Wednesday the 15th of September was the first day of school for William and Sam. Sam is in the first grade and the first day of first grade is a big deal in Germany. We had to get him a schultude, which is a cardboard cone filled with candy and other cool stuff. We bought him what we thought was a mid-sized one but when we got the school we found that most of the kids had ones made for them in Kindergarten that were much larger than the largest ones for sale at the store! Oh, well, if we’re here long enough, Lloyd will get one of those since he starts Kindergarten in a couple weeks.
First we went to Sam’s classroom and met his teacher and the kids did a few things to get organized. William was pretty much on his own at this point, which isn’t easy for him I’m sure. He’s been homeschooled until now, and entirely in English. Now he’s in the third grade in a rural German public school, quite a shock.
After Sam was more or less organized, we all went to the local church for a special first day of school service, around here almost everyone is römisch-katholisch (pronounced cutOlish – English is one of the only language with either of the th sounds we have). There is freedom of religion but they understand that to include certain religious rights. They educate all children in religion and all Catholic holy days are official state holidays in Bavaria, which is predominantly Catholic (Bamberg is a former seat of the Holy Roman Empire and the resting place of the only Pope buried north of the Alps and they are serious around here about the Catholic church it is part of everything). When I enrolled the boys in school, the school asked what religion the boys were on a form. I asked what that was for and the principal said, “oh, because we have to know what religion to teach them” (!) I was pretty sure that even if the UCC exists in Europe, the name wouldn’t translate well, so I asked what the choices were. I think they might have been worried I’d say Jewish, because then they’d probably be required to find someone to teach it and if they thought finding a German tutor for the boys was hard! I can’t imagine looking for a Jew around here, let alone a Rabbi (there are Jewish monuments in the city and you can tell that the stars on them were added back at some point – in a European city the size of Portland, Maine I have yet to see a man wearing a skullcap – if I did I’d guess he was the Archbishop sooner than a Jew). Anyway, I said I was Protestant and they didn’t understand at first and then they said ahh protestantisch! (which although it looks the same is pronounced with emphasis on ”ant” so it’s understandable that they couldn’t tell) and so they wrote down evangelisch. I asked what it meant for fear that it was a bit more conservative than we and maybe I’d better choose katholisch after all, and they shrugged and didn’t really know what to say. I asked if it was Lutheran and they said “ja, ja, Lutheran” but I wasn’t very confident in this answer. I later learned that evangelisch actually does mean Lutheran.
Returning to the service, the priest wasn’t around, a woman led the service – maybe a deacon. William’s class was there too but Sam’s class had to go up the alter and do something special, I think she marked crosses on their heads with water. I couldn’t really see. We were able to sing along a little as there was a handout and singing in German is not really that hard if you have the words. We also recognized the Lord’s Prayer/Our Father but otherwise we had no idea what was going on. There was apparently some discussion of caterpillars turning into butterflies because the lady had a stuffed toy caterpillar that she could turn inside out and it became a butterfly. Unlike almost everything else in Bavaria, there was no beer involved.
Then we walked back to the school but we went to the gym (which they call something entirely different which I have forgotten – ein Gymnasium is a high school). There the principal talked for a bit and then the second and third graders (I guess – William was with them anyway and they were divided into two groups) sang songs and read showed off the ability of the second graders to read a highly alliterative children’s book.
After this we went back to Sam’s room and the teacher told us to say “Tschüss” (the German equivalent of “Bye”). We did and then she closed the door. On the way out we saw that William’s class was at recess so we went to see if William was OK, he was on a raised area above us and he walked to the rail to speak to us, a half-dozen kids or more followed him. I thought they were just curious and wanted to hear him speaking with us in English. A little while later we saw him walking by himself in a different part of the schoolyard so I asked him why he wasn’t with them trying to make friends. He pointed out that they were all girls. Not having been followed around by girls since Montessori School, I really couldn’t relate.
We left and came back at 1120, the first day of school got out early. We then went out to eat with all the families from our village who had children in the first grade and I ate too much Schweinshaxe and nearly got ill.
The next day (Wednesday) the boys rode the bus to school and in the afternoon they had their first Fußball practice. Saturday they have there first game! They don’t mess around with Fußball around here, it’s serious business.