For this field note, I wanted to get an insider's view about what life is like for kids in Germany, so I asked to interview Mrs. Friederike Wulf, a teacher at a local school. In addition to interacting with kids as part of her job, Mrs. Wulf has two children of her own: Rala, a 6th grader, and Tammo, a 4th grader. Although many aspects of school are similar between Germany and the United States, there are also some interesting differences (hint: one of these relates to the bright yellow school buses some of you might take every day!). Let's hear about Rala and Tammo's lives in more detail...
On school days, they eat cereal for breakfast, similar to what many kids eat for breakfast in the US. These children eat at home, since breakfast isn't typically available at school. However, they do eat lunch at school: food items include pasta, fish, and soup on Fridays. Their lunch break starts around 12:30 pm.
A fun fact about Germany is that unlike in the US, dinner isn't usually a hot meal. One word for dinner in German is Abendbrot, which roughly translates to "evening bread". This is a very accurate description, since dinner tends to consist of bread topped with various spreads, cheeses, sliced meat, and veggies like cucumbers and bell peppers. Rala and Tammo eat their Abendbrot dinner around 7 pm.
