Nicht alle Kinder koennen ins GYMNASIUM, Frau Connor!

Refugees from the German school system.  For we are young and free!

Even though I dislike writing the rants almost as much as you must dislike reading them....again....I am reminded of why I have to.

It serves to clear my head.  And while I don't HAVE to PUBLISH all the first-draft nonsense that comes into my head, well you aren't OBLIGATED to READ it either when I do!  (Believe it or not, there is stuff I DON"T put up here - imagine what THAT must be!)

It also serves to remind me of how good I have it here.

Because the truth is that I am forgetting already.  Forgetting that the quote wasn't about all kids not getting into university but about all kids not being able to go to GYMNASIUM.

This, friends, is much much worse.

Because, you see, GYMNASIUM, despite what it sounds like to English-speakers (what, you're sending the kids to gym-class?!), is where the Germans send their 'smart kids' in fifth grade.

So that the SYSTEM doesn't even TRY to get the majority of students into the top track.  They believe that as early as the age of ten (and let's face it you know much earlier than that) you can already decide who is going to do what with their lives.

It is just assumed that most kids will be too dumb for it and the best thing to do is to sort the smart from the dumb as soon as possible and teach them different things.

Germans hate it when you use the words 'smart' and 'dumb' though.  I guess they think it makes them look bad. 

But what else are you telling a kid when you discuss with him at the age of ten what his opportunities are for a future career - bank teller, store clerk - since he didn't make the cut for Gymasium?

The reality is, funny enough more so here and in the USA than in Germany, that socio-economic differences will make a difference into whether or not a child does well in school or not.  But that doesn't mean that we should sanction this and make it policy.

These kids should be reaching for the stars. Not being told what they can't do.

"Not all children can go to university Frau Connor"

"Let us all rejoice - even if the British have us wearing these goofy Easter bonnets!"

We've had some gems from the children lately, mainly as we've been discussing how great the school is here.

For example:  We NEVER saw Frau Pfitzenmaier (the school principal in Altdorf) in the classroom.  Ms Egan comes out and talks to ALL the kids.  This from Ryan.

You'd also never catch Frau Pfitzenmaier (who is actually quite a nice, caring lady, only hampered by a very natural and human inability to reach beyond the narrow confines of what she knows) chatting with parents, patrolling the school yard at lunch, playing games with the children, having weekly tea with selected children, making time for coffee with the parents, giving out her email information to parents AND answering emails, let alone actually dealing with parents' complaints and suggestions. 

One time, when I had had enough, I asked her why it was I was bothering sending my kids to school if I wasn't at all informed about what they were doing there - and about when they would be coming home.  This because Ryan hadn't told me - again - that they were being let out an hour early.  And because Frau Pfitzenmaier insisted that a second grader should be writing this down in her notebook herself.  And if she doesn't?  Why exactly am I bothering to send my child if you are doing nothing to help her or to communicate with me?  And if all the other 21 kids in the class ARE writing down their assignments on their own, why is it so damn unreasonable to ask her to help MY struggling child with it?!

I was not seen as an engaged, caring parent.  I was seen as a meddling pain-in-the-ass who was too ambitious for a less-than-average student. 

'Not all children can go to university, Frau Connor.'

People I tell this to here are as appalled as I was.  But shouldn't all children have the opportunity?  And hasn't anyone in Germany heard that early intervention - prep through year 2 - is the most important for improving outcomes? 

Improving outcomes wasn't a goal in Germany.  It was labelling and sorting.  Getting the top third to university track in fifth grade and letting the other two-third find their proper roles.  Bricklayer or prostitute for someone like Ryan.

How dare I have other ambitions for my child - or any other child for that matter!

Aidan.  No child left behind.  Not even a DREAM in Germany.  It's a POLICY to leave MOST of them behind.

The German education system was as hush-hush as everything else I found in German society.  Written and published guidelines and expectations?  Certainly not available to the parents.  I had a hard time getting them to share the results of Ryan's IQ tests with me.  Really.  Not that taking the tests mattered since they were going to do nothing with the results anyway.

No remedial programs.  No small groups.  No attention at all to the individual needs of a student.  It is fit in or drop out. 

I'm not even angry anymore.  It is just so unbelievable.  Teachers in Germany are doing their best.  They know no other way.  They haven't been taught to teach.  They have been taught to present.  Kids who pick it up do so.  And those who don't are relegated to the lower school system at fifth grade.  (Never mind that the kids excelling in the German schools are the same kids who would be excelling anyway.  I mean, honestly, give Andrew a computer and he'll teach himself.  The measure of a good educator would be one who is able to teach those who struggle, not aid those who can do it themselves.)

And everyone is okay with it.

Except the UN who has gone so far as to label it a violation of human rights, adding that it serves to reinforce a status quo based on a medieval heirarchy.  Recent immigrants and foreigners are most commonly shoved into the bottom rung.   Children of university-educated parents succeed.  And if they don't the parents shove them into private school in fifth grade.  You are not going to see a lot of white, German middle-class kids in the bottom rung.  They can pay to get out of it.

But that's just the way it is.  And the Germans shrug and move on with it.

Ryan playing flute in an area-wide two-day symposium.  Opportunities for growth?

I digress.  During my last telephone conversation with Frau Pfitzenmaier I actually SWORE at her.  Damn did THAT feel good!  I had called to ask her the procedures for UNregistering the kids for school since we were leaving.  And she responded by reminding me that homeschooling was illegal in Germany and that all children were obligated to go to school there.

Goddamnit it!  I did not ask you about my obligations to a system that isn't even trying to meet my needs.  (My goodness, I am obviously WAY too American to have even TRIED living in Germany!)  I did not ASK your permission. 

Frau Pfitzenmaier made us come to a formal meeting at the school to sign the required paperwork.  Of which there aren't any.  Since you aren't allowed to UNregister your kids from school.  She didn't even show up.  We wrote the address of a hotel in Brisbane on the back of a napkin and walked out.  I never felt better about a decision in my life.

I have to believe these people KNOW there are much better systems out there than their own and juts choose to ignore it out of sheer pig-headedness.

Andrew on drums.

Which is why I have to try to be kind - the people it is hardest to love are the ones who need it most.  It must be hard being the country the rest of the world looks at in wonder and shakes their head at in disbelief.  "Not that there is a German stereotype" a British comedian started with recently - and the audience was ALREADY rolling in the aisles!

Robin Williams says he talked to a German commentator once about the state of comedy in Germany.  "Why do you think it is that Germany has such a difficult time with comedy?" the commentator asked.  "You ever think you might have killed off all the funny ones?" Robin responded.

"No." came the straight-faced reply.

I mean, come on Leute, you make it WAY too easy!

Another gem from the kids comes in regards to the "Hands Off" policy at our school here.  Straight to the principal's office.  There is also no bullying, verbal harrassment.  And children are reminded to be kind to one another and to play together.  To the point that if they see someone looking lonely they are asked to go over and ask that person to join them.

