Before this Had a Name

When Childhood Didn't Need an All-Day School

Sometimes I think about how naturally everything used to flow into one another: kindergarten, preschool, primary school, after-school care. As though there were no clear transitions, only doors you opened, and behind each one, the day simply continued. One long, gentle thread of care, play and little responsibilities that carried us children of the 1980s and 1990s through the world.

And I often find myself saying: I never went to preschool. That sounds almost exotic today, when preschool education has become such an established part of early childhood development. And perhaps there is a little regret hidden in that thought. I would have liked to experience it myself. And I would have wanted it even more for my own children.

My First Day of School: All I Wanted Was to Go Back

I remember my first day of school. The traditional German Schultüte, filled with little presents and sweets. The photographs. The excitement. And then, when that first school day was over, something happened that completely overwhelmed me.

Some of my classmates were collected by a kindergarten teacher. Those same warm voices we knew from kindergarten. That familiar "Come on, everyone, let's head over," which somehow made everything feel safe. And me? I simply followed them. Without a second thought. I assumed we were all going back to kindergarten, back to the place where everything was familiar.

Except I wasn't supposed to go back. I was supposed to go to the school's after-school centre. That was the first moment I realised that life apparently had different paths for different children, and some seemed to open more easily than others. Nothing terrible. Just different.

The Age of Endless Possibilities

Looking back, however, it really was a golden age of childcare. There were so many ways for children to learn, grow and spend their days: kindergarten, where learning happened naturally through play; preschool, with proper little desks and a blackboard at the front of the classroom; after-school care, with homework, crafts and shared activities; and early-morning and late-afternoon childcare, which practically saved the lives of working parents.

Looking at it today, you could call it the unofficial all-day school system, long before the term became fashionable. And above all, it was reliable. A system without grand educational concepts, but with warmth and stability.

A child's day could last from six in the morning until six in the evening, and somehow that was considered perfectly normal. Well, perhaps not entirely normal for me. Because of my rather questionable behaviour, my mother quite often didn't collect me until six.

For many of us, the day began in early-morning care while it was still dark outside and ended in late-afternoon care, when the tables had already been wiped clean and the lights seemed a little warmer. And yet it never felt like an extension of the school day. It felt like an afternoon of play.

I was almost always one of the last children there. And I don't remember being bored. What I remember is the feeling that someone was always around. Somewhere, in some room, someone was making something with their hands. Someone was reading a story. Someone was checking the last unfinished homework. We felt educated, occupied and seen, even without all the modern educational buzzwords.

And What About Today?

Perhaps that is why I sometimes feel that everything was a little simpler back then. Less organised. Less perfected. But somehow closer to the child. It wasn't a perfect system. Yet in its own imperfect way, it felt exactly right. Because it was human.

And sometimes, when I talk about those days, what I really want to say is this: I never went to preschool. But I experienced something that gave me the same sense of security and belonging. Something that taught me in a different way.

A childhood in which school occupied the mornings, while the afternoons belonged to play, imagination and freedom. We were cared for, guided and encouraged throughout the day, without ever feeling as though we were attending an all-day school.

Perhaps that was the real beauty of it: we were learning all day without feeling that we were being taught.

Anastasia Weimer