Turns out Germany's not big clean eco-friendly giant after all

Dear local dealer...

Like most Germans I'm stunned by the VW scandal. We're sold this idea - by industry and media alike - that Germany's world champion in clean, environmentally friendly technology and we set standards for the rest to follow. Suddenly it turns out that America has much stricter environment laws - and they're smarter at catching cheats too.

Flashback to 2008. I'm teaching "Ethics" to Business Studies students as part of their compulsory English course. Students tell me this is the most interesting part of their course. The big news story at the time: the Siemens scandal. The telecommunications company paid millions of euros in bribes to "friendly" officials in Nigeria, Russia and Libya - in return for lucrative contracts. Little did we know back then that Volkswagen was cheating customers, dealers and environmental authorities on a far greater scale.

What a shame Herr Winterkorn didn't study Ethics at college too. Or if he did he conveniently forgot about it. At least until the "shit storm hit the fan", to use a lovely German expression. Interestingly, the first thing the VW boss did was not make his "I am utterly sorry" apology. No, he secured himself a nice little pension package, of course. That's € 28.57 mill. plus €3.2 mill. severance payout. Nice one. Isn't it funny that when top managers get caught cheating they immediately quit, announcing they need to spend more time with their family. Or in Winterkorn's case to "allow for a fresh start". 

Standing outside my local VW dealer I almost feel like going in and crying out "You cheats!". But just a moment. Maybe we should check our sat navs first. They could be rigged too.

Why can't we dress decently - like the Germans?

The original Dad's Army. Just wait till Zeta Jones pops up...

Dad's Army, the age-old British comedy about a bunch of grampas trying to stop Hitler invade Britain, is being refilmed by the makers of "Mr Bean's Holiday". To sex it up, the remake will feature Catherine Zeta Jones, who falls in love with a German spy at a British seaside resort.

How romantic - Hitler, Nazi spies, and granddads getting off on the beach with Bond girls: England 1 - Germany 0. No wonder we're still teasing Germans with war comedies. We simply can't leave this whole "beating-the-Germans" thing alone. Germany, after all, beats us at almost everything else. And nowhere more so than in the way we dress.

Remember all the hullabaloo a few years back about PJ Mums? You know, mothers who drop their kids off at school and then go shopping - while still in their pyjamas. It's such an issue in Britain today that Tesco supermarkets have been forced to introduce a dress code banning customers from shopping in pyjamas.

It's snowing, but hey who needs a coat? 
 Saturday nights in Britain.

But even when we get it right and wear "proper" street gear, we're still not smart. We tend to underdress - all year round. Walk through any British town on a Friday or Saturday night, and you'll see crowds of young girls hurrying through the cold in "navel gazers" - garments that only go half way down their chests. The skimpy shorts and skirts covering a tiny bit more of their shivering bodies might look hot on Miami Beach but not in the centre of Birmingham on a winter's night.

Please don't get me wrong. Of course we can dress properly when we want to. At weddings, funerals, Wimbledon, and just about any event involving the word "Royal". Watch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, or any movie starring Hugh Grant, and you'll see what I mean. We're just not very good at dressing smartly for everyday things, that's all.

Of course we can dress smart -
if we want.

Not so the Germans. Whether they're on holiday, at parties, school or work - even when they just pop out for a bottle of milk - they always dress decently.

Watching Germans at recent beer festivals reminded me how Germans can also provide the demeanour to match their sensible sense of dress. They can drink, drink, drink, yet still be in control. Another nice challenge for Brits too.

Thank you Robin Williams, I'm still moved and motivated by your Dead Poets Teacher

Motivating performance - thank you Williams

Hearing the sad news of Robin Williams' death over the holiday I made a note to write something about it when I got home. Like many teachers I was very moved by Williams' performance as John Keating in Dead Poets' Society.

Although it would be a slight exaggeration to say the film inspired me to go into teaching, this picture of Robin Williams standing on a desk encouraging pupils to "seize the day" is often the first image that comes to mind whenever I hear the word "motivation" mentioned in connection with our profession. 

Sometimes, as teachers, we're so focussed on getting through our syllabus and “sluicing” pupils through exams that we forget the reason why we, hopefully, went into teaching in the first place. Of course we should be covering our syllabus and pushing students through exams. But that surely can't be the "A" and "O" of it all, can it? If so, then I want out. 

Personally, I love the English language, and I want to share it with others. Of the few good teachers I had at school myself, those who stand out most in memory are those who took an active interest in me, encouraging me from around the age of 8 or 9 to do what I loved most -  reading and writing. Not just to pass exams but for pleasure too. 

In a recent Hochschul-Bildungs-Report only 25% of teachers-to-be in Germany said they feel able to motivate their future students. And only 47% of those studying "Lehramt" felt they could “get along” with youngsters. Commenting on these statistics, this week's "WIrtschaftswoche" announces "Germany has the wrong teachers".

