Going Back, Primary School

My own schooling took place in a small town in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In primary school (grades 1 to 4) our school day began with the singing of German folk songs, our repertoire ever increasing, which I loved, but some children hated.

Apart from the usual chalk and talk language and mathematics lessons we learned about where the food we eat comes from e.g. milk, cream and cheese, followed by a visit to the local milk factory. We did projects on the different grains grown in Germany.

We learned about the area we lived in, the timber industry, and I remember being completely impressed by an excursion to a place where attractive quality puppets are created, their heads hand-carved from wood.

Wild animals were covered, the deer, hare, hedgehog and birds including the nightingale, the different wood-peckers and birds of prey. I recall doing a project on sqirrels and spending seemingly hours on drawing this pretty little creature.

Once we went on a nature walk as part of a unit on common trees. We learned to identify the different trees by their bark, leaves, flowers and seeds. There were oak trees, beech, birch, willow, maple trees and many more.

The German Geography was covered with important cities, rivers, mountains, forests and industries.

Sport was fun, though I was never really good at it, and mostly indoors in a huge sports hall. Only on fine days (in Germany there are about as many fine days as there are rainy days in Australia) would we go outside and practice for the yearly athletics carnival or play team games.

I only have vague memories of maths and language lessons, however, I do recall teachers giving us hours and hours of grammar exercises, in order to get us to understand the ever so complex German grammar.