Columns Berlin schools want model from Finland and Sweden: Pupils should be allowed to smother the teacher

Demarin youth in Berlin believe that learning outcomes would improve if compulsory teacher tutoring were abandoned, writes Hanna Mahlamäki, HS’s Berlin correspondent.

Berlin

Pupils should be allowed to smother the teacher at school, as in Finland and Sweden, suggests the Social Democrats in Berlin youth organization. It would lead to better learning outcomes, according to the organization.

The Demarin Youth proposal refers to the success of the Nordic countries in the Pisa surveys. In Germany, the results are not as good, and one reason may be mandatory teacher impersonation, the organization believes.

In Germany, teething is taught in school. Teachers and other school staff are addressed only with the lady or gentleman prefix and last name.

I asked my school-going child if he knew his teacher’s first name. Yes, he knows, because he had happened to hear it in conversations between teachers.

Teasing is considered a sign of respect in Germany, and you may be rude. Yes, the commercials are swaying, and Ikea is considered one of the pranks of slander in Germany. Sneezing is relaxed in the Nordic countries.

In Germany, the issue of teasing is not just a matter of taste, as in some situations slipping from it is a gross mistake. Slamming a police officer can result in a defamation sentence and hundreds of euros in fines.

You also come across strangers among strangers. In my own apartment building, the first neighbor contact said right after the move: by the way, everyone in this house is being beaten.

What a relief. And how strange it felt when, nevertheless, the neighbor’s polite little boy once accidentally screwed and teetled me while praising my glasses.

The neighbor who told me about the sneezing is older than myself. According to the ingestion protocol, he should be the one to propose the ingestion. If I were at work in a German workplace, it would be up to my boss or my older colleague to suggest a suffocation.

This behavior is deep in culture, and many Germans think it is important and good. As a foreigner, it helps to adapt.

Need investing in schools is now hard and widely recognized in Germany. Demarit is the largest party in Berlin, and the youth organization is being listened to. However, you will not necessarily be the most important reform.

The coronavirus pandemic forced the Germans to promote digitalisation. Distance school was a fiasco in many places: schoolchildren could be left in the mail on paper sticks that had been delayed for weeks.

The parties currently negotiating the formation of a new German government, namely the Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, have promised much-needed improvements to schools.

Differences in the level of education are huge between and within regions. The quality of education would have to be improved in order for Germany to succeed.

In Berlin there is a severe shortage of teachers, with hundreds missing.

One of my classroom teachers from my own school was completely absent from work in the early fall. As a result, the students in the class he taught were divided into parallel classes because no new teacher is available.

The condition and equipment of school buildings do not always correspond to the level to which Finland is accustomed. This week at my child’s school, one of the teachers started screaming in the middle of a meal as a mouse swarmed on the floor of the canteen.

After recovering from the shock, the teacher caught the mouse with a yogurt stick and carried it out. The children, of course, had fun when Mrs. Teacher got confused for a moment.

The author is HS’s Berlin correspondent.

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