Remke sees the consequences of unfulfilled dreams every day at the 4th Gesamtschule Hellersdorf, where she teaches English and Russian (although there’s less interest in Russian these days). At first glance, the modern, well-maintained building in the far reaches of what used to be East Berlin looks like a typical American high school, with posters of stars like Michael Jackson and Madonna on the walls. There are 530 students, ages 12 to 17. Their district, Hellersdorf, is home to 120,000 people whose average age is 25; not surprisingly, there are more than 20,000 children attending Hellersdorf’s 40 schools. It should be a place of optimism, filled with young people eager for change. Instead, it’s often a breeding ground for uncertainty, resentment and anger. Many of the children come from families broken by divorce; more than a quarter of the adults are unemployed with little hope of finding a place in the new order, There are no real recreational facilities, barely even trees to break the monotony of the squat gray apartment buildings. The principal, Axel Friede, arrived 10 months ago from the West; it was not a plum assignment. “Teachers in the West would not want to come here,” he says. “The problems in the families are very great.”
In class, teachers say the rules are still being rewritten. Before 1989, says Remke’s colleague Norbert Grimm, “it was easy. We were in charge.” Now lines of authority are unclear. One day Grimm saw a boy reading a book when he was supposed to be listening to class. Grimm took the book away, only to be chastised by district authorities for removing the boy’s “private property.” Grimm feels helpless. Many kids have hand-held video games like Game Boy, and if they play in class, what can he do? Nothing. Private property. Friede, the principal, says that he would allow Grimm to remove books or games for the duration of the class; the teacher’s reaction reflects confusion about how to act in a world turned upside down. The kids are confused, too-asserting independence in nonacademic areas, but stuck in the old ways when it comes to schoolwork. “You must tell them in detail what they’ve got to do,” Grimm says. Someday, he adds wistfully, “I would like to have the kind of discipline where students and teachers are partners.”
Just a few days after last month’s antiracism march in Berlin, a dozen teenagers in a gym class were asked what they would do about refugees in Germany. They tended to line up by gender, with the girls arguing for tolerance and the boys pushing for tougher limits.
They seemed even more concerned about the upheaval in their lives. At school, it’s hard to decide what to take with so many choices of subjects. The curriculum is changing dramatically, especially in the teaching of modern German history (although the students explained that they hadn’t noticed, because they were only up to the French Revolution). The future scares them more than the past. Few appeared to have a clear idea about what job they’d hold someday. And despite the high unemployment rate, no students raised their hands when asked how many had parents out of work. “They’re too ashamed,” a teacher explained. “It’s not something they talk about.”
There are some signs of hope. This fall, in a new spirit of community, teachers and students planted trees around the school. But Friede, the principal, has no illusions about the difficulties faced by his students and millions of others in the former East Germany. “In the West, changes in social conditions took place over a long period of time,” he says. “In the East, it’s so much faster.” There’s a poster in his office with a cartoon of Karl Marx. The caption says: “Sorry guys, it was just an idea.” Hellersdorf is still waiting for a better one.
