Kindergarten here in Germany is much different than what we have in the states. It isn’t actually officially part of the school program. Most of the kindergartens are operated privately or semi-privately (yes they have ones run by the city but usually they aren’t so nice). We decided that there was a kindergarten that we would really like our son to attend. However, getting a place in this kindergarten is not so easy. The kindergarten had an open house for families that were interested in enrolling their children for the following year. We knew that our son’s age would be a little close to get a spot (usually spots go to older children first as they would be the most needing the social skills that children learn in kindergarten) but we figured we’d give it a shot anyway. Of course these open houses are a way not only for the parents to see the kindergarten for their decision making but also for the staff of the kindergarten to see how the family works together to help them decide if you get a spot for your child (ingenious these Germans eh?).
So we arrive and as normal when dealing with important German things I let my wife take the lead, and I follow close behind with a stupid grin on my face (trust me it works). The leader of the kindergarten explains that the children are currently learning about Medieval history and such. We see some really nice examples of what the children have been doing through out the year. I even saw some Heraldry that the children drew themselves that is better than some of the stuff I’ve seen in a Letter of Intent. Of course my wife jumps on this really fast and says, “My husband and I study and recreate Medieval history as a hobby. We have lots of things we can share with the children (it was still fairly early in the kindergarten year), we would be willing to bring in music cds, armor, feast gear, clothing. The kindergarten leader was so thrilled. So we set up an arrangement so that they could borrow some of our things. They were pretty happy and so were we as they at least took our son’s enrollment paper (a couple of days before it was open to the public), which to us was a good sign.
Fast forward to June. I get a call from someone in the local area. Ferdinand has a daughter that is in the kindergarten. He was to perform a sword fight for the children during the kindergarten’s end of year fest. However, his normal partner couldn’t make it, and the kindergarten leader suggested that maybe I could help. I thought about it for a about half a second, of course my mouth took over and said “Yeah of course” before I had actually completed my thinking. He asked if I had my own sword. Fortunately like many SCAdians I’m a sword nut anyway and actually have a very nice demo sword I bought back in my Army days in Würzburg that would be perfect for this. So we set up a day and time to meet and start with the practice. We probably should have practiced more but in the end I think we gave a pretty good show. You can see some photos from the day at my Facebook photo album.
Needless to say our son will be starting Kindergarten on his third birthday at the end of November (a little delayed from the first day of kindergarten but that’s ok).
