head of the family: a year in the Odenwald School
Question: You were a few years ago Teacher at the school Odenwald. Have you heard of the abuse allegations dating back to 1999?
Answer: I now ask a lot of acquaintances and friends, who know that I worked there. No, but I always had a funny feeling that I could not explain. That was such a charged atmosphere. In retrospect, I can arrange something a little better now. I once had such a Gegrummel and rumors about the former headmaster Becker heard. But that was - I believed then - rather on the part of students. The term "sexual abuse", which for them was often a kind of deadly argument, it was sometimes so easy, therefore, said - so my impression. The teaching staff was not an issue. There were daily rumors. There were bets on how quickly spread a rumor in the OSO. But when much is said, you know not what actually happened. What I know today I would have then considered absolutely unthinkable.
Question: You have made your own experience with such accusations?
Answer: Yes, there were in my group home, they called the family, allegations by two girls that I had missed detention facility because they had been drilled with a drill at night before the pictures hanging near a main power line. I can not sit on me, but a flash called my lawyer. It has threatened the school management by fax an injunction, if the accusation would not be immediately taken back. The two students have immediately excused at the request of the head teacher. The head teacher felt my approach somewhat too rigorously.
question: How have you coped with the family structures of the school?
response. I am a person who needs distance. I must be able to retire. So I was glad to live in a different floor than the students. At first I thought, to have got pupils to the other families did not want. Right at the beginning of the school year, we drove - the children, a colleague and I - to know in the so-called "moving week" in a holiday home. We've cooked together and shopped, hiked, etc.. wanted I'll never forget, all this only Knabbertütenzeug.
I was in school always pretty busy and only slept a few hours. You had to always be present, Wake up, have breakfast together, supervised lunch and dinner, homework, dinner conversations with the children, daily conferences. And at night I was because I had worked 30 years in the industry, prepared with great effort to teach. Logically, I had significant teething problems. But a dear colleague, supported me. It is so busy, you get little to himself Sometimes I wonder, since when has the Becker committed those acts. It was never really - alone - except during sleep. The doors of the room students were not then completed. You had to always knock before entering. Above all, the girls often wanted opportunities for retreat and said ".... I will at last only a few hours to be alone! ". Came precisely from conditions where there was no separate room for them.
question: that's a full time job, teachers, tutors, head of the household in a person?
Answer: I was responsible for all activities involved not trained enough. I learned later that had declined significantly before me three younger candidates. For them it was therefore not a dream job. At that time, about 60 percent of children and young people came through the youth office of the OSO. As difficult cases were there because there were drugs and alcohol and serious psychological problems. Those were some harrowing stories. The competent social worker came back regularly every three months, there was also support for external therapists. Nevertheless, it was responsible - parents - even if the wards were to Heppenheim and sometimes stole, for example. Then called the police. I had underestimated the complexity of the task initially total. I have always tried to put me on the side of children, but it was sometimes difficult. I have often at night on the phone for hours with their parents. There were drug control screening tests. As children were driven by bus to suddenly notice Heppenheimer clinic. Those who tested positive a second time was dismissed.
Question: Have you noticed anything of elite boarding school?
answer: Not much, sometimes I was told that a father was an ambassador or felt that the family had to have money. The Odenwald school, I felt at any time as a left project, parents were more conservative. To me it all feels more like a secular school Walldorf made. It was there a great modesty, there was no striking fashionable clothes. But sometimes it seemed to me as a bit of contact lack the real world. Some children, such as today's education spokesman, are, to my knowledge, been born in the Odenwald School and have - except during the holiday - hardly any other reality view. I always felt a strong control for all so that nothing bad can happen yes, even at the carnival. Everything seemed somehow bagged Sun In the school newspaper, the students wrote at the time only what was approved by the school principal.
question: have the students since had a chance to defend themselves against abuse?
Answer: The Odenwald school had already had when I entered a legal and trust committee, where students and teachers trust. Here, the students in the abuse case could have contact. What I gradually more and more clearly noticed was that I had never seen a head teacher who had as much power as to the Odenwald School. I have seen him as a very authoritarian people. He had the power of his office qua institution. The very democratic, I because of what is written in the media about the OSO and had reported, as expected, I have not seen .. I was perhaps a little naive. In the beginning was a thick reader, behavioral and school rules. The man could not read everything. But there were new teachers for the supervision and a colleague with whom one could discuss in the first weeks of problems. There were also students who seemed to me to be informers of the school administration. Or on its own initiative to see to that nothing came from the school to the outside. Perhaps they felt that they could then fall back on and "their" school family. The 32 families were in my opinion, pretty self-contained groups, there was little exchange. Now and then visited at the weekend, the children against each other. The students had, however, often even the need to to shield their family. Each week, were spoken in drop supervisions special problem cases. There were also social contracts that govern the sanctions, but only for the students: collect garbage in the woods, set the table. Sometimes I had the impression that there is also intrigue, which I would not see through.
question: How did you come with the remote location of the school cope?
Answer: I have a few months out of pure opposition started smoking again. Since we came away at least once in the evening at the gas station to buy cigarettes and smoke on the way home. The former head teacher has followed the smoke especially. Is the children when He had just a hint of smoke in the nose, at night after increasing in the forest to catch them. It was so extreme, I did not understand, that was partly creepy. It seemed to me, this fight should fill a void. There was something really sense pin end, a vision. Some have a few weeks after they arrived, said it was all so boring, no traffic, not even an accident. Because I felt such a desire for freedom. Maybe we have therefore in the whole of our family well understood, because we all too often felt great desire for freedom .. In sum, I believe that the Odenwaldschule better for many children than the public schools. No television, no distractions, solid Structures. Family also meant rules. That alone has .. by the constancy of an observable positive therapeutic effect In their proper families, some had never eaten regularly with their parents. You could tell the newcomers in the OSO often on the floor, were struggling at first always around a bit. And you could see how the calmed down by the absence of media and traffic gradually. In one year I have not seen any brawl among students. Students learn better than in state schools, to express themselves to be capable of speaking. Many came to me very grown up.
questions: How do you feel about the debate to reform education?
Answer: From the progressive education as a strict timetable I have not noticed much, but maybe it was just it. I also believe that all life is there not filled so completely with reform educational content as I could read it in recent weeks in the press. Once I was sitting in the kitchen on a wooden chair and was asked if I did not know that there have always been sitting Geheeb of Paul? No, I had no idea and found that something important had suddenly heavy, which I found odd. Sometimes I thought the Educational Reform through me just by sitting on the historic chair! I think in recent weeks as people write in Written on the papers only. Have from everyday life at school do not know. Some seem to have only the goal to make flat with the discussion on sexual violence at the ESE, the whole reform pedagogy. But it's not about the school but the children. The Odenwald school was for me a very complex structure. There was even then a good basis for change, for example, school development seminars were very good ideas. But these ideas reacting in such a complex school takes time and effort in claim ..
There were many, many slow approval processes.
The current situation: Every football club in the Executive Board would like immediately after severe Cases withdrawn. But the Odenwald School is just not a football club and has no / s professional press spokesperson in, they can not afford it. And the decision processes are slow, the complexity of the school accordingly. By now the board is finally kicked back a majority.
To make truly compelling suggestions, I was just too short in the school. Perhaps it should be separated to relieve the teachers and family life teachers. Nevertheless, I would like the time I was there not to miss. And I just want to believe that the abuse has not existed in my time. I think it would be good if such crimes do not expire would.
