Name: Anonymous 2011-03-11 10:30
RE: multiculturalism has failed in Germany
No, and I find such claims detestable and damaging to not only germanys reputation in the world.
Merkel and her right-wing social-convervative party buddies are framing an issuethat is primarily one of social inequality in education - rich parents, good education, poor parents, not so much - as a "culture" issue. This is quite obviously bullshit, as you can see by looking at your average poor neighbourhood - there'll be just as many kids with german parents as not, all similiarily bad in school.
The reason for this is, as I (And as most students and teachers) see it, our highly selective school system where kids are seperated into three schools based on pretty much one teachers opinion at age 8 to 10. Since that age is far, far too
young to be able to actually tell anyones ability at anything much, this ends up basically selectiong by social status. I've seen this happen live and in colour with a friend of mine getting sent to a more vocational school while I got to
go to the more academic one - with us both having the same grades. On the otherhand, in the school I later went to, there were people whose parents had immigrated, but had managed to make some money - some of them dumb as fuck, some really
smart.
No, and I find such claims detestable and damaging to not only germanys reputation in the world.
Merkel and her right-wing social-convervative party buddies are framing an issuethat is primarily one of social inequality in education - rich parents, good education, poor parents, not so much - as a "culture" issue. This is quite obviously bullshit, as you can see by looking at your average poor neighbourhood - there'll be just as many kids with german parents as not, all similiarily bad in school.
The reason for this is, as I (And as most students and teachers) see it, our highly selective school system where kids are seperated into three schools based on pretty much one teachers opinion at age 8 to 10. Since that age is far, far too
young to be able to actually tell anyones ability at anything much, this ends up basically selectiong by social status. I've seen this happen live and in colour with a friend of mine getting sent to a more vocational school while I got to
go to the more academic one - with us both having the same grades. On the otherhand, in the school I later went to, there were people whose parents had immigrated, but had managed to make some money - some of them dumb as fuck, some really
smart.