The Journey

Gentle Reader, you may want to read the full account of the interesting journey we had on the way here. Let me fill you in on the gritty details.  When we missed the train in Frankfurt, I went to the closest Deutsche Bahn office to explain that we had missed the train because the train was MISLABELLED save for the last car, and how could we get assigned to a different train.  Here is the conversation:

Two DB guys: You should have known that that was the train to Erfurt.
DPage: How was I to know that when the train number and destination were different?
DB guys: They probably just forgot to reset the (digital) sign on most of the train.
(repeat of the three previous sentences in different words)
DP: (realizing this exchange is fruitless): So how can we get to Erfurt?
DB guys: Oh, the next train comes along in one hour, and you can just get on.
DP (over tired and a bit miffed): OK, reserve that one for us.
Result: done, boarded, flew at 120km/hr and got to Ilmenau 12 minutes late.

This tendency of Germans to publically chastise people for things they "should" know began to irk me the last couple times I've been here.  On reflection, this is probably a good thing, since I think it is most often used with natives, which would indicate that I'm passing.  Should have brought those white sneakers to stand out as a foreigner and get some patience.  But what does this say about Germans?  It seems to me that they are not so tolerant with themselves making even common mistakes.  The post war period of re-education and de-nazification set into motion a plan to change the way Germans think to prevent them from starting a third world war (they had direct implication in two already by 1939).  In many ways this plan worked.  Germany today has compulsory conscription, where many young men choose civil service instead of military service, giving the country a lot of young subsidized workers, and plenty of soldiers to assist police.  Afghanistan is the first time since WWII that German soldiers have been in a war setting (and their participation is very unpopular).  Germans are trained to be tolerant of women (they did rescue the country after WWII) and Jews.  They were forced to hire guest workers from Turkey, Greece and Italy after the war since there were so few men.  This remains an uneasy partnership, and if you get a German tipsy and talkative, you'll hear how the "should all go home," but you will never hear this in public discourse.  Children born after WWII were forced to learn the guilt of their parents--a preventative measure of the re-education.  They were taught to appreciate other cultures, and to adhere to the rules of tolerant public discourse toward other cultures.

BUT.....what happened here among themselves.  I think, given experiences I have had, that there is an anger that doesn't get expressed to others, and it manifests inself with German-on-German curtness.  Follow the rules or else.  Sort your recyclables, be quiet after 10, don't chew gum in public, etc, etc...

I think it's important to provide a bit of contextualization to what happened immediately preceding this encounter with the DB guys:  my airplace companions.  On the first leg I sat next to a Swiss woman who works for corporate Johnson & Johnson in Germany (Hamburg) and who had just spent two days in Blue Ash.  We had lots to talk about.  In a lull, she turned to me and asked, What differences do you see between Germans and Americans?  This is really a loaded question, and I attempted to answer her truthfully and openly, without denigrating either side.  Her response to my return of the question was a bit more direct.  As a Swiss national (they are not German!) working in northern Germany, she had noticed plenty, and her analysis was spot on:  They are very rule-oriented, but efficient and amazing engineers because of it, but..they are unable to be flexible in problem solving.  Every problem has to follow a carefully scripted protocol, with no thinking outside of the box.  This Swiss lady from Zürich and living in Hamburg clearly preferred the American (and Swiss) way of problem solving.  We had a great conversation, and she posed so many questions that my head was spinning by the time we got to New York.  It was a mini interrogation.  She asked the following about American culture, and generously offered her opinions about Swiss practices and attitudes:
normal age for marriage
partners vs. spouses
preferred travel destinations and types of vacations
role of women and attitudes toward them (she was decidedly anti-Swiss here)
corporate big wigs in US, Germany and Switzerland
reading habits
education practices

I had a different companion on the longer flight to Frankfurt, this time a woman who is currently living in Seattle, but who is originally from Eritrea, and was on her way home.  I asked how she happened to be living in Seattle (because I am just nosy), and I got a wonderful story of how she was sponsored by a church, that she had four daughters and one son, that her sister was happy she was coming home to visit, etc.....  What I didn't get was any contextualization about why she left Eritrea, and it's often those types of stories that get at the real truth, which I suppose is really none of my business.  She had already travelled 6 hours from Washington, was on a 7 hour flight to Frankfurt, then needed to fly all day to southern Europe, then to northern Africa, then to Eritrea.  Her English was difficult to understand, and she knew no German.  She had not eaten since leaving Washington, and dinner was a couple hours away, so I pulled out every snack I had for her.  She had a gentle spirit that was comfortable to be next to.  I hope she made it home safely.

