OPINION: German school grading is unfair on foreign students and it's maddening
too few teachers
, which can have a significant impact on morale.
The lack of teachers, combined with inadequate resources and declining facilities, are frustrating but manageable aspects of raising school-aged children in Germany.
Less manageable, in my opinion, is the weight given to
Mitarbeit
and the wholly counter-productive interpretation of the term which too many schools seem to have adopted.
What is
Mitarbeit?
Literally, the term means "working with". In the context of education, it is usually translated as "participation'.
Essentially, it's a system whereby teachers are obliged to judge their pupils based on how frequently, effectively, and enthusiastically they answer questions in class.
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The concept was introduced in German schools in the 1950s, by a post-war generation keen to overcome authoritarian structures and strengthen democratic awareness among children.
Since the 1970s,
Mitarbeit
has developed from a general concept for learning in German schools into an explicit performance assessment criterion.
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In other words, responsibility for participation has shifted from teachers to students. A shift which has been enforced by giving
Mitarbeit
heavy weight in students' overall grades, and by making the judgement criteria almost completely arbitrary.
Today, the proportion of an overall grade which rests on the teacher's
Mitarbeit
assessment is often between 30 and 50 percent, and in some cases even higher (in languages or subjects like ethics, for example).
The exact weighting varies depending on the state and the type of school, and is often left to the discretion of individual teachers.
Why
Mitarbeit
grading is problematic
In my own experience raising children in the German school system, I've witnessed a number of problems with this practice.
Children tend to thrive when they feel a measure of control over their environment. My own 13-year-old daughter has figured out how to give her teachers what they want when it comes to exams. In ethics, for example, her exam results for the current school year combine to give her a Grade 1 (the highest grade in the German system).
Last week, her teacher told her she would receive a Grade 4 for
Mitarbeit,
bringing her overall average for the subject down to a Grade 3.
ILLUSTRATION - A report card can be seen on a computer in a primary school in Hanover. Photo: picture alliance / Silas Stein/dpa | Silas Stein
My daughter came home in tears, prompting my wife to contact the teacher for an explanation.
There are 33 children in my daughter's class. My wife learned that the teacher keeps a list of their names on her desk.
The teacher asks a question and the children raise their hands. The teacher chooses a child to answer the question and makes a cross alongside the relevant name on her list.
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Earlier in the school year, my daughter volunteered to sit at the back of the classroom because so many other children wanted to sit at the front – in order to improve their
Mitarbeit
grades. The teacher does not regard my daughter's behaviour as an example of
Mitarbeit.
My daughter has not been disruptive in class, according to what the teacher told my wife, and the answers she gave when called upon to speak were correct.
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The teacher's decision to give her a 4 was based purely on the number of crosses next to her name.
The teacher explained that my daughter had to compete with some very energetic
Mitarbeiters
in her class. My wife asked her whether the energetic
Mitarbeiters
had also received low grades, for refusing to allow the other students more of a chance to participate. The teacher did not appear to understand the question.
A personal gripe or a genuine problem?
I know there's a risk I'm coming across as just another over-protective parent, crying about the way his precious daughter has been treated.
Maybe there's a grain of truth in that, but I think the system as it's currently practiced makes an absolute mess of the teacher-pupil relationship, and unfairly penalises the children of foreign parents.
I agree that pupils should avoid disrupting classes as much as possible. And that they should be able to demonstrate that they've learned what the teacher requires them to learn.
But I do not agree that they should be forced to put on a performance of energetic enthusiasm and deep interest. Nor do I think it's ok to enforce this obligation with the threat of poor grades. In fact, I think it's outrageous and a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of their teachers.
In my opinion, it's the teacher's job to make the material interesting and relevant for his or her students.
A
study
conducted in 2023 by Dr. Carolin Krüll at the University of Münster also came to the conclusion that the
Mitarbeit
system discriminates against quiet or introverted students.
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In addition, constant observation can lead to 'permanent performance pressure', according to the report. Students learn to avoid making mistakes so that 'pure learning situations' hardly ever occur in the classroom.
An outsized impact on non-German children
The dangers identified by Dr. Krüll seem particularly acute for children who have an immigrant background or who have only recently arrived in the country.
A name badge with an Ukrainian name seen in an international class at the Max-Ernst comprehensive school (Gesamtschule) in Cologne. (Photo by Ina FASSBENDER / AFP)
However bright and hard-working these children are, they may not be as confident as their peers when it comes to talking aloud in class.