"How would you feel if you were left all alone?"  asked Melinda, our VP.

What a contrast from " well, we let the kids exclude one another from games because we don't all get along as adults in real life and we think it isn't fair to teach the kids that we do."

Really.

Really.

Any questions on why Germans have a hard time fitting in in the international community?!

Matthew.

Uh - heads up Leute - maybe try TEACHING the kids about respect for others and about getting along with others - about caring for someone besides themselves and about working as a team.  But then again, how do you teach something you haven't been taught yourself?

Selbstaendigkeit comes first in Germany.  Translated as self-sufficiency.

I'd like to see that replaced with "be kind to others."

Pipe dream?  Come on over!

I keep wanting to write a blog Australia as the "Please and Thank-You" Nation.  You have never seen politer, nicer folks.  Damon has rowdy drunks at the bar slurring out please and thank-you as they order drinks.  He's had people thrown out for disorderliness who have come back the next day to apologize! 

It'd be a start Germany. 

SO Lawnton is a "Hands Off" school. 

Ryan called Altdorf's school a 'Hands On' school!  And obviously not in a good way.

People here look at me like I am crazy when I tell them what school was like for the kids in Germany.  They really don't seem to believe me.  In this day and age.  In a nation that is always well-regarded for its engineers.  (Big remind - just because the top third do well doesn't mean they have done squat for the rest!)

So that once again I have to apologize for digression.  I had a fantastic time working with some kids at school today and talking with the teachers afterwards.

The contrast is just too great for me to go on about the merits of one without remembering the deficiencies in the other.

We are SO lucky here.  And willing to help if Germany were just willing to accept it.

(PS - been meaning to get onto Amnesty International here about the campaign for homeschooling in Germany and Sweden.  Got a bit sidetracked by the illegal migrant issue in Malaysia.  No more Dateline for me!)

On Being German - So NOT 'Done With It.'

I've done you the favor of NOT posting my last three blogs on what I REALLY think.

Offending everyone is not going to get my message across.

Technically in the Czech Republic.

But my friend's comment this morning in Prep School showed me, once again, that something IS wrong with Germany's attitude of their role in WWI and especially WWII and what I personally think SHOULD be shared collective guilt for the Holocaust.

It started when Aidan brought home this week's school library book on Monday.  The story was about a young Australian soldier rescuing an injured sparrow from the no-man's land between the Australian and the German front during WWI.  On Christmas Day. 

It was well done.  (I SHOULD have gotten the title.  Sorry.)  There wasn't a lot of blood and gore - but the trenches and the front was depicted.  The young soldier raises the white silk scarf he received that day from his family as a Christmas present as a flag of truce and bravely heads out to rescue the bird.  The German snipers watch warily.  There is no blame placed on either side - just the sadness that is war - but as the bird flies free, the soldier says "Merry Christmas Little Bird."  And the sniper, who you only realize NOW for sure is actually German, says "Frohe Weihnachten Digger."  (What the Aussies and New Zealanders were known as after digging in at Gallipolli against the Turks.)  And then the Germans start to sing "Stille Nacht" on their side.  And the page flips to the Aussies continuing the verse in English.

Of course I cried.

And when I told the teacher this morning that I actually thought it was a GOOD book for children, she told me she had had misgivings when Aidan brought it to her to check out.  Especially with his German background.  I explained that my children were aware of my feelings about war - that I am essentially a pacifist - and that they need to KNOW about the horrors of war in order to prevent them.  They've seen Dresden.  (They do have a slight preoccupation with building up towns and then knocking them down - the bombs came, Mom, they tell me - but other than that no harm done.)

Andrew in Stuttgart

They know that they are lucky and safe from harm.  But they also know that evil has happened - even when we were living in a country it happened in - and that it continues to happen to children today.

How are we going to STOP evil if we don't teach our children what it is?

My friend - who is German, living in Australia 10 years - overheard my conversation with the teacher and said, "Oh that.  I heard it three times in school.  I am so sick of hearing about it.  I am done with that."

I didn't say anything.  Conspiracy of silence?  Well, other than that I didn't think a heated discussion on German collective guilt was appropriate in a Prep School classroom at 8:30 in the morning as the kids were coming in, she is my friend, the only friend here I have from Germany.   I like her and I don't want to lose her.  Conspiracy of silence then, yes.

But I do feel I owe it to my country - Germany - to speak out. 

My new goal is going to try to do that without anger and without offense.

Because the German education system obviously isn't getting the message through even to these younger generations.  Possibly because the kids are being taught by adults who don't really feel the guilt and shame themselves.  So that they are being hit over the head with it (once they are older, this  is not appropriate material for younger kids) but not really seeing WHY it is important to acknowledge it.  The majority of Germans do tell me they are sick and tired of hearing about it.  That they had all that crap in school and would now like folks to get over it and move on please.

If you can sit through lessons on the Holocaust three times (over and over and over the Germans tell me) and not feel any remorse and sadness, then those lessons are not being taught properly.

I am not blaming my friend for the Holocaust.  But I am blaming Germans as a nation for not teaching their children to grieve for that broken past.  Germans, as a nation, are still looking for excuses for themselves, they are still talking about the good things that Hitler did for them , still telling us we don't understand and still reminding us about Schiller and Goethe and Mozart, still comparing their actions to the US atom bombs in Japan. 

Ryan in Heidelberg

When I hear this latest nuclear crisis in Japan declared the worst since WWII I can't help but feel guilt that MY NATION, America, dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Uh yeah, other countries have done wrong too.

But German attitude reminds me of a spoiled (possibly autistic?) child trying to get away with something.  Because that kid over there did this and that too.  And because I didn't really.  And because......

I am trying to teach my children right from wrong.  I am trying to teach them to take responsibility for their actions when they do wrong.  Only when they take responsibility - admit to themselves that they even did something they shouldn't have - can they change their actions in the future and move forward.

I don't place blame for imperfect behavior.  We are all of us human.  But I do get beside myself when the kids won't acknowledge and correct it.  THAT is when the $#*$& hits the fan in MY house.  (And then I have to apologize to the kids for my inappropriate behavior later!)

Maybe because I am part of a nation that hasn't taught its children to accept responsibility.

German-American-Australian kids

"I am so done with that."  Over and over and over again from adults in Germany. 

I grieve FOR Germany, because they cannot grieve for themselves.  They will never ever be truly 'done with that' until they stop being Hitler's Germany.  (Another essay I need to 'desensify' which argues that Hitler has won until Germany admits its collective guilt.)

My children are learning (age appropriately) that great evil not only occurs, but that it has been done by people who are no different than they are.  Our only defense against evil is teaching our children about it, pointing out where it exists (or existed), explaining why it is evil, and encouraging them to abhore it in all forms.