Ready to leave

As I sit at the airport in Kentucky and contemplate the upcoming trip, the students' excitement and enthusiasm is rubbing off on me.  Everyone showed up with one small suitcase and one carry on!!  I am very proud not only of them, but also of me packing as lightly as I ever have.

(photo to come)
Two pair of pants, one dress, two pair of shoes, 4 underpants, 6 (yes 6 not 4) shirts, one sleep shirt and a raincoat.  Hardly anything.  However, my suitcase is filled with gifts from RWC, Blue Ash, and a couple small items for friends.  I don't completely trust myself, and packed an empty duffel bag for the return trip.

Final Exam Thoughts

There were several students who did not complete all sections of the final assignment, and I find this puzzling and frustrating.  For the most part, this was an excellent group of students who actually read, prepared and participated well throughout the course.  So what explanation is there for the students who chose not to complete the final exam.  When I received the papers, I emailed each personally if one or more sections were not included.  No responses, no answers, no additional work submitted.  Assigning a zero for the missing sections caused some to receive failing grades on the exam, but not for the course as a result of the outstanding work done earlier.  What to do?

To confound me even more, this seems to be a common practice among students in online courses, as Ruth reported.  Should the failure to complete the work result in an Incomplete for the course?  Should there be an in-class final? Should the final be worth a larger percentage of the course grade?  Right now I'm not sure what I will do the next time I teach this course, but I feel I will have to address it in some way.

My distress for the lack of work was matched with my delight for the work that was submitted.  Students saw connections, and explained them well, contextualized with references to characters, story lines, type of comedy.  Several commented explicitly in a reflection on the course as a whole that they now realize the the role of cultural history as a reference for literature (I wonder if they see that in English language literature and comedy).  One student even found a link to the Family Man that directly referenced one of the texts we read and sent it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpBJsVw000w

Gentle Reader, please note that this is NOT the original story, but one that has been filtered through American comedic animation and a sadistic interpretation of Germany comedy.

The best parts were without a doubt the creative sections of the exams.  The students were obviously engaged with the style, rhyme schemes, content, indeed all aspects of the texts we read.  The texts, images and poems they created showed how well they understood what the original texts were trying to accomplish and showcased their individual personalities and sense of humor.

Surprises for me:
1. the positive reaction to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKpOWj8LkaQ
2. students applying definitions of different types of comedy, including Kant's definition of comedy throughout the quarter to texts we read
3. the eagerness with which students learned (long) German words, and their willingness to pronounce German names
4. the performance of selected scenes from The Talisman--the play came alive!
5. the debate (see below)

Rating: (still) B+

Last class

The last class meeting is often bittersweet.  Everyone is glad the work has reached an end, but there is the opportunity to reflect on new viewpoints having been gained over the course.  This evening was the final meeting for the comedy course.  The topic was GDR humor, and included short stories by two women (Irmtraud Morgner and Charlotte Worgitzky), as well as a film, Goodbye Lenin.  Student Referate on the authors were a good introduction to the theme of "Our DDR" and the role played by women in social realism. The film provided a good example of such a woman and her loving son.

I am constantly surprised by the lack of information students bring to the class about (what I consider) recent history.  Having several historians in the class helped tremendously, as there was no need to discuss the quadripartite division of Germany following WWII.  What other students did not realize is that it provided the structure for the Cold War, and what that meant.  We had an information-laden discussion, which was more like a question and answer session at the start, where one student asked "Why were [the characters in Goodbye Lenin] so against capitalism?"  The next time I teach this course, I will have to have more background reading to supplement the topic.

The discussion also showed that the students were starting to make connections.  Characters were compared and motifs were identified.  The best part for me?  It was the juxtaposition within the bittersweet nature of the final class  of the son's love for his mother and the reality he creates for her, along with her realization of what he has done.

