25 Sept 2014

MY SCHOOLTIME

I don't know who has invented that your schooltime is the best time of your life ! Maybe there are people around who enjoyed that time, but certainly not me !


Me with my "Schultüte"

Once upon a time in Germany, children who were about to start school were told the legend of the tree that grows in every teacher’s garden.

It was said that on this tree grew bags filled with all types of sweets, toys and goodies. These bags are known as Schultüte (school cone).

Schultüten have been given to German kids on their first day of school since around 1810. This tradition started in big German cities such as Jena, Dresden and Leipzig.

To this day, parents and family members fill Schultüten with yummy sweets, little presents and useful stationery. They give them to children to celebrate the beginning of their school days.

This had been the only nice moment of my schooltime ! In my very first teacher's garden, if she had one, there were certainly only weeds growing and not school cones ! She was an awful dragon. She was very old (in my eyes) had narrow vicious eyes and huge yellow teeth with white spots which hang out of her mouth, which she couldn't close for that reason. When she spoke or rather shouted she spitted on everything near her. She wasn't friendly at all and terrorized us little kids, she was "old school" and it was hard for her not to hit us as it wasn't allowed anymore. Still sometimes she forgot herself especially with the shy and timid once. So from the very beginning I hated her and as I wasn't shy at all I started to defend my little classmates. From children psychology and kindness she had never heard of. Today no school would accept such a teacher in first class ! When once she hit a little boy with a ruler on his hand, I jumped up, ran between her and the little crying girl and shouted that I would complain. Which I did. My father when he heard my story went like a fury to the school director made a scandal and she got a blame. Of course that didn't help our relationship.



Despite this dragon I learned to read and write, at that time on a blackboard with a chalk crayon, paper exercise books were a luxury and were used later. Our class was overcrowded and we had to sit on wooden benches, 3 on one instead of 2 because there was no room. I lived in Bonn at that time and most of the schools were in ruins Bonn had heavily been bombed to 80% , so we had our classes in quickly built up prefab boxes.

I don't know if this bad experience of my first school year influenced the rest of my school time, but I hated going to school. The only good thing was, that I had a lot of little friends and a lot of fun with them. I was the terror of all teachers because none of them could handle me. Anyway a good relationship between teachers and pupils didn't exist. Even for nerds who did everything to please.

From primary school I made it to high school, I don't know how, listening only to what was of any interest to me which was German, I already loved to write, I also loved history and English lessons and in general everything which hadn't to do with maths !

My school career wasn't glorious at all and I don't know how I made it to the high school diploma ! But I slipped through without repeating a year. And now looking back, good school notes or not, I am quite happy with what I became later, I loved my job as Sales assistant for Europe, (Germany, France and Italy) thanks to the languages I learned just by practicing them. Only the grammar and writing these languages I learned at school, I wonder how !



Jenny Matlock
more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday





21 comments:

  1. Ich habe meine Schulzeit auch nicht in guter Erinnerung (es ist eine Hölle gewesen und mein glücklichster Tag war die Entlassung aus der 10.Klasse). So eine schreckliche Lehrerin und schlechte Schule hatte ich nicht, aber die Schule in den 60-70ern in der DDR war geprägt von Zwängen und strenger Erziehung zu kommunistischer Konformität. Es gab keine Toleranz gegenüber Andersartigkeiten und Auszenseiter wurden gnadenlos gemobbt und die Schüler teils von den Lehrern dazu angehalten. Weglaufen und mich verstecken war so ziemlich alles, was ich in der Schule lernte und jeder Tag war von Angst geprägt... -
    Ich mag nicht denken an diese Zeit. -
    Und wenn ich hörte, was meine Oma von den "Franck'schen Stiftungen" in Halle um 1910 erzählte... - sie nannte die Schule damals das Kindergefängnis!

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  2. Very interesting to know about the school cones. By the way you look adorable and I have a feeling you were very happy with the new challenge_ "school"! :) you look motivated.
    But the reality was kind different, sorry about the teacher.
    Nowadays the community difficult accept one teacher who is not nice with kids. Well, I hope the teachers now are more "human", more normal! Lol
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
    Love reading your blog.
    Léia

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  3. I love your uniform!! And you were so adorable as a little girl. :)

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  4. You look a very intelligent little girl with a strong will. Is it any wonder you didn't enjoy school after such a horrific beginning. Maybe school wasn't challenging enough for you.

