Talk:Hauptschule

Untitled
to the editor of the english "hauptschule" article:

your direct-translation of "hauptschule" into "head school" is not correct. "haupt" does not only mean "head" but also "general". a correct direct translation of "hauptschule" would be "general school" which obviously makes more sense than "head school".

regards, martin

Similarities to Other Nations
This seems like a superfluous section without any real relation to the rest of the article. It might belong in an article on the US school system, but doesn't add anything to this article. GBMorris 20:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it is interesting to compare the German and US school systems, just the section's title doesn't fit. It's not about similarities, but differences.

Entrance Exams
I studied German in the American Public school system so my facts may be wrong. Is there some kind of exam that students take to determine which school system (haupt, real, or gym) they will be attending? What is the name of this exam? -Milligan

No....I went to school in germany and as far as I know there isn`t anything such as an exam like that. But by the end of 4th grade teachers give an "Empfehlung"(=advice) to each student, which school is the best for them.


 * Yes, the lovely German system where your teachers decide when you're in 4th grade whether or not you should go to university. Angr 10:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * After leaving the Realschule you can attend to a Fachoberschule, to get your Fachhochschulreife. That enables you to study at universities of applied science. With good marks you can also attend to the last classes of a Gymnasium. With Hauptschulabschluss (9th grade) you could attend to the 10th grade which gets you the Fachoberschulreife (=Realschulabschluss), so you can visit a Fachoberschule or - with great marks - a Gymnasium. This openness is indeed lovely :) -- 15:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

yeah...but...I mean....lets face it......in germany the degree of sucess a child has in school isn't necessarily connected to the degree of intelligence that this child has anyway but to the wealth of his/her parents. Since Pisa we know that education is connected to money in germany almost as close as in no other european country. Sad but true.


 * As far as I know there used to be entrance exams, but they where abolished for the public schools, because they were seen as being biased against working class children. It was the "Social Democratic Party", which was in favour of abolishing them. Private and parochial schools sometimes still have entrance exams. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.201.82.192 (talk) 13:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * There never really were formal entrance tests for higher school education in Germany. Initially it was a system where scholars/clerics and other higher-tier professionals recommended children for grammar school (Gymnasium), later, when systematic schooling was introduced, they added the grades at 3rd grade into the mix. Interviews with the kids were sometimes also conducted, and there was a factor ofheritage (if your family was known around the school for past alumni, it could be easier to get new children in). The admission after grade 3 was changed to grade 4 sometimes in the 18th century to give children more time to develop (which was triggered by so e socially engaged polititians).
 * Also, the high percentage of Gymnasium-students started in from 70s, and has been increasing ever since. Around 1900, less than 2% managed to get the Abitur, and grammar schools were highly selective (you could drop out easily with bad marks). In the 50s it was around 5%. Hauptschule (or Volksschule, as it was often called) was the standard track for the vast majority of the kids far into the 70's... 83.137.6.187 (talk) 08:53, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

German education starts late (Kindergarten teachers have a strong reluctance against exposing children to any learning at all. This is ideologically grounded and may be an overcompensation to the extreme pressure put on German children of previous generations) and streams very early: 10-11 year olds are placed in a either a university preparation or practical track, from which it is hard to deviate.


 * Think also of the Wandervogel with the "childhood has a right to childhood" program.--2001:4CA0:2FFF:1:0:0:0:335 (talk) 15:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The result is that there is very little time for schooling to make adjustments for any weaknesses in upbringing. Put another way, a child which enters school with some disadvantage - for instance, a child from an immigrant family who enters with lesser competency in German - has very little time to catch up before being streamed. Not surprisingly, this leads to a pronounced correlation between a family's social position (earnings) and the child's educational attaninments.

Since the publication of the the first PISA study in 2000 (at the latest), the public has become aware of strong dependence between education and family income, and members of all social classes have expressed a wish for more a egalitarian outcome, as well as for generally stronger results. Nevertheless, there significant difficulties to making a corrections:

Germany is a fairly conservative country, and educational reforms - for instance, delaying streaming - are characteristically politically volatile. The public is generally sceptical of educational reforms, blaming Germany's mediocre PISA performance on an earlier wave of reforms in the 70s.

