What education was required for a woman to become a teacher in pre-WWII Germany?

Question

When a woman wanted to become a teacher in Germany of the first half of 20th century, she had to * attend a *preparatory school* for 2 years ([Präparandenanstalt](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Präparandenanstalt)), and then * spend 3-6 years at a *female teachers' seminary* ([Lehrerinnenseminar](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehrerinnenseminar)). **What requirements did a woman need to satisfy in order to be admitted to the preparatory school?** Could a homeschooled girl from the upper-middle class become an elementary school teacher, if she wanted to be independent? I'm interested in Saxony during the Weimar republic period. According to [German Wikipedia](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehrerseminar) * there was no requirement of having [secondary education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur) (Abitur) for people who wanted to become elementary school teachers until 1919, and * thereafter *schools of education* were introduced, in which a degree of secondary education was required. These statements apply to male teachers. I'm not sure whether or not they are true for female teachers.

Answer 1

Most adult males in the United States pre World War II had no more than an eighth grade education, and although that education was more demanding that it is today in many ways, it was not generally designed to develop the students' intellectual socialization toward nor inspire further studies. Most people were farmers of one sort or another. Try not to imagine the world of the past from what you know of the world today. It looked nothing like cities today. Suburbs didn't exist. Rural life was the norm. Females were allowed to teach children the homecraft arts and fundamentals including grammar -- to a point: grade five or six. And those women were privileged women from privileged families. Working class people, mostly farmers, still had many trade, practical, and intellectual skills that they learned from parents and relatives in the 1930s, but the prospect of war and its reality gradually ended until it had almost entirely disappeared by 1955. Remembering to consider the big picture -- the economic, social, and cultural conditions of the times -- is extraordinarily important to learning history. Beware of arguments premised on partial evidence.