It doesn't mean placing blame on generations that weren't alive when the evil occurred, but it does mean acknowledging that the evil occurred in the first place.  (And not talk about Hitler's damn Autobahns and about how they didn't know and.......excuses Leute, you will not be let out of the corner and back into the classroom until you know what you have done.)

Moving to Australia won't change the past or make you any less German.

I can grieve for the Holocaust's 10 million innocent victims.

And I can grieve for Germany.  Because you not only lost the war Leute (something which still pisses many of you off more than the Holocaust) but you are still letting Hitler win every single time you don't open your hearts and realize that, no, you are not 'so done with it.'

Why multiculturalism WON'T work in Germany

(This was written over a week ago before the shooting of American military personnel at the Frankfurt airport by a young Kosavan Muslim this week.  NOTHING condones that young man's actions.  Life is hard.  The emotions of youth are messy.  That doesn't give anyone the right to go out and take the lives of others.)

A street performer in Tuebingen, an old (think Middle Ages) university town in Germany.
We DO have some free spirits.  I admire their strength in being different in a culture that doesn't value being different.

When I heard on the news that both England and Germany had officially declared multiculturalism a failure last week, I had to laugh.

My mother could have told you this thirty-five years ago.

It's not so much that Germans are more racist than anyone else in the world.  Really.  It's not that they mind you being a different color or religion or nationality so much as they mind ANYONE being different at all. 

It's really nothing personal.   But yes, there is something wrong with you if you don't act exactly as we expect you to. 

Watching the performance on a warm Sunday afternoon.

Thirty-five years ago we asked Turkish men to come over and take over the garbage collection, the street cleaning, the potato picking and any of the other jobs we Germans didn't really want to do.  (The jobs that we ask Mexican immigrants to do in America.) 

We thought this was pretty broad-minded of us, letting darker skinned Eastern Europeans, Muslims even, into our beautiful country.  See how liberal we are?

The problem was you men began to expect things from us, things like bringing your wives and children over too, building mosques and opening kabob stands.  And now, two generations later you own hair salons and newspaper delivery services and your children sit next to ours at school.

This would all be a lot less disturbing if you would try to look and act more like us.

We don't mind the kabob stands so much.  But would you mind switching over to Schnitzel and Bier, please.  Because we really don't know what to make of the smells coming out of YOUR homes.  (Would be delicious if they just weren't so FOREIGN!)

Couldn't resist this quick shot.  Germans as relaxed and casual as I've ever seen them!

I'm tongue in cheek here - because it's easy and its fun - but I have the experience of bringing a WHITE AMERICAN into Germany, of going through the paperwork of getting Damon a work visa so that he can work in a country I and my children are citizens of.  We were greeted - well, GREETED is definitely the wrong word - with such disdain at the audacity of such a request.  You want to WORK HERE?  LIVE HERE?  Because I truly believe the Germans felts we were taking away THEIR jobs.  Like we were taking from their slice of the pie.

I cannot even imagine the treatment we would have gotten if we were darker.  If a German citizen cannot bring her white husband into the country without criticism and disdain, how is multiculturalism ever going to work?

Again, it's nothing personal.  It's not that we don't want YOU.  We just don't want ANYONE different.  We have our ways.  They work just fine.  We don't WANT to think outside the box and we certainly don't want to hear about areas we might be able to improve upon.

We are the way we are.  And that's just the way it is.  (So ist es in Deutschland.)

America has asked for 'your tired and poor.'  (Although there's been some debate on that in recent decades!)

Germany would like anyone who looks and acts exactly like the rest of us.

Or at least knows their place when they don't.

Audience participation is always a doozy.  Get the 8 year old to throw fire.

A Bush Poem Out of Dresden - Part One: German Roots

Feeling way more German as a tourist in Bayern than I ever did living in Baden-Wurttemberg.

I'm an Aussie out of Dresden via Washington, D.C.
And, since you asked, I'll tell the tale of how that came to be.

The bombs they fell on Dresden as my dad was born nearby.
The "good" guys fighting evil,  dropping evil from the sky.
So I wasn't even born yet, but became a refuge
When my father and his family fled westward to be free.

My dad was born in Rathen, which is now an exclusive resort town just outside of Dresden.  It was used by the DDR as an exclusive holiday resort for high-ranking Communist officials.

We are so psyched to be in the town that Opa was born in that we take pictures under every sign saying Rathen.

To think, Opa grew up among these very same houses.

A world away another man was out there fighting Japs.
He was there as Darwin burned, to help those Aussie chaps.
The Yanks, 'tis true, did have a rep - and tendency- to ogle
And, sure enough, his eye did land upon a sheila from Cayogle.

(It's their daughter, born in Brisbane, that I have got to thank.
She's why I find myself in Oz, although SHE'S now a Yank!)

My first few of Dresden.  The Catholic Church viewed from across the Elbe.

Back to the land of Dirndls, Lederhosen, Brats und Bier
'Cause MY parents haven't met yet and so I'm not really here!
'Tis a THIRD man sends his daughter overseas to learn and play.
She comes back speaking German.  And in the family way.

The Frauenkirche rebuilt.  My German heart.  My dad saw it last as a pile of rubble. 

She's young and doesn't get it, what the fuss is all about.
"So many nice American boys," her grandmother, she shouts.
But the deed it's been accomplished and they know it could be worse.
Although my dad's a German, at least they married first!

My kids playing in the Elbe, the same river Opa played in as a child  before emigrating to The West at the age of thirteen.

My mom, she graduates from school.  I'm born in finals week.
And I get my first passport, before I even speak.

So I grow up speaking German, learning English nights at home.
A rootless German Yankee with a tendency to roam.

Oh.  Here I am.  Feeling my roots among the cobblestone streets of Dresden.

First Day of School!

Proud members of the Lawnton State School - and Aussie - community.

Aussie smiles are even broader than usual. Mums are practically dancing in the streets.

Okay, maybe it's just me.

SCHOOL HAS STARTED!!!

I should have posted photos on Monday but the commentary would have been even more smug and cloying than usual. With way too many exlamation marks.

I remember the first day of school in Germany, sometime in September. Stressed moms. Worried kids. Harried teachers. Really. My American friends always found this hard to believe – they dance in the streets in early September – but sending the kids back to school in Germany SUCKS. (Honestly, what can you really do in a school day that ends at noon with the kids coming home expecting a warm meal?)

Two Septembers ago, after that wonderful summer where Ryan and Andrew went to visit my parents in the USA, I decided it was mind over matter, and that I was NOT going to buy into the stress. But it was not all in my head. Mutters around me were panicking. Over the notebooks. And the fact that their kids hadn't learned the multiplication tables over the summer break. Or still had lousy handwriting. That the kids were behind academically. AND didn't have the right color binder for maths class. Mind you, this was BEFORE the first day.

No heavy Schulranzen.  School supplies made easy.  Gotta love the Aussie way!

