Berliner Rathaus and a Hauptschule

We started today off by heading to the Berlin City Hall (the Berliner Rathaus) to meet with the spokesman for the mayor’s office. Berlin actually has something like 12 city area mayors, and then one mayor that oversees them all. We heard about modern Berlin, and a little bit about the history as well. For instance, Berlin has lots of doubles or triples of things because the city was divided in half. So, there are 2-3 zoos, 2 operas, etc. Each time one side of the wall built something, the other side did as well. When the wall came down Berlin was stuck with two of everything. Also, Berlin is in massive debt, in part because of the double buildings, but also because there is a civil servant law that says that you cannot fire a civil servant. So, if you work for the city (this includes teachers) then you can’t be fired. So, they are stuck with a bunch of extra employees that they don’t need, but still have to pay.
Anyway, after that meeting we went to a meeting at the Heinrich-Heine-Real bzw. Rutli-Hauptschule (a high school). This is a middle level secondary school, so the best kids don’t attend this one. There is a lot of trouble in Germany right now because they “track” kids out of either grade 4 or 6 to a path. If you are the top 1/3, then you go to the gymnasium level (pre-college), but if you aren’t doing well, then you go to one of two other lower levels. This basically dooms these other kids to not having a good job. Of course, most of the kids in these two lower levels are poor or minority students (Germany has a lot of Turkish people and these people aren’t integrated very well into the society). So, we heard about a new project at this school that is designed to help these kids succeed better. Below I have posted a picture of informational posters that were made about the USA.