Anarchy in the school

Thousands of German school students skipped their lessons and went on the streets of the country's big cities to protest against the school system, BBC revealed this Wednesday. In Berlin 5000 students were striking, in Hamburg even 6000 this Wednesday alone. Pupils from the age of 10 onwards were voicing their anger with overcrowded classrooms, the lack of teachers and huge exam pressures in Germany.

Well, they have a point there. In the Germany's Eastern part you have an unemployment rate of up to 20 per cent. Even people with an Abitur (similar to A-level) have difficulties to find a job or even to get into university. Moreover, students are even attending lectures at university for years and years, but when they finish - they just cannot find a job. This is really depressing.
People who do not even get into the Gymnasium (grammar school) have little or no chance to make a living. If you miss the chance to get good marks in the first years of your school career, you will be stuck in lower educational schools, called Gesamtschule or in the worst case, the Hauptschule, a school, where teachers are scared of their students and struggle to teach them anything at all.

Once struck in such a school, it is very hard to catch up. Because of the three different education systems you cannot swap to different schools easily, even if you turn out be more intelligent than you proved to be in the first couple of years while attending school.

Therefore it is understandable that students make a big fuss and go on strike.
What is out of proportion is that they run into universities and devastate and smash up everything that is on their way.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported on students rioting in Berlin's Humboldt-University. They burnt toilet paper, torn fire extinguishers from walls and even destroyed a Holocaust exhibitionin in the university's foyer.

Now, that's a thing you just can't do. Voicing your anger in public is all right when necessary. But anarchy is not the answer. Even the Nazis discovered that you don't get any respect by beating up people and smashing things.

When i heard about people striking against the current education system, I thought: Yay, finally someone is actually doing something against it. But with violent action the whole story just loses its serious angle. Now concerned students became bad revolutionists who vandalise in public institutions. Guys, seriously, your message won't be heard through vandalism. Calm down and most of all, grow up.

photo published in indymedia