Then the rude messages from school starting coming. The book Ryan had destroyed. (I only wish, I thought!) Her bike wasn't up to specs and she wouldn't be allowed to participate in the bike safety program. (I was so proud when she finally told the Polizei that a blue light was just as visible at night as an orange one! And passed!)

Children in Germany are routinely shamed in front of the class. Germans don't realize this is wrong. (Or that there is another way to do it.) Because their teachers are doing what they know. And noone knows anything else. Fit in or suffer the consequences.

Oh wait. School started in AUSTRALIA today!

The night before I coordinated drop-off schedules. How to get all four to three classrooms. I needn't have worried. One nice effect of the climate here is that the school is able to have a very open design. There are no halls. There is a courtyard. (With koalas in it, if you are lucky!)

The first day of school was like a party. Parents and families strolled to classrooms with their children. Doors were open. Teachers AVAILABLE. Even Miss Egan, the PRINCIPAL, was mingling with the commoners. And SMILING! No serious looks of how busy she was and how important her job was and how she was way way too busy to be talking to the likes of PARENTS!

Andrew sat himself in the front row and dismissed us. Ryan's teacher – a Canadian/Australian – passed out maple sugar lollipops and cookies from her trip home.

Can't wait to start.  Andrew in the front row of his new fourth grade classroom.

The prep classroom was a wave of parents and kids. All learning how to sign in, where to hang sun hats and place waterbottles. Finding names on cubbies. It was chaos. Except that it was fun. In Germany, serious stressed-out parents would have been worried and pushing their kids in front of others. Here everyone knew it would work out. (I think that's the key here; even in other everyday interactions, people are treated with respect and their needs are met. It allows you to relax because you know you WILL be taken care of.) The emphasis was on smiling – to kids, to parents – on making sure the kids were comfortable and happy. And the kids all seemed to feel really comfortable in such a social situation. Out of 25 kids, 4 -5 year olds on a first day in a new school, only one child cried when her parents left.

Maybe it was because everyone seemed to be concerned with making sure THE KIDS were happy. THE KIDS came first. Not making sure MY KID was happy and first.

Ryan just wants us to leave.  She's in fifth grade.

********************************************************************************
Aidan and Matthew were not next to eachother, except for signing in. Two kids. Two lives.

Uh yes, someone mentioned something about a Prep school?!

At 8:50 AM, as parents were still talking and mingling, Ms Dance and Fiona started the Good Morning Song wi!th the kids all seated on the rug around them. Complete with sign language.

Then she looked up, smiled kindly, and asked us all to get on outta there! Politely of course.

Day Two was even better.

After the first day, all four kids came home bursting with stories. I had to ask them to speak one at at time. Aidan and Matthew were going on about some birthday party I had to prepare. (Because Ms. Dance said so and that seems to make it final.) And Andrew about soccer. And Ryan about having Emily and Jessica come over to swim. And starting a German Club.

Then Andrew started doing some funny dance. Shang. Hands up in the air. Sha. Hands to the ground. Wye. Hands out to the side. Lee. Hands to his middle. Yo. Swo. Right and Left. Ho. Chien. Behind. In Front.

MY KIDS ARE LEARNING CHINESE!!!

(Sorry. This would have been MUCH WORSE if I had written in on Monday!)

MY KIDS ARE LEARNING CHINESE!!!

Aussie sun hat.  And speaking Chinese.

Queensland is still working on its curriculum, to meet up with the Australian one. How exciting to come in at a time where the curriculum is evolving, CHANGING to meet the changing needs of the children and the community.

The older kids, Ryan's grade 5 and up, will continue on with German. (Which works out okay because Ryan is the one who could use an ego boost!) Grades 4 and down will be switching to Chinese. Aidan and Matthew will begin learning Chinese this year as well.

When I got home I had Andrew write down the Chinese so that I could learn it too. He'd managed to remember 9 out of 10 words from his first session, but his mama ain't that bright.

Aidan and Matthew each had a book from the school library. (They didn't even HAVE a school library in Germany.) We'll talk about the computers and internet action another time. (120 in a school of under 200 as opposed to about 20 in a school twice the size in Germany. REALLY Leute, this is how you are investing in your future? Or do only the smart kids get computers later on?)

Then I read the weekly school information letter. And the letters from EACH of the teachers, detailing homework expectations, asking for parent volunteers in the classrooms, and listing the phone and emails of each teacher so that we could reach them at any time. The school letter listed school expectations, school goals (increased literacy, numeracy etc.), and had FOUR WAYS to contact the school principal. and volunteering in your child's classroom.

That, mates, is communication.

There was also a sign-up list for about six school activities, from working at the Tuck Shop, assisting with the weekly newsletter to participating in the P and C and assisting in your child's classroom.

That is what I meant by parental involvement.
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Ms Dance is SOOOOOO cool.  First day of Prep.  (You can spot Matthew on the right, necy to the toy box and Aidan just to the left in front of him.)

On day two Ryan and Andrew ran off to meet their friends while I went into the Prep classroom with Aidan and Matthew. Aidan went straight to his cubby, pulled out his folder and sat down at a table to finish work on his rainbow and the pot of gold. AIDAN! As some other kids came to join him, they showed me their work and Ms. Dance explained that as the pot of gold filled with the golden coin stickers, given out for positive habits (I ALMOST said good behavior, but that IS a judgement, isn't it?!), the class would have a party. The famous 'birthday' party I had already heard so much about!

I am also realising that I have NO IDEA what positive reinforcement really IS. Ms. Dance is giving out balloons and stickers for positive habits, reinforcing them BEFORE negative habits have a chance to show up. Not reprimanding someone for doing something wrong - DON'T talk in class, STOP pestering your neighbor- but REWARDING them for NOT talking in class and NOT pestering their neighbor. I should know this. It is also an animal training trick. Reinforce the behavior you want BEFORE that other habit has a chance to develop.

The kids around the table all RAISED THEIR HANDS to be allowed to tell me WHAT those positive habits were. 5 year olds on their SECOND day of school!

No pushing. No hitting. Keep your hands to yourself. I love it when Aidan says that last one because it so obviously comes from school! (And while, technically, pushing isn't encouraged in German schools either, I never saw it being actively DISCOURAGED either!)

Aidan GLOWING after his first day at Prep.  Ryan also walking taller.

The boys told me about the reflection chair, called the thinking chair in Prep, where Fiona (the teacher's aide) sat to demonstrate where one goes when they've been behaving in a manner that they should think about. The boys found Fiona sitting in the thinking chair the height of comedy.

The problem in Ryan's class in Germany was that the boys were repeatedly told to behave, but never rewarded when they DID – because that was just EXPECTED behavior – and never really effectively made to think about their actions when they DIDN'T behave. They just kept getting yelled at, but nothing ever changed.

