"& what was your grade?"

Incredible. Jaw-dropping.

Was my reaction to scores of students being read to the class. Add to this list: uncomfortable. I mean, I guess it's okay if the students are used to it, but how invasive of privacy - or at least my sense of it. But, it's not just that the students were receiving their scores on the English exam in front of the other students, but something else more serious happened. Maybe serious isn't the best word... bear with me anyway...

and after the scores were read...
the teacher engaged in a dialogue with the students about how they felt about the test...
For example, the teacher would ask "was it easy or hard" and popcorn across the room. Keep in mind, her teaching style is a bit more traditional and what you might imagine a strict German to display as an authoritative like presence.  The unfortunate thing was that the students did not seem to respond respectfully to commands, and it might be because the students do not have the most consistent sense of discipline at home, or they just don't relate to adults. Who knows. Anyway, if a student responded "the reading part was easy," the teacher looked at the score of the student to verify if they were accurate. I mean, I guess it's a brute honesty in a way, I just know that my insecurity would be terrified of this sort of revealing. There is a usefulness in identifying the best students in the class, but I don't know how it affects the psychology of the other students. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that context matters, moreover - history between the teacher and students matters.

the other class I was in... 
was considered the "lowest class in the school" and often they carry the attitude as if it doesn't matter that they learn because everyone has decided that they can't. This isn't the first time a story like this has been told, but the teacher of this class responded, "I like them, in a way, you know, you get close to them." It wasn't because he feels bad for them, but he just likes the way they express themselves - because they are quite direct. It is sad that these students don't see they use in going to school, but it's a blessing that when they do go they have teachers who take care of them in a different way. Maybe the education is boring to them, but the human contact makes it worthwhile.

I try to resist a lot deciding that certain ways of teaching are correct and others are wrong. I just don't think this sort of decisions gets us anywhere in a system full of different fields, levels, cultures, etc. However, there seems to be something special in finding a way to construct relationships that are multi-directional : i.e. student->teacher, teacher->student, student->student, etc.. The world is complex, so how can the classroom be honestly reduced to just a mechanism for the delivery of knowledge from "authority figure" (teacher) to "masses" (students)?!? This is not how the world works! It's much more dynamic! Berlin classrooms seem to understand this more or less, because it's not just lecture style and there has been plenty of constructivist activities. For example, constructing a understanding of my identity through interviewing me, working together in groups, participating, etc.

So I guess, can't help but show my bias that a classroom is nicer when it's a bit louder. I think my favorite part about classrooms here is that they are very social places, or maybe that's more unique to my school. Students may be chatty, overly so sometimes, but they are building a community and are not afraid to speak up. I think instead of disciplining students to shut up, we ought to be teaching them to speak up.

Imagine what the world could look like, if we built communities and spoke up.
These sorts of dreams begin in classrooms.