In der Schule

I was planning on doing this post soon, anyway, but I recently received a comment asking about school. So, here goes!

The school I attend now is called IGS-Osterholz-Scharmbeck. IGS stands for Integrierte Gesamtschule. It's a combination of the German Haupt-, Real- and Gymnasialempfehlung. These three schooling types are for students of different career goals and scholarly capabilities. It's a bit of a complicated system to explain (even for some Germans). So, I'm not going to get into that. I will say that I am attending the Oberstufe, which is a parallel to Gymnasium, but is less challenging and is grades 11-13 instead of 10-12. In my grade, everyone stays in the same classroom (except for choice classes like art, music, religion and foreign language), together with what can be called your "homeroom class". The teachers go from room to room.

Now for my classes. I have 12 subjects: English, German, French, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Geography, Religion, Gym, Art, and Music. I have some classes four hours per week, and some only two. None of my classes are everyday, which is nice.

English:
Easy. Easy, easy, easy. I'm glad it's so easy, though. It's the one class where I always understand what's going on, what the homework is, and what we're talking about. Right now, we're doing too terribly simple work, but in comparison, it's like lying on the beach.

German:
This isn't too terrible. I don't always understand, especially when doing group discussions, but I have people I can go to. I understand most of the assignments, and my teacher is really nice and always willing to help me if I need it. The other day, we had to write an analyzation of a conversation in a text. We turned in our papers and got them back today. My teacher said that, apart from the grammar and such, my paper was the best. Äääh?!* In German? Crazy!

French:
This one isn't too bad. I can't pronounce more than a fourth of the words, but it's going*. It actually helps me a bit to learn vocabulary for German. My teacher is also nice. So, that helps.

Biology:
What can I say? It's pretty much the same wherever you are, it seems. We've looked at onion cells, elodea leaves, talked about evolution and adaptation... So far, it's going well. I only have this once a week, and the teacher is always ready to make sure I get what's going on and see if I need help. He even gave me a tissue when I was sniffling in class (which is nice, but a bit much at the same time).

Chemistry:
This actually isn't too bad. The teacher's nice (even if she keeps forgetting I'm an exchange student), and things are coming back to me (thanks Mrs. Solie!). However, I guess I need to relearn the elements. The symbols are all the same, which helps, but (most of) the actual names are different. For example, hydrogen is Wasserstoff, oxygen is Sauerstoff and sodium is Natrium. Luckily, for some of the ones that are really different from English, the names fit the symbols better (like Natrium = Na). Hopefully, I learn them soon!

Physics:
Again, not too bad, in theory. However, there's a reason I never took it in the States. I didn't want another math class. No one gets what's going on or what they need to do. So, at least I'm not the only one.

Math:
Easy. This is all stuff I've had before. The only thing that's hard getting used to different ways of writing equations, numbers and such. For example, Point (2,4) is Punkt (2/4). Two-thousand in numbers is 2.000. Fractions are almost always decimals, and written so 3,142. Other than that, I'm getting along just fine. Plus, everyone seems to like this teacher, and are in a good mood, which helps.

Geography:
Not the easiest class to understand. A lot of looking at maps, reading text and class discussion. The teacher's nice, though, and I'm able to follow along fairly well. I think I'll be fine here.

Religion:
This is pretty okay. It's not Bible-study, which is nice. It's more learning about what relgion is and what it means, which is actually pretty interesting. I don't understand 100% of what's going on, but I can follow along pretty well. My teacher is really nice and seems to actually be interested in if I'm understanding well and how I'm doing. Always a plus! I believe this is going to be changed for history next semester, though.

Gym:
Ugh... Gym... I only have it Mondays, but I hate it. They have something like the pacer test, but we have to run a certain number of kilometers in 12 minutes. For my gender and age, I believe it's 2.4-2.6km. Maybe that's not really that much, but for someone who's not a runner, it sucks. And we actually train for it in class. This gym class is not like in the States where we could just get changed everyday and do some sort of movement and pass. No, this is real gym class. We train for standardized tests. We learn how to proper do a high-jump. It can be fun, but it's tiring at the same time.

Art:
I like this class, and I don't. It's definitely not like my class in the States. We're working on writing an analysis of a painting. I'd much rather be working on my own painting, but I'm sure that will come later.

Music:
I've never really been a fan of music class. However, this isn't too bad. Even though I can't really sing and I don't know how to play an intrument, it's going well. My teacher can speak English, and he's really nice. I believe one of his kids had gone on or wanted to go on exchange to the USA. I haven't had too many hours of this class, but I think I'm going to like it.

Politics:
I know this wasn't in the first list, but that's because I don't have it anymore. I've dropped this class. I couldn't understand a thing, and the teacher had no interest in me. Those two things combine to make a class really not enjoyable. So, now I have two extra hours free to go into town for a bit or work on homework. I think that's a good trade-off.

I think that's enough for this post. If you have any other questions regarding school or any other topic, or if you have suggestions on what I can compare, drop a comment!

Also, to Kaylee and anyone else wondering, I'm living in a small town in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), just outside Bremen.

*These are either habits I'm picking from the Germans, or expressions I don't know how to say in English, so I just directly translate.