Why don´t you let the students do the job?

Sometimes I hate the school I am employed at. And so do my colleagues, more often than I do. Lessons start at 7:30 a.m., announced by a bell that could revive the dead, telling me that I have to show up in a certain classroom expecting a certain number and sort of students, with the task to fill 45 minutes with some knowledge which they could possibly make use of, hoping that they are really nterested in and knowing that life outside these school building walls is so different to their experience out there over the weekend or after a 2-6-week holiday.

Life in the real world is so different from school.

Does it really have to be? Or is it all a problem linked to my experience? Experience which is so much different to the experience of my students?

Let me dream a dream for a while.
Everyone knows when it is time to get at work. I do, my students do. We meet after the holidays to make a common experience. The students in their first year of training have experienced by now what I expect my lessons to be like and what I expect of them. They have introduced their training companies to each other, and they know that we will learn about how to set up, lead and finish telephone conversations in business in English. They are most interested, and they can´t wait for getting the information about rules and phrases which they have to use. They will apply their knowledge right away in an international relationship with a partner school or company in a live real time conversation. They can improve their skills and gain self-confidence.

In a common project, even the 22nd year students could teach their 1st year fellow students to how to use the telephone. This would mean a repetition for them which would be of great use.

Reality looks different.
The computer rooms are occupied by the most important accounting and business subjects. Skype or other real-time VoIP-providers are not allowed as they could be used for private purposes. Further obstacles: neetly elaborated time tables, the feeling of being "somethng better", the competitive advantage of being able to finish training earlier and gettig the only job left in the company.

Why don´t we let the students do the job of studying, finding out information, putting their knowledge into practise?

First.
Teachers have been conditioned to be hyperactive and have everything in the classroom under control; an objective which can hardly be reached, and, on top of that, is not really desirable. But, to be honest, most of us feel a bit useless when the students are at work and we as teachers have nothing to do. (only later, when correcting assignments!)

Second.
Vocational training in Germany is very much administrated, and so Students´ Conferences related to certain subjects (e.g. Business English, Marketing Strategies, the Political System of Germany), being organised in workshops which would bring together hundreds of trainees to make true learning experiences, would be impossible to attain.

Let me go on dreaming a bit:
The first step in reforming the German vocational school system would be to change German vocational schools into Centres of Further Education. These would comprise initial vocational education for school leavers, further education offers for those changing their jobs and further qualification. We already have this in the UK and Denmark.

The second step would be centralised colleges of further education which offer courses for trainees and further education students where everybody can meet and exchange information and co-operate. They could contact further education students all over Europe and America.

This is my dream of real student-centred education. But it would mean more flexibility in the state school system and the redundancy of a lot of administrative staff. The chance of this to happen unfortunately is tending to zero.

Still, I am very much interested in how other countries are dealing with this problem.