Swiss schools

Ella came home today totally indignant. "MOM. Did you know that summer vacation is only six weeks long here??"  Well actually, I know that it's five weeks long, but I decided not to share that information just then.  After the first week, all the days start to blend together, anyway, if you're doing it right.

And actually, I now know quite a bit about schools here.  Alex played up his coughing and sneezing enough to convince us to let him stay home one last day, but Dennis came home from work so that I could take my own self to class this morning.  My integration course topic this morning was on primary schools: of everything on the syllabus, today's class seemed the most important for me and the family.

And, since it's fresh on my mind, I thought I'd lay out for you what all I've gathered about the schools here. I'm sure it's mostly true.

Mandatory school starts with Kindergarten at age 4, although there is also state-subsidy for daycare (Kinderkrippe), as well.  Depending on the parent's income, these can cost between 15 and 70 francs per day. To help defray the cost further, working parents are given an automatic monthly allowance of 200 to 250 francs (included in their salary, distributed out of tax dollars) to use as they see fit.  Have I mentioned that Switzerland is child-friendly?

Kindergarten is decidedly play-based.  We watched a video in class today, and the teachers seemed oddly defensive of this curriculum. Personally, I love it. Along with the play, there is also a firm emphasis on learning to be a well-behaved and disciplined student, which I'm sure makes all the following years much easier.

The two years of Kindergarten children are mixed together: in Alex's classroom, they are called Raupen and Schmetterlinge, caterpillars and butterflies.  The butterfly release that his class did was actually something of a ceremony: school is coming to a close in three weeks, and now they're all butterflies together.

As a second-year Kindergartner, Alex is going to have five days of school: three half-days (of four hours in the morning) and two full days (with an extra two hours after lunch) on Monday and Thursday. On those days, he'll actually be in class longer than his sister.  We also learned that he'll have a new teacher next year.  Not new to the profession, but new to the school.

Conversely, today I learned that children always have the same teacher for first through third grade (Unterstufe).  In Ella's case, she'll have the same two teachers.  "But," Ella informed me, "there's no advantage. They're just like you and Dad.  They always agree about all of the rules." Excellent.

Primary school here lasts for grades 1 through 6. After sixth grade, there are just three more years of compulsive schooling.  By they time they leave primary school, children are tracked into a rigorously academic path, leading to six years of academic secondary school (Gymnasium) or, otherwise, to the second track, the Oberstufenschule, which lasts three years.

Students who have been tracked into Oberstufenschule begin, at the age of twelve, an apprenticeship for a profession: these vary from baker to to carpenter to mechanic to IT specialist.  After completing the three years of Oberstufenschule, students can proceed to three years Gymnasium, or, otherwise (depending on the profession) they can continue on to a technical college to further their training in their field.

All student students with Gymnasium diplomas can continue on to four years of university, finishing with the equivalent of a Master's degree.

The Swiss are fiercely proud of their public education system. Their attitude toward public school is completely opposite that seen in America.  Here, private school children bear a stigma: private schools are not as good, and private school students are suspected to be lacking in some way, in terms of behavior or academic ability.

I'm a little wary of the concept of tracking and professional training at such a young age, but at this point I do have one observation that I want to share.  I've never seen such professional pride in blue-collar workers, ever, as I've witnessed here.  Particularly with the gardeners and construction workers, as these are most visible to me.

Right now, the streets in front of my house are being lifted for some water pipe repair.  I'm not going to complain about the noise, however, because the constructions workers have provided endless hours of fascination for my youngest.

He and I have spent a lot of time looking out the window, watching the three men who have been busy on our street for the past several weeks.  Once in a while, while they're driving by, one might throw Joey a wave and a smile, but generally they're all business, and they never stop moving: hefting, driving, digging, sweeping. Not until the well-earned lunch break that most of the city observes. In America, it seems that, in most constructions crews, there's often one man working and four standing around, watching him.

My integration teacher says that because of this system, because all professionals are so highly trained, their is no class snobbery in Switzerland: plumbers and politicians and professors are all perfect social equals, she says.  I can't tell you if that's true, but wouldn't it be lovely if it were?

And now, to go along with the theme of the day, I thought I'd share a little video of the kids, hard at work.  Everyone was just so peaceful: it was very sweet.