My grade for this class: B+.  There are a couple pedagogical changes I will make in the future to improve the course.  I was happy with the order of the readings, the readings themselves, and the level of the students' preparation and participation, and even more pleased withe the quality of the students' work.  The reports were good, and the midterm assignments showed that students were engaged with the material on a meta level.  Most of the creative sections were excellent.  I'm looking forward to reading the final papers.

Comix

The Ninteenth Century brought the beginning of what would evolve into comic books.  The function was entertainment, as well as education.  On the left is an illustration from The Thumbsucker tale in Struwwelpeter, written by Heinrich Hoffmann. Dear Conrad has been told not to suck his thumb while his mother is away, but he succumbs as soon as she leaves.  The cutter rushes in (see how quickly he moves?) and cuts off the offending thumb (see the blood dripping from little Conrad's left hand?).  Quite a horrific image, but one that you want to examine carefully, not one that frightens you or causes you to look away.  This story was always one of my children's favorite (neither a thumbsucker), and caused quite a titter in the class.

The image on the right is taken from Wilhelm Busch's Max and Moritz.  These two were the inspiration for the Katzenjammer Kids, one of the very first American newspaper comic strips.  They also could be considered the model for Beavis and Butthead, Southpark, and the characters in the film Dumb and Dumber.  While the Struwwelpeter tales want to show children what behaviors are incorrect, and how there is immediate punishment for common childhood behaviors, Max and Moritz are two dullards who engage in a series of mean and nasty behavior, then suffer the consequences at the end of the tales (ground up into meal accidently, and eaten by ducks).

Harsh reality checks, for sure, told in rhyme with accompanying images to entertain.  The students were quick to point out that they were very similar to the medieval and early modern tales we had read in form, purpose, and of course, in style.

The Debate: Church v. Empire

Today was a bit of a midterm break from reading and analysis.  On Tuesday, sides were drawn for the Thursday debate:The Church v. The Empire in the Middle Ages.  In the previous class sufficient time was devoted to group work to define the 3 arguments the group would be making and to assign the roles.  We used a classical rhetorical style in that each side made an opening statement.  Then side by side, the arguments were made (with supporting examples from the texts read to date) and the opposing team had the opportunity to make a rebuttal.  Closing arguments rounded out the debate.

I expected for the whole debate to take no more than 20-30 minutes, but indeed it lasted around 45 minutes.  After one team presented a basic argument, the other team would huddle together to come up with a sound rebuttal.  WOW! What a surprise for me. It turns out about half the class had been on debate teams in high school and took the event quite seriously. Of course, the positions allowed each group to make passionate statements for their side.  I'll need to go over my notes very carefully to see how to score the statements and rebuttals.  The Church had more tightly developed arguments, but the Empire definitely had the best line of the debate.  My gut instinct is that it was a tie, but here are a couple of the quotes from each side:

Church:
-The Church offers every person the one true path to eternal salvation.
-Although every man has the possibility of becoming corrupt, the Church is led by God, who is removed from the flaws of humanity and who offers sanctuary to everyone who believes.


Empire:
-The Church relies on the gullibility of the masses and is guilty of exploitation.
-We are both corrupt. But the Church is corrupt in the name of God and eternity.  The Empire is only corrupt for a lifetime.

Each side had appropriate and numerous examples to back up their arguments, as well as their rebuttals, from works such as Sebastian Brant's The Ship of Fools, Der Stricker's Priest Amis, the anonymously penned subversive work Till Eulenspiegel and tales and shrovetide plays by Hans Sachs.  My initial evaluation is that it was a success as a classroom activity, as well as a way to get the students involved in the readings on a very meaningful level.

The debate was followed by a lively discussion of Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm.  I was pleasantly surprised by the level of engagement, so I guess those reading questions might be working well also, and the students appear to be better readers with questions to guide their attention.  Whereas the readings all appeal to this geeky Germanist, the fact that students get excited about certain passages, events, and characters is very rewarding.  I suspect that the number of students who skim the text rather than giving it a careful reading is declining.  And just in time for the wit of 19th-Century social critics Kleist and Heine, and comic books.  The class seems to have reached a critical point in gelling as a group, and appear to feel more comfortable interacting with each other and with the text.  My training tells me that a lower affective filter positively affects second language acquisition, but it appears that it positively affects learning more generally.  With the midterm distributed yesterday and due in a week, I'm eager to see how engaged students are with the material individually.

