No substitute teachers...

One of the weird things about German schools - which could definitely be improved - is that they have no substitute teacher system. That in itself is not really a problem - substitutes in the United States don't really do much usually - but the problem is the way the system they have instead works.

If a teacher is absent, then another teacher - any teacher who has a free period - covers for that teacher instead. It isn't necessarily the same subject though - so the teacher will just teach whatever subject they normally do. This means that if the English teacher is absent, maybe you have an extra chemistry lesson that week instead. If the class is early in the morning or in the afternoon, usually the school will just cancel the class instead and send the kids home early.

The PROBLEM with this system became apparent to me when I sat in on a lesson today. One of the teachers just came to school for the first time this year (she had a broken arm) and this is the third full week of classes. For this English class, it was the first English lesson they had during the entire three weeks. Something seems wrong with this picture doesn't it? Also, the whole culture of sickness is different here... apparently there is no limit on the number of sick days. There are two English teachers who I have still not met because they have been out sick for the entire time I have been here (again, that's two whole weeks).

There must be something that could be done differently.

At least the school is not trying to pull what they do at some schools and use the ETA (aka me) as the substitute teacher to fill in for any missing English teachers. That would be diastrous.