In fact, the PISA reaction to date has caused the connection between income and educational result to become perversely more prominent. Without introducing structural changes, the educational ministries pressured all schools to improve results. Whereas Gymnasium children were able to respond, e.g. to curriculum changes refocussing on core subjects, with improved scores, children at the Hauptschulen had less capacity for quick improvement, as they typically carry forward educational liabilities compounded over a long period, so that the Hauptschule performance was largely unchanged. --Philopedia 02:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hm, some comments here are so critical of Germany that they must have been written by Germans. Nevertheless let us not be so easy to speak of dependence, when the one thing statistics does make certain is a correlation. To answer the original question, first there's 16 educational systems in Germany. I'm answering according to the Bavarian one, though I'm told that in other states it is simply the parents who decide. In Bavaria, it is also the parents who decide; you can go to a Hauptschule any time you wish. Only to qualify for the higher schools, you have to grades better than a certain level (actually, 2.33 for Gymnasium, 2.66 for Realschule, with grades from 1 "very good" to 6 "unsatisfactory"), and additionally a "teacher's recommendation". In this sense, the "exam" is the 4th year of primary school. The teacher's recommendation is generally seen as a formality and I have yet to hear about a single occurrence when a student was withheld it while qualified by his grades. If you do not have the grades and still want to go to such a school, you can go to a real exam. On a Hauptschule, you can pass the same level of graduation as on a Realschule, and if you do so, pass on to a Fachoberschule or enter a Gymnasium, and go to university afterwards. This is not only theoretically possible, but really happens. A classmate of mine was a Realschule graduate who practically learnt one year if intensive French in the summer holidays, or so.--2001:4CA0:2FFF:1:0:0:0:335 (talk) 15:25, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Exaggerated and Generally Questionable
Personally, I find the text below dubious and exaggerated:

''the opinion of the general public often being that Hauptschulen only harbor the bottom end of society. The graduation certificate is the Hauptschulabschluss, which like the assignment to other types high schools is less valuable than the Realschulabschluss or university-bound Abitur. Stereotypes of dysfunctional family backgrounds, absent and/or unemployed parents and domestic violence and alcohol abuse are often cited when describing what is believed to be the typical social origin of these students. Teachers often complain about ongoing difficulties in trying to properly educate them and parents refusing to take responsibility. Moreover, and based on these problems, it has become very hard for Hauptschule graduates to find qualified work''

While it is true that the Hauptschule is rarely the first choice among the educational alternatives in Germany, it does succeed in providing an appropriate general preparation for youngsters who, whether because of inclination, ability or family background are not intending later attendance at a university. Youngsters in the Hauptschule may encounter difficulty in finding employment or apprenticeship positions, but so do graduates of the Gesamtschulen, Realschulen and Gymnasien; all of whom have to come to terms with the difficulty economic situation in Germany since the reunification. Indeed, I think the context of dysfunctional families, alcoholism, etc has more to do with drop outs, rather than to Hauptschuler(innen) who, after all, are following a productive (if clearly not elite) path in life.

I am tempted to adjust the text, but wanted first to see whether I could stimulate discussion. Do other readers share the view as currently included in the article?

--Philopedia 00:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I share your opinion that this passag should be changed. I think it is insulting.-- 95.88.136.199 (talk) 12:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello and thank you for your comment! I see that you have not adopted a wikipedia nickname yet, but I hope you may look back here to review my response and, if you wish, to carry out a dialogue.

Thanks, as well, for reminding me of my earlier remarks and intention to make a change in the article. In the meanwhile I have had second thoughts. In many German states, the intented role of the Hauptschule, e.g., as a training place for artisians, is not being fulfilled. Instead, the Hauptschule have become a catch-all for problem cases. Just one example: the very early streamlining of children into Hauptschule, Realschule and Gymnasium (about age 10) means that children who enter school with any type of difficency have practically no time to make a correction before they are assigned to one of the three types of middle schools. As a result, the Hauptschule are have a very high portion of children from immigrant families who, predictably, are weak in German as they use another language at home. [Note: today one entering schoolchild in three will have at least one immigrant parent]. Some of these children are quite bright and will feel underchallenged in the Hauptschule; others will suffer from problems associated with cultural misadjustment and social acceptance, not to mention unemployment, which is disproportionately high among immigrant families. All of this contributes to a syndrome of self perpetuating prejudices as featured in the article.

Finally, while I think it is possible to challenge the description in the article based on it being point of view, I feel I should defer the action of changing the text to someone who has more direct experience with the Hauptschule. On the other hand, as you wrote, my comment has been unaddressed for over a year now. So I will give the matter further thought and, perhaps, make an adjustment after all.

--Philopedia (talk) 00:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Orientierungsstufe
I agree to some of the comments I read here..

The author of that article didn't mention the Orientierungsstufe, which still exists in some states(Bundeslaender). The Orientierungsstufe includes the 5th and 6th grade and helps the teacher to give their advice(Empfehlung) by the end of the 6th grade. But finallly it's the parents decision whether they want to send their child in the Hauptschule or Realschule (I experienced that with a friend of mine). Of course it is not possible to send your child to a Gymnasium, when his/her teacher gave an advice to a Hauptschule...

