of them were mandatory.
The Lesson Plan
In 1958, the educationalist Wolfgang Klafki published an essay with the title Didaktische Analyse als Kern der Unterrichtsvorbereitung, didactic analysis as the core of preparing a lesson. From the late 1950s, it became the leading guide in the training of new teachers. Its questions include Was bedeutet es für die Schüler heute? (What does it mean for the students today?) and Was wird der Inhalt für die Schüler morgen bedeuten? (What will the content mean for the students tomorrow?) In teacher training, a trainee teacher writes a lesson plan for an assessed lesson. It analyzes the class, the subject and the method before it sets out the sequence of the lesson, phase by phase, with a time for each. The sequence plan is called das Drehbuch der Unterrichtsstunde, the screenplay of the lesson. Some training programs prescribe a length, for example eight to ten pages.
The Parents Said No
In 2008, Hamburg’s governing coalition planned a major school reform. All children were to learn together for six years instead of four before being sorted into different types of secondary school. After changes negotiated with the opposition, the city parliament passed the law on 3 March 2010, this time unanimously. A parents’ initiative called Wir wollen lernen, we want to learn, forced a referendum. On 18 July 2010, with a turnout of 39 percent, 54.5 percent of voters rejected the six-year primary school, and the core of the reform failed.
Controversial in Class
In 1976, at a conference held by the Baden-Württemberg state agency for civic education in Beutelsbach in Swabia, scholars of civic education found three points they could agree on. They are still an important reference for civic education. Teachers may not overwhelm students into holding desired opinions. Students must be enabled to analyze a political situation and their own interests. And the second rule reads: Was in Wissenschaft und Politik kontrovers ist, muss auch im Unterricht kontrovers erscheinen. (What is controversial in scholarship and politics must also appear controversial in the classroom.)
The School Conference
In North Rhine-Westphalia, every school has a Schulkonferenz, a school conference. The law calls it the school’s highest body for participation. Within the law, it decides on the school’s program, on which textbooks are introduced, on the school rules, and on whether lessons are spread over six days of the week. In lower secondary schools, teachers, parents and students hold seats in equal numbers. The principal chairs the meeting but has no vote, except to break a tie.