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If they're bilingual or have direct experience of the cultures or experiences being discussed in class, they may inadvertently contradict the teacher and earn a reputation for being disruptive. In addition, they and their parents will probably find themselves even more mystified by the whole concept of
Mitarbeit
than German families.
The study by Dr. Krüll made numerous recommendations for how the system could be improved, including greater standardization of assessment criteria, more transparency in the assessment process, and better communication between teachers and students.
Frankly, these changes can't come soon enough for me (although I'm not holding my breath).
The current system, of enforced enthusiasm and constant pressure to show interest, seems to make a mockery of the stated aim of the concept – to encourage students to engage actively, cooperatively, and reflectively in the learning process.
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DW
a day ago
- DW
Helping women refugees in Germany find work – DW – 08/10/2025
In 2015, Germany opened its borders to hundreds of thousands — many fleeing Syria and Afghanistan. But many women who arrived in the last 10 years do not work. What hurdles do they face, and how are they being tackled? Donya* came to Germany in 2016. The trained midwife fled from Afghanistan with her 19-year-old son after her husband disappeared and she received death threats. "On my first night in Germany, I slept better than I had in years. I will never forget that night," she told DW. While Donya appreciated the security offered by Germany, she continued to be tormented by sporadic fears for her own life and that of her son. Trauma is not quickly overcome and it makes concentrating difficult — a prerequisite for taking up a job. Despite her traumatic experiences, Donya made it back into employment. She has been working as a care worker for the elderly for two years now after completing an eight-month training program — and German language courses. The 53-year-old says she feels her work is unchallenging, but she cannot cope with switching careers again. The former midwife has also been helped by Work for Refugees, a project that is run by GIZ / Society for Intercultural Coexistence and other cooperation partners, and funded by the Berlin Senate (SenASGIVA). It is one of a number of publicly funded projects and nonprofit organizations that have been launched to address the diverse challenges facing refugees and help dismantle recruitment obstacles. After eight years, some 68% of people who fled violence or conflict in their home countries to come to Germany found work, according to a rolling survey launched in 2016. But the representative study from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Germany's Federal Office for Refugees (BAMF) and the Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) also shows that female employment levels are much lower than that of men. Some two-thirds of women refugees remain unemployed after eight years. That is in contrast to 15% of adult male refugees. "Studies show there is a threefold disadvantage for refugee women. They are disadvantaged as women, immigrants and refugees," explained Maye Ehab, an IAB researcher. Many men who flee to Germany are single, while many of the women come with young children. "That puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to attending German courses or taking up various services provided by the government," Ehab told DW. A shortage of child care workers means space at day care centers is not easily available. The difficulties in finding child care have also been an obstacle for many of the Ukrainian women who fled with their children to Germany after the start of the Russian invasion in 2022. While in 2015 and 2016, most of Germany's 1.2 million asylum-seekers came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq and were disproportionately male, three-quarters of the Ukrainians seeking refuge are female. 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That forces many refugees to start again from scratch. While Donya is educated, the same does not apply to many other women from Afghanistan. Attacks on women's education began long before the 2021 takeover by the Islamist Taliban. Donya's husband, an English teacher, had been teaching girls and women in a rural village when he vanished. Integration courses in Germany generally include 600 hours of German language tuition regardless of the recipients' educational achievements. Afsaneh Afraze, who works for GIZ / Society for Intercultural Coexistence in Berlin, is critical of this one-size-fits-all all approach. The trained psychologist — who, herself, fled to Germany in 2014 from Iran with her husband, a former political prisoner — can speak from personal experience. "I got 600 hours to learn German, but I had studied, I could speak English. In class, I was next to a 55-year-old who had never had a pen in her hand," she said. Afraze has been psychologically supporting Donya for several years, and said she is an exception rather than the rule. "It is not easy for a woman to go as far as she did in Afghanistan," she told DW. The Work for Refugees Project functions according to the motto of finding work first, according to the project's job adviser and counselor, Inna Gissa. A Ukrainian refugee herself, she got her first job in Germany in a hotel restaurant. "I could only count to five and say: 'My name is' in German back then," she said. Her command of English helped her get the position. Gissa added that she knows from experience that the best and quickest way of learning the language and making contacts is by going to work. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Berlin-based project offers free one-to-one counseling sessions, CV workshops and helps to place people in suitable jobs. 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Local Germany
