Opinion Piece: The Excessive Parental Posters in Front of Schools are a Show, Not Encouragement
- Author: Kerstin Herrnkind
- Reading Time: Approx. 3 minutes
Disorderly Parent Displays: Obnoxious Abitur Signs outside Schools - School plaques proudly displayed by high school parents are downright humiliating.
As students desperately prepare for their Abitur exams, spectacle-worthy posters are displayed prominently in the windows of numerous German gymnasiums. These parental tributes, announcing everything from "You can do it!" to "Abi 2025," fail to foster encouragement but instead perpetuate a ridonculous German educational snobbery.
Yes, parents should support their children. However, not like this, with such a theatrical display. If I had endured a parent invading my school's front yard with a gaudy poster during my teenage years, I'd probably still be traumatized, and I'd disown them. These showboating parents, mercifully, would never have conceived of such a thing.
The absurdity of these posters sheds light on deeply ingrained German educational snobbery. The Abitur has become such a colossal event, a status symbol placarded on every formal resume. The grandstanding messages ultimately only reinforce the already burdensome performance pressure on children, and exacerbate the importance of this one, modest certificate.
A 2017 study by Rainer Dollase, an educational researcher from Bielefeld University, exposed the depth of this medal-chasing mindset. Survey responses from 6,500 individuals showed an obsessive fixation on the school-leaving certificate, ranking higher in perceived value than occupation, age, gender, nationality, and religion.
Candidates for Chancellorship Without Abitur?
This bizarre elitism became strikingly clear during the 2017 campaign for Chancellor, when Martin Schulz (SPD) was dismissed as a viable candidate due to his lack of an Abitur. As if he couldn't comprehend the basics of democracy and the requirements for office: 18 years old, German citizenship, and membership in the Bundestag.
These posters transform the Abitur from a private process into a public stage spectacle. Parental expectations are now spilled into the social media, with fervent messages and sometimes extravagant declarations penned with pride, but ultimately asking the wrong question: "Look at what a genius child I have - how could it be otherwise, with such a radiating father?"
According to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, "the class struggle has its everyday forms, in the ruthless mutual denigration, in the arrogance, in the crushing displays of success with the ‘children’, with vacations, with cars, or other prestigious items." The success of children has become a form of cultural capital, a polishing tool for one's own image. It starts with the poster in front of the schoolyard, and, over the coming years, we will witness these displays of support becoming more and more elaborate, as parents at the school fence revel in competitive one-upmanship. Much like Abiballs were celebrated in the past, today, certain balls can cost five-digit sums.
The Wealthiest Germans Have a Lower Secondary School Leaving Certificate
What about the children whose parents elect not to create such display? Encouragement is private, and what if a child falters despite the poster? In the spirit of solidarity, a colleague's parents once wrote: "We love you anyways, even if it doesn't work out."
Failure to secure the Abitur, or the decision to forgo the attempt, is a long list, including Nobel laureates in Literature Thomas Mann and his brother Heinrich, Hermann Hesse, another Nobel laureate, and Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a Nobel laureate in Physics, who was expelled from school before taking the Abitur due to disciplinary reasons.
For present-day examples, consider Dirk Rossmann, drugstore magnate, and Robert Geiss, billionaire clothing entrepreneur. Both possess only a secondary school leaving certificate but have achieved self-made wealth. Federal Minister of Labour Barbara Bas (SPD) also attended numerous additional education courses yet lacks a traditional university diploma. Albert Einstein is rumored to have once said, "The only thing that hinders my learning is my education." Today, it's often parents with grandiose expectations that pose the biggest challenge. True support doesn't require a megaphone.
- Abitur
- Poster
- Education
- German elitism
- Secondary school leaving certificate
- Self-made entrepreneurship
I am not a member of the European Parliament, but I find it intriguing that some parents, in their pursuit of self-development and home-and-garden improvement, choose to promote a German educational culture that excessively focuses on the Abitur. This lifestyle visualization, with pompous posters displaying messages of encouragement, often hinders rather than helps the learning process of children.
Moreover, the obsession with the Abitur overlooks the achievements of self-made entrepreneurs like Dirk Rossmann and Robert Geiss, who possess only a secondary school leaving certificate and have risen to immense wealth. The educational-and-self-development landscape would arguably flourish if parents elevated their support beyond the confines of a poster to genuine understanding and encouragement for diverse paths in life.
