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We went to this museum on a class trip in elementary school (late nineties)! That’s why I remembered it. I do know that these kinds of classrooms did exist in

by arrrg 12y ago

We went to this museum on a class trip in elementary school (late nineties)! That’s why I remembered it. I do know that these kinds of classrooms did exist in post-war Germany still (mostly because obviously no one was really investing a lot into schools), but most of those were probably gone after the economic upswing and modernisation in the 50s and 60s (though I do not know how long some held on in some small school in some corner of Germany). (Ha, but you just reminded me of my first proper work desk I got when I started going to elementary school. That thing was pretty fancy, height adjustable, and, of course, the desk could be pitched up effortlessly, set to any angle between 0° and maybe about 50°. I’m not sure how widespread those were and are, though. Plus, I don’t think I ever set it to anything other than flat when actually working. Since my dad is a civil engineer and he actually had a desk he could pitch up to draw – something mostly relevant when he studied in the early eighties, because in his job now he has assistants doing the drawing and they sit in front of a computer – so that’s how I primarily thought of that function, certainly not for reading or writing.)

gumby 12y ago
> I do know that these kinds of classrooms did exist > in post-war Germany still (mostly because obviously > no one was really investing a lot into schools) Actually it's not only not obvious, but the opposite: there was a heavy investment in schools allied-occupied Germany as part of the denazification program. It is weird to look at some textbooks from that period that look like 1950s US books but are in German with typically German scenes (e.g. der Bäker) -- and copyright notices in English with the copyright belonging to the Allied Control Commission. This was a patchy process; my mother in law who started school shortly after the war, was in a very poor region and her handwriting was still the old Sütterlin style so I think some of her elementary school books were still from the 30s and 40s. But contemporaries of hers who grew up in Berlin have the same handwriting as my wife or our kid. (Sorry to have strayed from the also-interesting medieval topic.)

by arrrg 12y ago

gumby 12y ago

> I do know that these kinds of classrooms did exist > in post-war Germany still (mostly because obviously > no one was really investing a lot into schools) Actually it's not only not obvious, but the opposite: there was a heavy investment in schools allied-occupied Germany as part of the denazification program. It is weird to look at some textbooks from that period that look like 1950s US books but are in German with typically German scenes (e.g. der Bäker) -- and copyright notices in English with the copyright belonging to the Allied Control Commission. This was a patchy process; my mother in law who started school shortly after the war, was in a very poor region and her handwriting was still the old Sütterlin style so I think some of her elementary school books were still from the 30s and 40s. But contemporaries of hers who grew up in Berlin have the same handwriting as my wife or our kid. (Sorry to have strayed from the also-interesting medieval topic.)