Teaching Internship

So I got the teaching internship!  Though I signed up for this class weeks ago, acceptance was not guaranteed.  I had to fill out a secondary application and interview.  I'm happy to report they want me!  This is a class where I will be working with an Austrian teacher in the classroom as a native English speaker.  I will be helping students not only with their curriculum, but also with their English.  This class met for the first time today and I was introduced to the European schooling system.

It is a very different system with its own pros and cons.  Children start school here at six years old.  Kindergarten is strongly recommended at five, but as of yet not mandatory.  However, there is a strong push right now to make it mandatory.  All classes are the same for all students for the first four years of school.  The students keep the same teacher and the same class.  Then, at the end of grade four, it is determined by the teacher only whether the child has the ability to attend what is called secondary school.  Secondary school is like middle and high school and is considered the "academic" route.  Children continue grades 5-12 at this school and then can continue on to University.  All the children not deemed ready for secondary school go to a different school that is geared less towards the academics and more towards trade.  It would be comparable to a vocational school in the states.  These students only continue through grade 9 and then they enter the work force.  In both school systems, the students don't change classes.  The same set of students stay in the same classroom and the teachers come to them.  Schools here also don't break for lunch.  Rather they start earlier and are done by one so the students can go home.

Upon hearing all this, I'm grateful for the school system back home (though it definitely has its own faults and is far from perfect).  I liked having different teachers and different students in my class.  I also felt a certain freedom when I got to high school and could take AP and Honors classes.  Each classroom was a different environment that I had to adapt to, which is a skill I think everyone should learn at a young age.  I can't imagine the rest of my life being determined for me by one person at the age of ten!  I remember being pretty silly in elementary school and playing around a lot.  I'm sure I drove my teachers mad with my "energetic" behavior.  I feel sorry for the students who realize a little later in life that they want to go to University.  It is so much harder for those in the vocational system to go to University since they have to on their own complete grades 9-12.  Though I see flaws in the system right now, I'm excited to begin my time in the classroom. 

I will be paired up with my teacher in a few weeks once the school year here begins.  There is a whole matching program that I am now starting to get the best fit.  I feel like this experience will really help me to understand the school culture and observe a different system.  I feel very biased right now but I know that my opinion will change once I am working on the inside.  I will then have first hand knowledge and therefore a better idea of how the school works.