The hook has been set

..since none who lives from fault is free;
and who would honestly have sworn
that cap and bells he's never worn?
                                    --S. Brant

I embrace the cap and bells, especially as a teaching methodology.  The trick is to to be open to displaying them and use them to lower students' affective filters (an occupational hazard, FL instructors all want to lower affective filters) , not to flaunt them.  That said, the comedy course had a positive first class meeting.  I used Ruth's suggestion of setting the hook (are we fishermen of students?) by starting with American comedy references:introductions (what is your favorite book/poem/film/tv comedy, group work to try to come up with a definition (remarkably good, follow up with Kant's definitive one) and a series of YouTube videos from the US (SNL's Cowbell, Chaplin's dance with the world balloon), followed quickly by German ones (Schnauze!!, We're sinking, and the Yodeldiplom class).

The Cowbell video was a last minute addition given my statement to try to include at least one reference to it in every class I teach.  It was a big hit.  Chaplin was wonderful, and the students (half of them seniors who want to graduate either at the end of summer or in Deember--that's a comedic situation for you!) quickly picked up on his graceful, balletic and sexualized interplay with the balloon.

The remainder of the class included me giving the first report (author/historical context and introduction to text) as a model for their own, then moved to trying to "read" a series of 3 woodcuts for the first secular German tale (Neidhart and the Violet). The small groups produced stories that showed they were working with the images well, although we did need to define scatology once the giggling stopped.  With relatively little prodding, they analyzed the (actual) story, drawing comparisons to the theme and methodology used in 1210 to the same ones in 2010.  I can't wait until the Church v. Empire debate in a couple weeks.

The most humorous moment for me was one student telling the class that she kind of liked comedy/humor, but didn't watch TV, only viewed serious films and read serious European literature (none of that Twilight trash for her).  A few students actually tittered when I asked why she had chosen this class.  Her answer:  The other courses were all reading (bad) modern novels by authors the professors researched.  Her chosen topic for her report: Sigmund Freud, The Joke and its Relationship to the Unconscious.  Hmmm.  Actually the most common responses for students choosing the course: 5 weeks course, no book to buy, comedy has to be better than boring literature (wait till they get to Minna, a classic literary comedy), needed an elective, wanted a night class.

There was one other humorous moment: a student asked whether we would always meet for the entire class period (as opposed to leaving at break, I assumed).  My response: Hmm, we may go a little long on the days we are viewing films, but I think we should get out on time or possibly 5 minutes early most of the classes:)

Up ... and running

Faculty reflection?  Mid-career invigoration?  Faculty development?

One year later.....

Looking back at last April's note, I am happy to see that most were accomplished.

But now I need look ahead at the summer 2010 program.

Gearing Up

The Blue Ash visit to Ilmenau (and Berlin) is fast approaching. We leave a week from tomorrow, and I'm not ready. I've got to do the mundane (get my passport from the safety box at the bank, wash clothes and plan which items to take), to practical, work-related and personal goals.

Practical goals:
-meet students coming this summer
-talk with Frank about alternative times for the program after 2012
-translate for delegates and avoid possible embarrassments by delegation members

Teaching-related goals:
-get information for Berlin Ppt/presentation
-obtain "free reading" items for students
-get Kindereier for class

Personal goals:
-get to top of Kickelhahn (!)
-presents for people
-keep journal
-visit Ursula Nixdorf
-visit Langewiesen


Friday 4/24: depart Cincinnati

Saturday 4/25: Arrive Berlin
Friedrichsstadtpalast (Revue Qi)

Sunday 4/26: Tour Berlin:
Brandenburger Tor
American Embassy
Checkpoint Charlie
Jewish Museum

Monday, 4/27: Visit Potsdam
Continue to Ilmenau

Tuesday, 4/28: Visit the university
Meet with students coming to Cincinnati this summer
Business roundtable discussion



Wednesday, 4/29: Business visits
Dinner with city politicians and businessmen

Thursday, 4/30: Visit to Erfurt
Tour State Capitol
Meet with state representatives



Friday, 5/1: May Day holiday
Tour garden gnome factory
Visit Checkpoint Alpha (Geisa)
Farewell dinner

Saturday, 5/2: Depart Ilmenau
Arrive Cincinnati