Back to School

Hello.

This is my blog and this is me, writing in my blog. Obviously, I haven’t been doing that in a while. Actually, I have been thinking about deleting the whole thing but I never could bring myself to it, even if I knew, I’d never write a single word here again. But it’s still here, just like I am, so let’s see if this engine is still working.

I could write about many, many things that have changed and happened in my life over the last couple of years but this blog’s core has always been school. That’s what inspired it, that’s the texts I go back to most of the time and that’s still a big part of my life.

I’ve changed schools recently. I’ve been at my dream school for seven years, which was not perfect but as good as a public school can be. But I had to leave it, for private reasons, going to a new school in a new state with a different system.

It’s been about three months now and I’m still having a hard time dealing with these new circumstances. Maybe I get into more detail in future posts (but I don’t promise anything because I know and accept myself) but for today I’ll try to detail my issues here:

• The focus is entirely on ‘problematic students’, everywhere, all the time. Identifying them, punishing them. You could get the impression that this is actually a teacher’s job and not, you know, teaching.

• When there’s a conflict between students, most of the time is spent on who did what and when and whose fault it is. Literally. ‘Witness statement’ is a term used often here, as is ‘regulatory measure.’ I hear these words every day, several times. Hours are spent on interrogations and phone calls to parents. For better or worse (well, just worse), this feels often like a police state and a prison.

• Giving good marks is treated as an exception. That’s not a new concept but here it is executed in an exceptional way. So that no one is exceptional anymore.

• Most of the teachers are friendly, superficial and very tense. They constantly complain about the school management and are strictly obedient to and afraid of it.

• The relationship between the school’s supervisors and the ‘common’ teachers is very bad. They hardly work together on things or are even seen talking to each other outside the supervisors’ offices. The hierarchy is very clear here and barely questioned.

• The school is very focused on its outside appearance, advertising itself with lots of awards and certificates, although, in practice, you don’t see much of what these documents talk about.

• It is extremely rare to see students who show an ‘alternative’ appearance, be it clothes or hairstyles or anything. No one seems to dare to be different. The same is true for psychological issues, which are rarely talked about, at least outside of ‘boxes’ like ADHD. While I had been used to students showing their scars, I haven’t seen this here even once.

• For a school with a significantly high amount of students with ‘migration backgrounds’ (we’ll never be able to find a proper name), subtle racism is a common thing. It is expected that students without a German name are bad at German. Or belong to specific clans or families, which are deemed dangerous.

• New teachers are not welcomed much. Even now I still have to ask dozens of things because no one explains anything. The principal has talked to me today for the first time since my first day here and it was completely misguided smalltalk. I was lucky enough to have a desk for myself but only through happenstance and trickery. No one cares about that.

There is so much more. Considering my experiences as a teacher, you can see that I don’t really fit in. But I also don’t want to be a rebel anymore, because I have learned that actively fighting this system is just draining my energy without achieving much. All I can and will do is trying to be a good teacher. Up till now, this mostly works, mainly because just showing a glimpse of humanity as a teacher works wonders here.

This is a new experience and a challenge that is frustrating, disappointing but also rewarding.