But I have to agree to the author of the second comment, the family income and the status of your education has a lot in common. Further it is also of importance where you did your high school diploma: for example in Hessen or in Bremen, like me (one of the states with very bad results within the Pisa test). To receive a high school diploma in Hessen is much more difficult than in Bremen..I by myself noticed that with friends who did their diploma in Niedersachsen... Another example is the high school I've been.. during my 11th grade I learned quite as nothing new and had to face another big problem in german public schools, that I didn't knew before: cancellation of classes. Often we just didn't have classes because teachers were sick or the school just had no other teacher! Sad but true, often there was just no money for new teachers..so mostly we had trainee teacher, which often did a very good job. But the problem was that they were finished after one year..so what to do next?- hire a new teacher, who had to get to know his students first..get into the materials, then repeating the materials and so on..so there was often no time to learn new and important things...

As you see I am from Germany (maybe even by the mistakes..). And I think that nowadays it doesn't play a big role whether you went to a Hauptschule or not.. It is hard for every young person in Germany whether to get an apprenticeship training position (Ausbildung) or a job after you've studied.. edith —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Edith87 (talk • contribs) 03:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC).


 * I think if a Hauptschul-graduate finds a job depends on the region where he received his diploma. In Bavaria, where a big percentage of students graduates from one it is not that hard for a graduate to find a job. In other regions fewer students visit a Hauptschule and in some cities Hauptschule is only a choice for students, who have learning disabilities are leave primary school illiterate or innumerate. Many of those graduate from the Hauptschule still functionally illiterate and innumerate and they will have trouble finding a job. But those who leave a comprehensive illiterate and innumerate are facing the same problems.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.201.82.192 (talk) 14:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The statement the advice of the teacher determines whether a student can go to a Gymnasium or a Hauptschule just isn't true - at least in Bavaria. In fact, after the 4th year in the Grundschule, the grades in the main subjects math, german and HSK (Heimat- und Sachkunde -> social studies) are crucial. F.e., to go to the Gynmasium, a child needs an average in grades of at least 2.33 ("noch gut", still good). I even have a friend whose teacher gave the advice to send him to a Hauptschule even though he had good grades and is smart. Luckily for him his parents didn't take it ;). A short addition to the mentioned "Orientierungsstufe": As far as I know, there is also the possibility to leave after the 5th grade of school. If you want to go to the Gymnasium, you'll have to repeat it, however. 217.225.244.17 04:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Heimat and Sachkunde is not "social studies". (To translate it would be difficult. The most natural one would simply be "science", but this is not English... They basically put all subjects which require knowledge about some thing, hence the name Sachkunde, into one subject, viz. "science" (Naturwissenschaften; for a German philosophy is a science too!), traffic rules, local history (hence the name Heimatkunde), etc. etc. But, yes, even if you do not know it (for it is a formality), there is in Bavaria the need to have a letter of recommendation by a teacher if you want to go to a Gymnasium or Realschule. The teacher you mentioned may have given oral advice to do so, but written the letter of recommendation nevertheless (along the "I'm not standing in the way" path), or else there was an exam of admission ("Probeunterricht", test lessons, which everyone calls by the older name Aufnahmeprüfung).--2001:4CA0:2FFF:1:0:0:0:335 (talk) 15:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Similarities to other "nations"
This section should be changed to similarities to other "states" or "countries." A nation is a group of people with a national identiity, not neccasarily a country, like Kurds or Palestinians. Since education is almsot always determened by the gobverning power in a region, it would be more acurate to refer to states or countries.

This should be done with other language articles too.

Abolishing Hauptschule
It should be mentioned that some state have already or plan to abolish Hauptschule. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.212.87 (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Intermediate School
It is written "It has to be pointed out that while those schools are called "intermediate schools", they actually are no "intermediate school", because no school called "lower school" exists. Intermediate schools do not select students on aptitude." I think, there is: the elementary school is the lower school. The University is a higher school. And the intermediate school is the school that in between. In Israel, that uses some terms in education that were translated from German (due to mass-immigration of intellectuals in the 30's), we have this term for a high school. A high school is not "high" - but in fact - middle. We also have a similar phrase for the Mittlere Reife. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.203.197.196 (talk) 13:10, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

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meaning
"Any student who went to a German elementary school can go to a Hauptschule or Gesamtschule afterwards, whereas students who want to attend a Realschule or Gymnasium need to have good marks in order to do so."

The way this is written, it leads one to understand that studentes who want to attend a Realschulle or Gymnasium must have good marks to go to Gesamtschule.

I know it is not so; but that's what the phrase implies.

Isn't it? --Betty VH (talk) 20:56, 13 November 2017 (UTC)