American Women's Club of Hamburg Currents Magazine January 2014 | Page 15

FEATURE
The Bad: Then there was our German teacher, who
was also our class teacher. He also taught music –
which was very obviously his true passion and at
which he was quite good. The music classroom
was his domain. In the regular classroom teaching
German to a bunch of teenagers, he unraveled.
In order to regain control of the class, we had to
mark where the table legs and chair legs were and
there was hell to be paid if they were moved even
the slightest. Our class was really pretty tame but
we actually went to the principal and told him
that this could not continue. The next year, we
had a new German and class teacher.
The Ugly: This was our geography teacher. He
wasn’t a bad teacher but he had a very nasty way of
calling out the kids in class that were weakest and

humiliating them in front of everyone. He also
insisted on calling everyone by their last name.
All other teachers called us by first name until 9th
or 10th grade when they were supposed to call
us Miss Lorenzen and Mr. Schmidt – although
most asked us if it was OK if they just continued
with the first name. Calling someone by their
last name without title always felt dehumanizing
to me – although I know that not every one of
my classmates would agree.
Again, many of my teachers I really liked and I
learned a lot from them. And I know that some
of the ones I liked were not exactly favorites
of my friends. Just goes to show that even as a
teacher, you cannot please everyone.

What Would You D o?
by Jenny M.

When Queen Elizabeth celebrated her silver jubilee
she visited every corner of England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland to meet the local
people. In the northern English town of Durham
it was decided that two children from every school
in the county would be chosen to meet her and
they would congregate on the green lawn in front
of Durham Cathedral. It was hoped that she would
greet them before going into the cathedral to attend
a ceremony celebrating her reign.
Just after the invitations to attend the event were
issued the headmaster of a village school which
admitted children from four years to sixteen, walked
into his staff room and looked at the puzzled faces
of his teachers, “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“We have a