Here, every classroom has a reflection chair. To pause and reflect, not to judge and punish. (I know it LOOKS the same, but I firmly believe our ATTITUDES affect the outcome. I use time-outs at home in the same way. Not to PUNISH or SHAME, but because the behaviour that has led to the time-out is just not acceptable in polite company. You can BE mad. You just can't hit the rest of us when you are. You can BE frustrated. You just can't throw your pencil across the room because of it.)

If the reflection chair doesn't work, there is a reflection ROOM off of the main office. It's my favourite room in the school, cool, quiet, with posters on the world saying things like 'a goal is a dream with a deadline' and ' you have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose.'

I think I'll go there to write!

Aidan and Matthew in front, Ryan and Andrew behind.

********************************************************************************
Do I expect Queensland schools, or even Lawnton State School, to be perfect? No, I am well aware of what we are dealing with. Australia has similar social issues to the U.S.. We have children from low-income families, from broken homes, a high number of children with mild learning impairment or attention and anger issues. We have a large number of children speaking English as a second language, children from all over Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Middle East, eastern Europe.

Isn't that fantastic? Not that we have children – and families – struggling, but that we have an opportunity to work together.

The Queensland education system is evolving to meet the needs of Queenslanders. Indigenous and Torres Straight Islanders. Lachlans and Connors and Ryans. (And no, I do NOT mean MY kids!) Japanese. Samoan. Canadian. German.

Oh darn it, I knew I shouldn't be writing this on Australia Day.

But as I watch my four Aussies proudly marching off to school, I can't help but be grateful for the opportunities this great country holds for ALL of us.

We are not 'your tired and poor.'

'For we are young and free.'

And yes, we DID have a small version of the German Schultuete.

In Germany, I imagine the vast majority of these kids would be bundled off to Hauptschule. (That's where the foreigners and the low-income kids go, which is why the UN has labelled the German school system a violation of human rights.)

Here, OUR children can be anything they want to be. ALL of them.

A Bad Morning (German Bureaucracy Leads to Australian Beer)

October snowfall in Bayern.  Smiling because its our last one!

This morning sucked.

For those who want to read it, I've got reams of moaning about German stupidity.  (After looking at my photos of Dresden, I've decided I really do LOVE Germany.  I love it so much it DRIVES ME NUTS!)  For those who would rather LAUGH about it, click on over to Liz's blog.  She's got a way better sense of humor than I do.  For those who really don't want to hear it anymore - YOU MOVED CHRISTINE, GET OVER IT! - skip down to the end (after the third photo, Ayers Rock in Dresden) and read about my time with the kids.  That was what this blog was supposed to be about, after all, wasn't it?  


Once I have to get involved with the remaining bureaucratic crap from Germany, the day just naturally deteriorates. The kids and I are working on using appropriate language (mostly me and mostly on NOT using INAPPROPRIATE language) but crap really does fit in this case.

Germans like to be known for their efficiency. But I honestly never saw a heck of a lot getting done while I was there and they are certainly wasting a lot of time with us now. Unfortunately MY time as well as theirs. It’s methodical, it’s bureaucratic, but it is no longer efficient if nothing gets done and IF IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. (Except for the Altdorf Rathaus; they have always been a liferaft of tranquility and helpfulness in an otherwise turbulent – and senseless – ocean of bureaucratic stupidity.)

When we spent WEEKS getting the runaround when we first moved to Stuttgart 7 years ago I thought it might be an anti-immigration thing. People will not answer your questions – no matter how simple - if you are not in the proper office for asking that question. And no, they will not tell you which office can answer your question or how to get there either. They treat you as if you are an ignorant loser unworthy of their attention. And make you feel that way until you get home and realize that these are the people who are supposed to be helping you so that you don’t remain ignorant!

We’ve had this in TOURIST INFORMATION areas too, most recently at the Ludwigsburg castle. When I asked about the children’s museum they told me I should have come yesterday. But I’m here today with four children. Well, the museum was only open yesterday. As if I should have known that. Do you have any other suggestions for the children? The children’s museum. But you should have been here yesterday. No kidding. And this was at the INFORMATION DESK. We ended up walking around the courtyard of the castle that we’d never seen before (we usually do the garden, which is what we were doing YESTERDAY, when we apparently should have been at the children’s museum!) IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! Why not show some enthusiasm and tell us how beautiful the courtyard is?!

Now I understand why the supposedly simple things took Damon hours and months to work out.

You can only cancel the TV Skye service at one year intervals. So we cancelled our contract, due to renew the end of August, in June. When mid-September hit and we were still receiving channels we called again.

You can only cancel once a year, they told us. We cancelled in June, we responded. No you didn’t. Yes we did. No you didn’t. Yes we did. No you didn’t. Yes we did. So much for the customer is always right. In Germany, the customer is always the idiot. Damon finally told them we just weren’t paying/ But you have to pay for September, they said, because you’ve been getting it for two weeks.

NOW they are STILL harassing us, because, as they inform us, you can only cancel once a year and since we didn’t pay September we have to pay the full year.

You'd think a civilization that built - and rebuilt - the Frauenkirche in Dresden would be able to disconnect cable TV service with a little more class!

Thank goodness we are in Australia.

I sent a snotty email to my old fitness company too, the central offices who insist that the written notice I gave them three months before leaving is insufficient. It should have been six months unless we move somewhere that doesn’t have an associated fitness club. The manager at my local club laughed and told me they do that to everyone, just trying to get more money.

Our school did this too – accusing Ryan of destroying a book – and demanding 30 Euros. I ignored that letter…..also having been told it was just a way the school uses to get a little extra cash. And after hearing from Ryan that she had been reprimanded in front of the entire class for it. Rudely. And, having seen the book, also disagreeing that was destroyed. If you have a problem with my child, do NOT speak to her IN FRONT OF THE CLASS and then send me a letter for money. Without consulting me. They sent me THREE written reminders – all just as rude as the first – but never had the guts to address me to my face. You want to hear inappropriate language, read my thoughts on THAT one!

And now the fitness company.

HELLO! WE ARE IN AUSTRALIA! I wrote. What shall I send, PICTURES! (What they want is an Abmeldung. You are required to register your whereabouts when you live in Germany – frightening I know.) What they want is an official piece of paper. What we have is electronic. What they really want is 90 Euros.

Honestly, stop quibbling over the small stuff and start learning to serve customers. You’d waste less time, make people happy and, in the final result, earn MORE from satisfied customers. But sorry, that is CAPITALISM!

That self-vaunted German efficiency is taking a real beating here in Australia, the laid back folks who supposedly take nothing seriously.

Uh yeah? Just because they’re smiling doesn’t mean they’re not getting the job done. Health care? Check. Come back every 3 months til my permanent VISA comes in? Oh – don’t be silly. You’ve registered the kids in school, gotten a license, an apartment and a bank account. Why waste time reapplying every 3 months? Come back in a year.

