Back to school: Hurrah – or oh dear? –, I am a school child!

When they started school in 1930, coats and gloves were popular; today, kids wear airy summer dresses and Bermuda shorts. Not just thanks to climate change. In the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, the start of school was still inconsistent, sometimes at Easter. The first German democracy tried to break the educational privilege by introducing primary school for everyone up to the 4th grade. And the subject of works. In the GDR, the reform ideas of the time were followed. Yes, not only Makarenko was known. Nor just Fröbel, whose life’s work, the kindergartens, were an integral part of the education and training system in the second German state. And that was a good thing. To put it in a completely non-ideological way. Even die-hard GDR haters now have to admit this. The legacy of Fritz Karsen, founder of the comprehensive school and director of the legendary Karl Marx School in Berlin-Neukölln, was fulfilled and was driven into exile by the Nazis. In the Polytechnic High School, emphasis was also placed on acquiring practical skills and respect for work. East Germans have fond memories of the POS. Despite all the slander. According to a long-term study in Saxony, 70 percent of those surveyed rated the school in the GDR better than those in the Federal Republic. Instead of “Hurrah!”, the latter only elicits a frightened “Oh dear!”

Speaking of which: Eulenspiegel Kinderbuchverlag has published a nice album for this year’s school starters, with poems, puzzles, an animal ABC and arithmetic tasks as well as plenty of space for souvenir photos of the first graders starting school and their first experiences: “Hurray, I’m a school child!” (44 S., born, 12 €). And of course the once popular song “Hurrah, I’m a school child and not little anymore, / I carry a little knapsack on my back…” is not missing here either, to the tune of “A little man stands in the forest”.

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