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  5. I like the idea of the school cones. Those photos are amazing - you have hardly changed at all.

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  6. I sometimes had my hair in plaits like yours but there the similarity ends. Never heard of the gift cones before, I just started school and that was that. Unlike you I hardly spoke a word all my schooldays and once I learnt to read I thought most other subjects a waste of time.
    You do look very cute in your first day at school photo.

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  7. Hi Gattina - interesting to read about your schooling - love the cones .. while you look mischevious! With a delightful smile ..

    Even at that age you showed interest in languages - makes life easier ... I really should have put more effort in - but not one of my attributes ...

    Cheers Hilary

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  8. The cones are an interesting tradition. I too can remember some nasty teachers, but ameliorated by the really good ones. You must have had some good teachers who you liked and ones you learnt a lot from.

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  9. Wonderful tradition of the cones and sweet photos of you ~ Sad that your first grade teacher was so awful ~ Great post though for S!

    artmusedog and carol (A Creative Harbor)

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  10. So sad about your first grade teacher, perhaps she did influence your dislike of school.

    The pictures, however, are so cute.

    love them...

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  11. The cones are a cute idea! That's rough that you had such a "dragon" for your first teacher -- I hope the rest were much nicer!

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  12. You looked adorable. I enjoyed school but we had mostly nice teachers. One nun was a terror but we learnt not to pay too much attention to her.

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  13. Sweet photos of you as a little girl Gatinna. You were so brave at such an early age to stand up to the teacher. I hated school too and we had our own dragons, but maybe not as bad as the one you had for your first year. Bad enough :( I was always so scared of them, old school in many ways.

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  14. I love the tradition of a cone filled with treats to celebrate the beginning of the school year. However, your teacher sounds like she may have needed a hug. Maybe that would have sweetened her up.

    Pictures of you are adorable.

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  15. I'm so glad you made it through and are happy with how your life turned out.

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  16. lol What a cute little liepshen you were .
    I loved elementary school and hated high school.I always loved books and studying and libraries but was not lucky with the boring teachers I had.
    Today how ever the kids have gone over board with their rudeness. I had one european child sit in an airplane in front of me shoving all kind of things under my feet, jumping up and down, misbehaving, dumping all my food and coffee over my clothes and when I asked her to stop she complained to the stewardess. I showed the stewardess that I can't sit in my seat because of all her things under my feet and told her I want the childs' Mother to pay for my dry cleaning.Stewardesses can't do much but trust me this child deserved some disciplining. Today school teachers have many problems with foul mouthed students, which did not happen when we were growing up.It helps no one when a child misbehaves in class. I told my kids to obey and then come home and tell us and then we would deal with the problem together.

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  17. Oh what an awful first-grade teacher, what a nightmare!. I was one of those good little girls in school (you would have hated me), but I still didn't love it and did terrible at anything having to do with numbers. In high school, the same. But I loved English, Literature, and History. Hated math and science and barely squeaked through them. In fact I passed Chemistry only by offering to wash all the test tubes and clean up the teacher's lab. So he raised my grade enough points to pass.

    Oh well we both survived and must have learned a little bit! You were a very cute little girl -- I can see your spunky personality shining through!

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  18. Sorry you had such a hard time, especially your very first year. My first-grade teacher was very nice, but second and third were more like you described.

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  19. It really seems you had a very bad time at school! I remember those years with pleasure because most of my teachers were nice people (with some of them we had lunch sometimes all together with my schoolmates and I have coffee with one of them regularly). But you're right, the most important thing is what we became in our adult life despite school!

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  20. It certainly seems like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and you learned to stand up for what you thought was right from an early age with the support of your Father even if it was to the detriment of the relationship with your teacher. Although maybe that made her respect you, even if she didn't like you (sounds like she was definitely in the wrong profession). Such a shame that you had such a teacher. This is a wonderful Alphabe post for S. I loved the tradition of the School cones.
    I am sorry to see on your sidebar that you are at 9 degrees C and with fog we are 25 and sunny...
    running before you beat me with a ruler!!! :)
    Wren x

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  21. Such a fun visit to the past and school days. Love the photos!

    =)

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