It’s our turn to write the blog post, yey! Who are we, you’re probably wondering. So here is a short introduction of us. First out we have 22-year-old Niklas from Germany, studying Arbeitslehre at TU Berlin. Most importantly, his favorite food is Sushi. Secondly, we have Hedda. A 24-year-old Norwegian girl studying at NTNU Trondheim. Her favorite food is the national Norwegian dish – Taco. So now that you have gotten to know us a little better, let’s move on to the main topic of this blog post.
During one of our workshops, we heard an interesting fun fact from Lena: in Switzerland the kids go home in the middle of the day, to have a warm lunch made by their parents. What??? How is this possible? How can the parents leave their workplace for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, every day? We are amazed. This inspired us to talk a little bit more about the school systems, and how it varies.
We are going to focus on the school systems of Norway and Germany. The school systems are both using technical devices differently. It is common in both Norway and Germany that schools have Smart Boards in the classrooms. This is a great way for teachers to use digital tools during the lessons. In Norway, the pupils also get I-Pads from the school. In Germany, this is usually not the case.
Another difference in the school system is the curriculum. In Germany, there are regional differences in the school. The curriculum is decided by the states, while in Norway the curriculum is nationally applied. The difference in the curriculum in Germany is not that big between the states, but it is still a difference. There are pros and cons to why it is like this, and it will be interesting to see if this changes in the future.
There are so many more things we could comment on in this blog post, but we will save that for a later discussion. We definitely see a difference in the Norwegian and the German school systems and how they operate. This is very interesting to learn and compare, and at the same time, it gives us a better understanding of our own school system. Looking forward to learning more!
Niklas and Hedda out. 🎤