4 days ago
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'Smile and make conversation': How to make friends with Germans
Friendship networks can take years to build, and moving abroad often means starting all over again. It's a daunting prospect in itself, and according to many of our readers, it can be even more difficult in Germany than in many other countries. The idea that Germany is a hard place to make friends isn't unfounded by the way, the country has consistently ranked toward the bottom of the list for friendliness in expat surveys, such as those carried out by InterNations. Given the importance of friendships to a healthy life, and for feeling connected to a place, we asked readers in a recent survey how easy they find making friends in Germany. Asked who their friends are, about 40 percent of the respondents to our survey said that most of their friends are other internationals, while just over 20 percent said most of their friends here are German. 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Local Germany
5 days ago
- Local Germany
Eight German words I now use in English
I didn't know anyone when I first arrived in Germany, and barely a word of the language. My first teacher was the TV, which meant that my first complete sentence was Ich bin nicht bewaffnet ("I'm not armed") – a phrase I've luckily never had to use in real life. One thing led to another, however, and not only is my German fluent now but it's started actively colonising my native language. Here are a few German words I've started using more and more when I speak English. Mensch These days, regardless of whether I'm speaking German or English, whenever I need to express surprise, frustration or empathy, Mensch is the word that just comes tumbling out. I can't remember the last time I said 'bloody hell' or 'no way' in English. Now it's always ' Mensch , I can't believe he did that' or ' Mensch , I'm sorry to hear that.' Literally, the word means 'human' or 'person' in the sense of Menschenrechte ('human rights'). As an exclamation, it's short, sharp and easy to pronounce. 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More prosaically, doch is also used in German to contradict a negative sentence – in the sense of 'You don't have a car, do you?' 'Yes (I do)' – and to offer friendly encouragement: Komm doch mit, meaning '(I want you to) come with us'. Genau Doch's better half, Genau means 'exactly' or 'that's right' and is used endlessly in German conversation, which must be why it now appears in all my English conversations, as well. In German, I can sometimes spend a whole evening in the pub without needing to say anything except either doch or genau . There are times, after a long day at work, when I wish English could be half as economical. Unverschämt Soon after I arrived in Germany, in order to meet people and learn the language, I joined a football club. The experiment worked so well that for a time German actually became my football language – a fact which became clear to me on a trip back home when I started shouting Geh drauf ('close him down') and Schieß ('shoot') at the TV during an England - Germany game. Advertisement Unable to understand what I was saying, my friends thought I was cheering for Germany. My behaviour, in their opinion, was truly Unverschämt. Used when someone is being rude or out of order, Unverschämt literally means 'shameless'. I seem to use the word constantly, regardless of which language I'm speaking, either muttering it quietly under my breath or using it to comfort my friends, wife, or children whenever they start describing the latest injustice they've suffered at work or school. Geht nicht Of course, I don't always mindlessly agree with everything my children say. When faced with questions like 'Can I borrow twenty euros?', 'Can I stay over at Matilda's tonight?' or 'Can I have a new handy?' My stock response here – after explaining for the 400th time that 'handy' isn't an English word – is Geht nicht. Meaning that something is impossible or can't be done, Geht nicht ( and Geht, meaning the opposite) have become the words my wife and I use in all our otherwise English-language conversations about logistics. READ ALSO: Five myths about German that language learners should ignore 'What about the 15th?' Geht nicht. 'The 16th?' Geht. Na & Ne They're everywhere! The evil twins of German-language contagion. Germans often begin conversations with the word Na – meaning 'So' or 'Well' or 'Hey' – and conclude sentences with the word ne, which is short for nicht wahr (not true) and is used in the way that English speakers use 'right?' or 'isn't it?' at the end of a sentence. Advertisement And now I can't stop doing it either, despite the fact I know I sound ridiculous: 'Na, all good? You're going on Saturday, ne?' READ ALSO: 'Umpf' - Six noises to help you sound like a German Quatsch I love the English words 'nonsense' and 'bollocks' but not as much as I've come to adore Quatsch , which can be used in either context and is just so satisfying to say. On trips back to England, old friends are invariably mystified when I suddenly ejaculate: 'but that's doch Quatsch, ne .' Kiez There are lots of German words I've started using simply because there's no good English equivalent, from Fremdschämen (feeling embarrassed by someone else's actions) to Treppenwitz ('staircase joke", or the thing you wish you'd said once it's too late), but the one I can't do without is Kiez . Mostly associated with Berlin and Hamburg, it means neighbourhood, but with a much stronger sense of community and the implication of an area which has a distinct local identity. Advertisement I love my Kiez in Berlin, and find I can't bring myself to talk it down as either a "neighbourhood" or an "area", even with people who've never heard the word Kiez before and for whom it has absolutely no meaning. What German words have made their way into your English? Let us know in the comments!
