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 !

more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday

FUN MONDAY - Schoolyears

Wenn our host this weeks wants to know :

1. What memories do you have of your school years at any stage of your education?

2. Did you keep in touch with your friends who were there with you in your formative years, or perhaps you lost touch as I did and are finding them again? Tell us about some of your school friends.

Going to school in 1949 wasn't fun at all in Bonn/Germany just after the war.The schools were all bombed out and I remember we had school in a quickly built up sort of barack, with banks they probably had safed from old schools in ruins. In first class of primary school we were 80 children in one class and sat in 3 on a bank for two. My teacher was an old woman (at least it seemed like this to me) fat, with greasy hairs and protrusevly yellow front teeth like a rapid and when she spoke or rather shouted she spitted white spots all over. She was a terrible unmarried woman (a dragon like that nobody wanted) and she loved to terrorize the kids. With me she had no chance, because I was and am not quickly terrorized and I was the only one who dared to answer her.

After that first school experience I then went to highschool but as I am allergic against all authority, it wasn't much better, I didn't like my teachers and they didn't like me.

When I had been moved to Brussels I went to the German school because I didn't speak any french. This school I loved very much, because in 1959 I was the 199 th student and of course it was a mixed school which was very rare at that time and the only thing I rember from there is that I had a great time and a lot of fun. Don't ask me about my studies, they were the last thing important to me.

After that I went to a French College where I learned "Commercial Correspondance" typewriting and other more or less important stuff and that was it. Afterwards I had a lot of success in my professional career, had never troubles to find work, people like me with German, French, English and Italian were in great demand especially since the creation of Europe started.

The languages I picked up just like that, writing them correctly I learned later. I could have had the best schools, but I am rather a practical girl I learned languages with chatting.

To the second question I have not much to say, I still am in contact with my girlfriend I knew in 1951 but I wrote about us not long ago here. The fact that I left Germany so early in my life, made me loose all contact to former classmates. And the once I knew from the German School in Brussels, moved all away and are now all over the world. All my other friends I made later in my different jobs or here in Waterloo with other mums picking up their children after school.