Passenger to Frankfurt

February 7, 2010

When I came to Germany a few months ago, a friend arranged for me to receive a gift subscription to the renowned (if rather highbrow) newspaper called the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This was an ideally-timed gift, because I had just begun teaching political science at a high school in Dortmund and though I had studied poli sci back in the day, ‘ the day’ was rather longer ago than I could properly remember, and there were all sorts of major elections going on in Germany that I knew very little about.So I gratefully delved into the paper every morning and one day hit upon an announcement for a program called Jugend schreibt proposed by the paper, which invited teachers to participate in a writing workshop with an entire class. In this generously devised program, all participants would get a free copy of the paper for a year, and articles written by talented students could even get published in a special weekly page appearing in the paper. Hmm, I thought – this sounds like just the kind of opportunity I would have loved as a teen, except that the New York Times either a) never offered such an incredible program or b) my teachers were too burnt-out to participate, so  I went ahead and registered my class, asking them only afterwards what they thought of the idea. Luckily, they approved unanimously, and so I traveled to Frankfurt last weekend to participate in a workshop with teachers from all over the country. This was fascinating in many respects. Not only did I get to go on a tour of the facility where the paper is printed daily, and see the enormous rolls of paper used, and the maze of buzzing, thumping machines that print, copy and even fold the pages, but in the evenings I had the opportunity to chat with teachers from the former East Germany, who told me what life was like for them after the Wende, or the fall of the Berlin Wall, and about their adjustment to working in the West.The only somewhat bitter pill I had to swallow as a political science teacher was when I discovered that my kids were NOT supposed to write about politics, economics, or current events, because it would be counterproductive for them to vie with the journalists paid to cover these events. Well, what ARE they supposed to write about, then, I asked myself indignantly. There are, in fact, plenty of topics they can cover – features and reports on people with interesting stories and professions, for example. The two prize-winning students from last year (who each won the tidy sum of 7200 Euros towards their college expenses), had written an ironic piece about a tour at a snooty French perfume company and an insightful story about a man who left his terminally ill wife, respectively, so that the stories really do run the gamut. The two students were delightful, funny and poised. The young lady who won, Theresa Lieb, explained that there had been no inconsiderable amount of rivalry with her brother, who had snagged the prize the year before. The young man, Maximilian Koenig, affectionately joked with his sister, confessing that his secret mission in writing was to distract the clever eleven-year-old from reading the trashy but insanely popular German teenie magazine called Bravo. All in all, I can envision my students having the talent to win, but I am not sure about the drive – all the teachers who had any experience of the program voiced their frustration at the fact that the kids would go only so far in their work, yet then not supply some extra details or do some extra research shortly before their piece would have been published, simply abandoning their efforts midway. Even the prize winners confessed that the daily reminders of their teachers spurred them on, and I almost choked on my coffee -  I mean, is there no such thing as a self-motivated student anywhere anymore, if even the best ones, the crème de la crème, still need to be prodded out of their adolescent lethargy?Once I had resigned myself to the idea that there were still plenty of worthwhile topics for the students to write about, and that perhaps I might be able, through sheer force of will, to persuade my students to make use of their talents, I was able to drown my sorrows in the three different kinds of mousse au chocolat (white, dark and milk) which were available daily for my delectation. Furthermore, I was able to squeeze in a visit afterwards to a friend in Freiburg who was celebrating her birthday, and we chopped and diced in her kitchen as in the old student days, except that the results were far more refined than the spaghetti-with-tuna-and-olives on which we used to subsist: this time around it was lamb’s lettuce and an exotic carrot soup with raisins as starters, followed by scrumptious salmon on a bed of leeks, accompanied by a mellow golden chardonnay. Hopefully what I gained in weight I have also gained in knowledge, but whether or no, I have at least been able to render homage to fine writing, if only via the title of this piece…!

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dortmund, Germany after recently returning from teaching in Dakar, Senegal. You can follow learn more about Tamara’s experiences at her blog senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com