On our way back from shopping in Bad Homburg we decided to do our daughter a favour by stopping at McDonald’s. She wanted drive-through, but being the old-fashioned one I am, I suggested going in to sit down. Somehow I feel then as if I am getting more for my money.
We stood in line and people lined up behind us. Suddenly there was a louder conversation with cusswords flying out of a young man’s mouth directed at one of the three girls behind us.

He used words I have not heard – so many at once – in the last twenty years. Some variations were even new to me. They were spoken in this proper German coming from an angry looking face. We don’t know who and what started it; we only know it got out of hand. He kicked her in her rear end, and his insulting words got louder. We got involved by telling the guy to stop and calm down. It was quite a scene.

A big credit goes to the McDonald’s management who approached the troublemaker within seconds after this 30-second-fight. He was able to stop it completely.

My husband and I were disturbed from having witnessed this. It gave reason for a discussion. Why are these adolescents so helpless that they have to use verbal and physical abuse? What has gone wrong? Why are some young ones so aggressive? This reaction is a mirror of one’s education and frustration.

Again, we could only marvel at the sheltered life our own children and students live by attending an international school. Granted, they are all kids, too. They can even use foreign languages for cussing and most teachers would not know. Our students get frustrated, too, but no kicking and hitting is allowed in our hallways. And there seems to be no need for it, either. Teachers are respected. Students from international backgrounds know that education costs money – most parents start a college fund at the time of birth – and therefore it is not taken for granted. It is a privilege, not an obligaton.

Students violating school rules get expelled and would have to return to their home country.
Expulsion is hardly ever the case in the German public schools as one has only the Hauptschule to attend. Students can’t really get shifted from one public institution to another.
We, as international educators, live in an enclave in the German society and are spared from the things many teachers in the German system complain about: lack of motivation, aggression, apathy, and abuse.

Hence, more and more German parents would like to put their children into private educational institutions.

What I saw today reminded me again of how fortunate we are.

Tags: adolescents, aggression, German school education, international school education

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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Anything German, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.