My German teacher came to Germany from Eritrea, Africa, when she was 13 and her story is a real tale about triumph over adversity.
Children of immigration in Germany often face the same problem. The German education system divides children from the fifth grade into three different school tiers. These tiers basically determine the rest of that child's life. The bottom school, Hauptschule, primes children for a life of practical, manual work. The middle level school, the Realschule, trains children for slightly better prospects, and the top level school, the Gymnasium, preps kids for university and professional careers.
Children who move to Germany without being able to speak the language often get put into one of the lower two schools without any consideration of the fact that the language is the problem - not the academic skills.
A Polish girl in one of my German classes said a friend of hers from Poland - a straight A-grade student back home - was placed in Hauptschule simply because her German wasn't up to scratch. I guess her future was pretty much screwed because of this.
Anyway, a similar thing happened to my German teacher but she fought tooth and nail for her right to an education.
After escaping Eritrea's war with Ethiopia, she came to Germany at 13 and was promptly placed into hauptschule. Because of the war back home, she hadn't been to school for four years, so her chances to a fair education were pretty narrow at that point.
When she came to Germany, it's fair to say she had a whole lot of catching up to do - not only in terms of education, but also culture. When kids at school talked about how much they loved The Beatles, all she could think was "really? What's so great about this little black insect?"
But one thing she had going for her was a real hunger to learn. After four years of hiding from soldiers and missing out on education, her new life in Germany was a chance to make up for everything - and she wasn't about to give up on her second chance.
So at the age of 13, she studied every hour of the day to learn German and catch up on her school work. Eventually her teachers took note and said, "hey, this kid doesn't speak much German but she has a real knack for maths and she's really keen to learn".
Sooo, eventually they said, "let's give this kid a six month trial period at the Gymnasium". But they also warned her that if she didn't catch up in time, she would be right back to where she started.
So with her six months at Gymnasium, she studied like crazy on her German and school subjects and really started to make progress. However, when the six month trial was up, the teachers held a meeting and told her, "look, you've done really great, and you've tried really hard, but you just didn't improve quickly enough, so we're going to have to send you down to the Realschule".
Well of course she was gutted, and so were the teachers who had worked closely with her in that six months. So after the meeting, one of those teachers called the others back again and said, "look, I really, really think this kid deserves a chance. Give her six more months and let's see how she goes".
So another six months passed and she managed to catch up with her German, catch up on her school subjects and catch up on everything western culture related - a lot of catching up to put it mildly! And, hey presto, she aced everything and was allowed to remain in Gymnasium and eventually get a university education.
So that's the story of how, unusually for children of immigration, she used her own strength of character to climb up through these educational hurdles.
It seems crazy to judge a child at such a young age. Kids change so much between fifth grade and uni age, it seems a shame to dash someone's future based how they achieved at 10 (or there abouts).
Things are starting to change, and the last I heard they were thinking about changing the school system so give more kids a chance to go to university. Kids who go to Realschule can also apply to go to Gymnasium once they graduate, so there is some hope there.
I went to school in Germany at the age of eight myself and couldn't speak a word of German at the time. I was pretty much plonked into school and learned the language firstly just by miming things to other kids to get my point across. Kids learn pretty quickly though, and by the time I returned to the UK six months later I was pretty much fluent (unfortunately I've gone backwards since then! ;). My German cousin also started school in Germany at the age of eight. Coming from Tanzania, she couldn't speak a word of German either and when we were kids she told me that she was asked, "can you swim?" She didn't have a clue what was being said so she just nodded and followed the other kids to the pool. When she got to the pool, with arms flailing, she very quickly learned what the words "can you swim" meant.
I guess kids that age have brains like sponges which makes it very easy to pick things up. However I would hate to imagine how my life would have turned out if my future had been determined based on my academic ability in these six months in Germany, aged eight.
I think the more immigration there is, the more awareness there is about the challenges that kids of immigration face. I'm not saying I'm an expert by any means on the German education system, but I'd hazard a guess that the more chances a child gets from a young age, the better they do in life. I don't think a school system shake-up would necessarily be a bad thing.
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