Damon still can’t believe the phone and internet and electronics service people who help him find the most cost-efficient solution for his personal needs.

Ah yeah. CUSTOMER SERVICE! Keeping people happy – even the little people – so that they come back and buy more later. Instead of gauging them for every little bit so you can take all you can while they are there. Really, in Germany the BANKS insist on all 10 years of interest on a home mortgage, even if you sell the home and pay off the mortgage before then. You see, they don’t want to lose their money on that interest. Instead of taking care of their customers, meeting their need and thereby creating a loyal customer. Honestly, I never bought into all this while I was in the USA!


Ularu - still called Ayers Rock - in Dresden.  German schnitzel and Australian beer.


So yeah. That was not good morning.

After that, the two items we did not buy for the kids in their school packs, two pencil sharpeners and two rulers, had either disappeared or been broken beyond repair over the summer break.

Prompting me to yell and scream and tell the kids that they would have to use their Christmas money to buy them.

The coloured pencils I had bought for Aidan and Matthew kept breaking in the one Sesame Street pencil sharpener we COULD find.

Aidan then reminded me that the words I was using were not words of love. To which I responded that I was tired of being told what to say by a four year old and that if he wanted to swear then by all means he should go ahead and do it. This frightened him so much that he DID swear. And throw pencils.

Andrew then came out of his bedroom with a fistful of small change and offered to buy school supplies with his savings.

At which point I felt small enough and mean enough to crawl under a rock.

Which is when I decided 12:40 was NOT too early for a beer.

Beer at lunch.  In the Czech Republic, technically speaking...

Koalas in the Courtyard: Part Two/Respect

Well, I think it's fairly safe to say I have a crush on the vice-principal. Called the deputy principal here in Australia. Otherwise known as Melinda. Or Miss Melinda to the kids.

You see Germany, it IS possible to show respect without the ''Sie'' form of address. And using first names.
''But how do you show respect then? And how does that person know you are showing them respect if you don't address them formally?''

I think there's a fundamental problem with a society that only knows how to show respect to others through words.

We are all in a position to receive and show respect simply by being human. It's not about status, wealth, noble birth, age, sex, color, race, religion, nationality or any of the other social conventions humans have come up with over the ages to make themselves feel more important than another human being. I am aware that this is a very New World concept. (And that it is often not followed there either.) But it's one the Old World would do well to learn.

Melinda shows respect by treating everyone as if they are someone special. Every single student, parent and co-worker at the school. Imagine coming to a school where everyone is considered special from one where noone is considered special. Imagine the joy of learning that you matter.

I wrote these first few paragraphs almost a week ago. And then I got stuck. Here I am lambasting poor old Germany again. I am making negative comments about one land while professing to value the positivity of another in the same breath. Shame on me. I don't want to be that person anymore.

We're all so happy with our new country and our new school that it's hard not to make comparisons. Andrew was chosen to read his essay at the school assembly this week. (It takes place every Friday and parents are encouraged to attend.) ''The school here is very different from my school in Germany.'' he began. ''Uh-oh.'' I already thought. And sure enough, the next sentence was a comparison. ''The kids here are better and nicer than the kids in Germany.'' Andrew went on and on and on about the fantastic library at Lawnton and the fact that they are allowed to play sports and borrow library books during the breaks.

It isn't that Australian kids are inherently better and nicer than German kids. In fact a good portion of them count their ancestry back to Germany. The difference lies in the social values of the two societies.

I remember Ryan's teacher in Germany telling me in first grade that she allowed the children to exclude others on the courtyard during recess because that was real life. We don't all get along as adults, she said, and so we shouldn't expect the kids to all get along either.

Hasn't anyone in Germany read ''Lord of the Flies?''

Recess in Germany was like a war-zone. Kids ran around and beat each other up practically unsupervised. If someone had a problem with another child, and took it to a teacher, they were most often told to resolve the situation themselves.

How are kids supposed to learn respect and peaceful conflict resolution if they have never been shown how?

Students at Lawnton are allowed to show up at school more than half an hour before they bell rings. They are expected to play quietly. There is adult supervision.

Imagine our surprise this week when Damon and I showed up early too and saw kids from age 6 to age 13 playing games together on the courtyard. There is no running around, no rough-housing. Groups play handball or sit and read quietly. Ryan and Andrew were both immediately accepted into a handball group, without any question of whether or not they would be included.

And Germany wonders why its behind in the international PISA rankings. It's not all about jamming the academics down their throats in the shortest amount of time possible, guys.

Character counts.

Are Australian kids naturally less aggressive, more respectful and genetically better behaved than German kids? I doubt it. But they are being raised in a society that values getting along with others. We've had 12 year old boys step out of line for the bus so that we could get on ahead of them. We've had children show us the bus schedule when we weren't sure which direction we were going in. They say 'please' and 'thank you.' I'm sure they say a few choice other things too, when we aren't around. And my guess is they can rough and tumble it with the best of them.

The difference is that such behavior isn't accepted as normal and tolerated by adult authorities at school. The difference is that they are being taught peaceful and respectful means of conflict resolution. That doesn't mean there won't be fist-fights. But it does mean that they know it's wrong.

Both my kids were honored at assembly today. Ryan forshowing all three Lawnton values of learning, respect and safety by doing her best during this week's testing and by becoming such a helpful and respectful member of the class in such a short time. (Turns out Australia is a grade ahead of Germany age-wise so that Ryan is 'repeating' fourth grade and going into fifth in January even though age-wise she should be going into sixth!) Ryan has never been honored for anything in Germany. Doing her best? Doesn't matter. Being kind? Doesn't count.

But I'm surprised at how relieved I was about Andrew. He was recognized for learning- his spelling and writing. (This despite the fact that he spelled out ''big horse'' during a spelling test when the teacher had asked them to spell 'because!') As I was home-schooling him I also realized that he was working way under his potential at grade level. But we shushed it up, didn't want to pressure Ryan, and certainly didn't want to be seen as bragging to the other parents at his previous school. It was all very hush-hush. (He'll be going into fourth grade in January.)

Shouldn't the child be allowed to be happy about his academic achievements? Why are we telling him to keep them quiet?

So that I have both, a child who needs extra help academically and a child who excels. How nice that the school has programs for both (as well as a special education program), so that they can learn in the same school, with children their own age. And, in the process, learn that everyone is different, but everyone has value.

It's hard not to fall in love with a school and a country that treats you like you matter.

Koalas in the Courtyard; Part One/Introduction

Of the top three awe-inspiring things we saw in our first week in Australia, the mighty surf of the South Pacific Ocean and our first glimpse of a koala in the neighborhood don't compare to the wonders of the school system.

 You can get what you ask for.  Just not in Germany.

