Lost in transit

School worries

During Woody Allen's divorce from Mia Farrow and the ensuing custody battle, it was argued that he was a poor father because, among other things, he did not even know the names of his children's teachers. I tried to recall the names of my daughter's teachers and had to conclude that remembering your child's teachers' names is a stupid way to measure parenting quality.

In my defense, my memory for names in general is not that good. I bat about 0.500 on the names of ex-girlfriends, for example. I can remember the names of very few of my own teachers. But if I am honest for once, my policy for a long time was, my wife went to school in Austria, she knows the inner workings of this odd system, so she is responsible for the organizational, administrative and logistical side of things, while I am responsible for the fun side, and pack school lunches in the mornings.

When I call this system odd, I am not suggesting that it is any odder than the educational system of any other country. I am a product of the American public education system, and had a strong feeling as a kid that they could be doing a better job with us; time has done nothing to weaken this suspicion. And during the years I lived in Japan, I likewise failed to be impressed by the public education system there.

No idea, really, how other countries do it. I suspect it's like digestion: roughly similar everywhere, with some cultural differences. But if you assume education can influence a person at all, and then look around at the world, you have to suspect something could be improved.

Explaining school systems is about as fun as explaining the rules of baseball or cricket. I am no expert on any of these things and I won't try. Two things, though. In Austria, after the first four years of public education, children are currently split into two groups, those who enter some sort of vocational training track and those who enter "Gymnasium", an eight-year academic track from which they will then graduate and if all goes to plan become doctors and attorneys.

As luck would have it, our daughters are eight years apart in age, meaning one is just finishing her fourth year of elementary school and the older one is graduating from Gymnasium this year. In other words, one is at each end of the Austrian academic digestive tract. It is, for the kids especially, a stressful year. The older one is studying day and night for her school-leaving tests, called the Matura in Austria (Abitur in Germany). The Matura is basically a series of four-hour written tests and four-hour oral tests in most of the pupil's most important classes, testing material from the last four years of school. So before the tests, all the kids have to do is review everything they've learned in the past four years.

If they fail, they can repeat the tests in the fall. I am not sure how often they can repeat. If they really mess up, they can go to night school like everybody else and get their diploma that way.

Unlike school-leaving exams in some countries (I think France is one), the Matura is not standardized, which would at least allow authorities to compare schools. The test and the grades awarded vary from school to school, is my understanding. In other words, as I understand it, it is an arbitrary and subjective system with no real value beyond it keeps a group of teenagers (those with academic ambitions) very occupied for several months during their last year of school, which, looking back on my own experience, may actually be enough to justify the system. No one has yet asked whether the American public school system, where passing grades and the ability to read your diploma (waived for athletes) would suffice.*

Meanwhile, our younger daughter (who was recently nominated by her school to participate in a gifted program) got a "C" on her last math test. She normally gets better grades. My wife called me on my drive home from work and told me about it. She was not taking it well. "One single test might destroy her entire future," she said, among other things.

One "C" might mean she doesn't make it into Gymnasium, you see. The Education Ministry recently ruled that classrooms may not have more than 25 students. This was meant to reduce overcrowding and improve the quality of education, but in fact, since no additional teachers were hired, all it currently means is that fewer kids are accepted into schools.

So, here we sit, with a kid at each end of the Austrian public school tract system. The little one is being chewed up with concerns that a couple sloppy mistakes on a math test could block her passage down the academic esophagus on her way to eight years of academic middle and high school and then a study of, what, who knows, leading to who knows what, career success or waiting in lines with the rest of Austria's unemployed journalism majors or something.

The big one, meanwhile, awaits her painful, slow passage into the toilet of the Austrian university system. Which is a whole nother chapter, just wait.

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*my subjective experience only, I don't claim it's general policy...

Posted by Mig at March 28, 2007 03:17 AM