Hannah, North South volunteer
Unfortunately, my time abroad didn’t work out in the end, so instead I did an internship at a primary school. This gave me a new perspective on the teaching profession. At the same time, I was able to spend this great time together with many dedicated teachers and of course with unique children!
Play makes school – an approach that pays off
I was involved in the project “Spielen macht Schule”. This is a nationwide initiative to integrate playful learning more into everyday school life. My role was to organise play sessions for the children during normal school lessons. Classic board or card games are used. These were meant to provide a counterbalance to the screen-based learning that has become commonplace for many children. Not only logical thinking is promoted in games, but above all social skills. Especially in primary school, learning social skills is as important as reading, writing and arithmetic.
My home town of Görlitz is a German-Polish border town. So it happens from time to time that some children lack language skills. I sat with them, practised their pronunciation and made sure they solved the right tasks. That was one of the internship tasks I didn’t expect at all beforehand, but in retrospect it was one of the things I liked best. It is now common practice in many schools to work with several languages and it was very interesting for me to see how this can actually work.
Much to do
There are still many weak points in our education system. This is clear to anyone who is concerned with educational equity in Germany. Especially in the Corona pandemic, this becomes clearer than ever. In my voluntary service, I encountered many of these problems, but the beautiful and touching moments that occurred again and again definitely made up for it. And there were many of them. That’s why I will have fond memories of my time at the school. Especially the many unique children who deserve a well-rounded education and a wonderful time at school.