We wandered into the local state school on Thursday to pick up registration packets and possibly get a bit of information on testing the kids and starting classes in January after the summer holidays. We figured we'd get grilled on if the kids even belong here, if we had the proper documentation, the correct street address etc. etc. etc. Next we expected the run-around with Medi-Care and health insurance since Damon had already been told school registration would help facilitate that process as it signalled our intention to stay. (We'd be leaving WHY?!)

''Easily handled.'' the lady at Medicare had told him. Turns out we are all covered retroactively from the moment the plane touched ground. I won't even go there – health care is another issue – but imagine Damon's delight at hearing ''easily handled'' from a government office!

What with the half hour greetings and the general willingness of Australians to do anything in their power to help you out we should have expected what followed at the school.

But, as I told the other parents at the parents' coffee yesterday morning after Friday assembly, the school meets every single criteria I mentioned in my unsent letter to the school board in Germany.

http://twintensity.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

Every single criteria.

Other parents at the WEEKLY parents' coffee following the WEEKLY general school assembly.

I had to apologize to the lady sitting next to me for crying during the national anthem. There were two of my kids, dressed in school uniform, sitting next to new friends, watching the school vice-principal handing out awards for excellence in learning, respect and safety.

Excellence in learning included improvement for kids that were struggling as well as at the top of the class.

One kid got an award for ''using a high-five in a difficult situation.''

Another for ''helping others to achieve their potential.'' Because we really value helping others.

There's a gifted and talented program as well as special education. Class sizes are small. Ryan's fourth grade class is bursting at the seams with 22 kids. Andrew's 2/3 class looked to have about 12. Not more than twenty anyway. So that the teachers and teachers' aides are able to focus on individual childrens' needs. Teachers' aides. Multiple learning levels within one classroom. With students from higher grades coming in to help younger students as well.

And a weekly newsletter for parents.

Homework is used to supplement learning in the classroom and instill good work habits for later. NOT to teach what they didn't properly learn at school. (And since the school day goes from 8:50 to 3PM, they have in a WEEK what German kids have in a DAY.)

Then there's the list of responsibilities the children have as students, the parents have to assist the students and the school has towards both students and parents.

Printed out in hard copy. Clear expectations. Which I was always made to feel like an idiot for having in Germany.

Oh and the steps to formal complaint procedures, beginning with teacher, on to principal all the way up to the Queensland school authorities. Look at that. Democracy in action.

I don't expect to ever use them. In fact, I strongly suspect the German system – where we do need to use them - keeps parents in the dark so that we can't.

There's more. Lots more. Things that the Australian parents look at me kinda funny for when I point them out with glee. As in, well of course there's a school crossing guard. And of course we're allowed on the school grounds to pick up our children. They're our children aren't they?

And why is that crazy American lady so happy to be seeing the school vice-principal reminding the kids in the courtyard to show respect and behave appropriately? You don't suppose any school system anywhere would just let the kids act like animals and work it out themselves do you?

I've often heard it said that the most ardent American is a new American, an immigrant who knows how good they have it, who doesn't take for granted that which the average American expects as normal.

So that maybe it's normal for this new Australian to be crying to words she's never heard before.

''Australians let us all rejoice. For we are young and free.''

The vice-principal was crying too as she reminded the students why they'd had a moment of silence the day before. “We honor the soldiers who died to keep Australia free and democratic. '' she said. ''And we are lucky to be living in the best country in the world.''

Guess they do know how good they have it.

Not everyone can live in Australia. (As hard as it is for ''us'' Aussies to believe, not everyone even WANTS to!)

But every child deserves the right to reach their full potential. Every child. In every country.

Take a hard look Germany. Look south and to the east.

We may be young. Just what Germany needs to get its archaic and decrepit school system out from behind its walker!

German or Swabian?

I believe I have taken that last step into being truly German.  I'm going to mock the Swabians.

When my family - spread from Cologne in the west to Berlin in the east - heard that we were living in (the German state of ) Baden-Wuerttemburg they all said one thing.

"How can you stand living down there?  Those people are odd."

When Damon's German colleagues from graduate school heard they said two things.

"Told you Germany is a lot cleaner than France."  (It is.)  And " how can you stand living down there?  Those people are odd." 

I didn't have the heart to tell them at the time that we thought they were all a little odd, so that Baden-Wuerttemburg didn't really faze us that much.

My oldest friend in Germany, whose Hessisch accent sounded like the language I learned as a child, told me not to judge Germany by Baden-Wuerttemburg.  I did.

You know.  The tight-fisted, scowling, close-minded old person tending their garden, scrubbing their steps and washing their windows while they glare dolefully at the children who dare to venture too close to their previous flower beds.  (Like the couple who ran the bed in breakfast we visited in Munich, funnily enough NOT in Baden-Wuerttemburg and just the exception I need to prove the rule!) http://twintensity.blogspot.com/2009/04/we-dont-really-want-to-see-them-either.html

The dialect in Baden-Wuerttemburg is so strong that the state's tourist motto is : we can do everything except speak German.  Proving that at least one person there DOES have a sense of humor about themselves!  (It's also the reason noone here has picked up on my American accent. I tell them where we have been living and they excuse the poor German based on that fact alone! Although, I gotta tell you, when some of the older Bayern folks compliment me on speaking German, I have to bite my tongue not to ask them if they wouldn't mind trying it too please. Amazing what you can intuit from only understanding half the words!) 


Of course Damon and I owe our sanity, and our security deposit, to the kindness and generosity of our Swabian neighbors.  And Andrew's baseball coach, the epitome of jocularity and good sportsmanship, is Swabian.  As are all my good friends who showered me with thoughtful gifts and sentiments when I left.  Aidan and Matthew's godfather is Swabian, and a happy father of four.  (Although I am sure his wife, my oldest friend, would ask me to reiterate that she most emphatically is NOT!)

My fellow Dresdeners (in the German state of Sachsen) didn't exactly greet me with warm fuzzy sentimentality either.  They were respectful, courteous and helpful.  Which was already an improvement over Stuttgarters who are often resentful at having being asked.  If you don't ask the correct question, in the correct way, to the correct person, at the correct time somewhere between coffee break and lunch, you not only won't get an answer, you will get a cold sneer.  And no, they won't direct you to the proper office.  "Nicht meine Verantwortung."  Not my responsibility.  And they won't make it their responsibility either.  (Which is why it is always so pleasant doing overseas business with someone from the USA, where they honestly try to help you find a solution to your problems and actually seem to find pleasure in doing so.  Even if they ARE faking it.)  Bureacracy, they call it here, shake their heads at the absurdity and chuckle ruefully.  Go ahead, you're doing it right now if you live here!

Back to courtesy without warmth from Sachsen.  Which prompted our hosts here in Bayern to tell us.  ''Oh, we don't really have that much to do with those people up there.  They are kind of odd."  Well yeah, I guess losing a war you started with the Russians and then falling victim to communism might do that to a person.  Or in this case a nation.  Didn't I hear something about a united Germany though?  Has anyone told the GERMANS that those "odd" people to the south and north of them are actually fellow countrymen?!

But it IS friendlier here in Bayern.  Especially with four children.  Back in Stuttgart, we do get smiles, but mostly of stunned disbelief and sympathy.  People here actually LIKE our large family.  They are HAPPY for us.  Out here in Iglersreuth, Frau Bauer tells me that families of four and five children are nothing unusual on the farms.  With less incomes than in Baden-Wuerttemburg. 

But we still turn heads in the larger towns.  Heads that stop, bend down and talk to the kids.  Heads that laugh when they realize they are holding the door open for more than the two children they had first spotted.  Like a gaggle of geese coming through the door.

Wait.  Let me repeat that.  They are holding open the door.  Holding open the door.  As in a common courtesy that I thought had been forgotten in Germany.  Holding open the door.  For children.  You aren't going to see that in Badem-Wuerttemburg. Unless you are hanging out on one of the American military bases.  Which is quite possible since they seem to be proliferating quite nicely there despite the end of the cold war.  (Another essay, another time!)

In Dresden, a woman in her sixties insisted on giving up her seat on the tram for Aidan and Matthew.  As if it were only the right and proper thing to do.  She wouldn't have had a seat on the U-Bahn in Stuttgart.  The men are pretty quick to get there first. 

So that common courtesies aren't as common as they should be.  But universal after all.

My cousin in Cologne had some advice when we told him we were considering relocating to Freiberg two years ago. ''It's nice enough." he said. ''I spent seven years there. But it's still Baden-Wuerttemburg. I couldn't do it again."

Seven seems to be a magic number in my family.  I couldn't do it again either. 

But I do leave a part of myself behind in that odd little part of the world the rest of the world considers part of Germany and the Germans consider Baden-Wuerttemburg.   So that I'd like to make an introduction.

Germany, meet Baden-Wuerttemburg. 

Baden-Wuerttemberg, meet Germany.  Go ahead, they're holding the door open for you!

Life After Dresden (On Trafalmadore)

I came away from my visit to Dresden knowing where I came from and excited to see where I was going. I had - and still do have - the beginnings of yet ANOTHER book - but this time with characters I knew and could work with. Still do.

And then I read the copy of Slaughterhouse Five that I had picked up in a bookstore in Dresden. In English, of course, but also by a German-American (who studied the sciences before turning to writing, and who taught at Cornell University!). Yes, I DO like comparing myself to Kurt Vonnegut! Kurt, in a few terse words that always appear to be dancing around the subject matter but then somehow seem to hit it right on the head, brought out the horror of my ancestry. You have to see Dresden - or Florence or Rome - to know the splendors Kurt's American POWS saw when they first stepped off the wagon. But you can go to all too many places on earth - Hiroshima and Nagasaki spring to mind first, but also London, France and all of the former Naxi-occupied territories in Europe as well as Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan - to feel the horror they felt after the bombing.

I felt it at King Henri's fortress in northern Haiti. (He was the first of Haiti's many brutal dictators. He fought - and I believe conquered - Napoleon's army - but also delighted in power over others, at one point ordering his soldiers to march to their deaths over a cliff - just to prove they would.) I felt it at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. (Where George Washington's army froze and starved to death waiting for winter to end so that they and the Redcoats could slaughter eachother over the right to Native American lands.) I felt it at War Memorials all over France and Germany. And I feel it enough NOT to have to go and visit the former concentration camp only a few kilometers from where I sit right now.

So that this is my legacy. Not just the horrors of belonging to a race that systematically slaughtered the Jews and almost conquered most of Europe into Russia, but the reality of belonging to the human race that has committed such atrocities before and continues to commit them today. The Crusades. Christians killing Muslims. The Thirty Years War. Christians killing eachother. WWs 1 and 2. The Cold War. Killing Communism - and communists. And now back full circle to Muslims killing Christians. Except that now we're civilized enough to spread the horror worldwide. Good for us.

I don't want my story to be about this. My story is supposed to be a story about a young woman's quest for herself - or her Self. It's supposed to be an everywoman kind of story, one that everyone can see her - and him - self in. One to laugh along with and relate to, maybe cry along at the sad parts, but certainly emerge whole and strong at the end.

And - being only half German - it had always felt false, üebertrieben if you will (overkill for lack of a better English translation), to spend this amount of energy on something that happened before I - or even my father - was born. False sympathy. False guilt. Kitschig. But the more I try to avoid it the more it stays buried inside. I need to unearth it - and sorry here, write about it - before I am able to determine it's actual weight in my personal story.

Kurt says it better, but I can only say it my way.

I've got LOTS of good stuff to write about too. The days here on the farm in Iglersreuth, sunny and clear. The homeschooling in our little house, an enlightening but surprisingly enjoyable enterprise for all of us. The hiking and history, the swimming and skating. The Bauers and our revelations over the campfire. I've only got two days in which to do it too. We only have one ancient internet connection while we are here and Damon is on it constantly. Working he says. And I can't very well promise him my random musings will be picked up by Random House and immediately be made into a film by Steven Spielberg.

We leave for Australia on Wednesday, November 3. We will have no internet or phone for the first two weeks there. So that I feel a little lost. I AM writing. I have pen and paper. And I use them. But it doesn't seem like I am doing anything unless I share it here.

I DO write for myself. I have been getting more and more tense the longer I don't post. But I also write to share it. The character I am developing, the person on a quest for self-discovery, me, needs others to understand as well.

"Because he doesn't know who he is, people recognize themselves in him." (Tao Te Ching, 22)

Kurt's Tralfamadorians have a philosophy too.

''That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."

I'm still not sure whether Kurt is being facetious or not. ("Um," said Billy Pilgrim.) On one hand, the Trafalmadorians see in four dimensions and know that time, as we see it, is an illusion. So that Trafalmadorians have the option of ignoring something unpleasant in one instant by knowing it is pleasant in another. Which is sounding kind of Zen, or Taoist, in a way.

Ignoring the implications of at least half my heritage hasn't been working for me though. Most likely, I have not felt WORTHY enough to embrace all of my past. Not worthy enough to even feel guilt about the horrors of being human. So that maybe Kurt means that we humans AREN'T Trafalmadorians and DON'T have the luxury of looking at our atrocities through space alien eyes.

In any case, I feel much better for having gotten that all out into cyberspace.

If the novel ever DOES get written, and published, and maybe even becomes a big hit, you can say you read it first here! And front row seats to all 18 of my loyal fans (17 really, since my sister is signed on twice! but I really need the numbers for an ego boost right now!) when the movie version premiers.

In the meantime life continues on Trafalmadore, ie Iglersreuth. We will contact Earth as soon as our spaceship lands. (Not metaphorically, that could be a while for me, rather when we land in Brisbane and get our phone and internet up and running, sometime the second week in November.)

"Poo-tee-weet?" (Read Vonnegut, the man is brilliant.)