But let's not take such surveys too seriously. After all, the average age of a student preparing for their state teaching exam is around 22/23. That’s hardly five years older than the eldest pupils. At that age I didn’t feel I had much of a “connection” with pupils either, let alone the confidence required to stand up in front of a class of thirty pubescent youngsters. I remember experimenting with contact lenses at the time, and when I met my very first class tears were literally pouring down my cheeks. So much for self confidence! I can easily emphasise with today’s teachers in training because my own first lessons were a complete and utter disaster. I seem to remember willing a hole in the floor to open up right below and just quietly swallow me.

What I lacked in self confidence back then I made up for in motivation, however. And I hope that over the years I’ve been able to share a little bit. At the end of a course once, a student sent a very nice thank-you mail, saying I was the best English teacher they’d ever had. I was tickled pink, of course. But feedback like that is very rare. Normally you simply hope you’ve done the best for your pupils once they pass out of your hands.

Back to Robin Williams and Dead Poets’ Society. We can’t all be John Keating, and I don’t think we should try to either. Keating had amazing charm and personality – something I think all good teachers need to succeed – but he failed because he tried to impose that personality on the students. With disastrous results, I seem to remember.

Next year my daughter begins school, and I’m already wondering what sort of teachers she’ll come up against. Will they be able to connect with one another? Or will she simply have to sit quietly at a desk all day and just pay attention, as I remember my own schooldays? I hope not.

One thing is certain – tomorrow’s teaching will have to be different from today and how it’s been more or less since compulsory education began around 150 years ago. Rather than teachers being regarded as the fountain of all knowledge, with pupils sitting quietly in rows, taking notes, teaching will have to be more about a partnership between pupils and teachers. Sometimes when a pupil asks me a question, and I don't know the answer, another pupil after just two clicks on their smart phone offers up the right answer. We should smarten up to the fact that with just about everyone in the classroom on line these days, pupils often have access to information a lot quicker than teachers. It’s a challenge and an opportunity - for us all.

Let’s do as John Keating would – seize it.

The student you're calling in class is not available - they're too busy texting

       

Hello, hello....?

A recent survey asked young people what made them most happy. Their most popular “happy maker”, just after sleeping, shopping and snacking, is receiving a text message from close friends. 

Problem is, texting can also be a “pain in the neck” (“unausstehlich”). Quite literally. It causes “text neck” – pain not only in the neck but also back, arms, and shoulders.

Adolescents, plenty freetime time on their hands, send up to 100 messages a day. Clearly they don't just text during their freetime. The other day I noticed a student, head and shoulders bowed much lower than healthily normal, staring mesmerised at something under the desk, as if in a state of trance. Briefly I considered intervening, checking for signs of life, possibly organising first aid. Until I realised what was going on, of course.

How can you seriously concentrate on what the teacher's saying if you're busy texting or tweeting about the Next Great Social Event? Better not ask pupils which is more important – we might just get an honest answer.

The secret of good marketing

The secret of good marketing is selling someone something without them realising you're trying to sell it.

Some more good adverts to get you in pressie buying mood.

Learning isn't just about shining at exams

The best way to learn a foreign language is to practise with a native speaker. So I was delighted when a group of students invited me to an event called “All You Can Speak”.

Their project, I discovered, was all about pairing up students of different “tongues” languages, and taking turns to speak each other’s native language.

We kicked off with a Round the World Quiz where you had to answer questions on different cultures.

A charming Chinese student helped me with the quiz and, for a brief moment, I toyed with signing up for a Cantonese tete-a-tete. 

Answer all the – rather difficult, I thought – questions and you could win some great prizes. Things like PÖNS dictionaries and Cinemaxx tickets. Lots of winners, it seemed, were looking for a Spanish native-speaker. English came a close second, with Chinese hot on its heels. 

Interestingly, the easiest foreign language for Germans to learn is not English at all. It’s Norwegian Bokmal. For English natives, likewise, it’s Afriakaans. In any case both German and English have more in common with Norwegian than with each other. 


If English is a battle why not try Norwegian?

                                                          
We tend to see language learning solely as a key to academic qualifications and business success. We focus on tests and end-of-course-exam grades, rather than the learning experience itself.

Learning another language, however, can help us better understand other cultures – some often very different from our own.

It was good to be reminded about this at “All you can Speak.” And to forget all about tests and end-of-everything grades for just an evening.

Studying can damage your health

Why bother with machines when you can just hang your washing out of the window?

Studying can seriously damage your health. No wonder the Germans call one of the most unappetising snacks in the shops "Studentenfutter" (student grub). It's a bag of crumbled up nuts and a few old raisins.

Hardest thing about being a student isn't the homework, but the housework - cooking, washing and ironing. Students cook little and wash even less. As for ironing - that's for mums, right? Still, a recent Sainsbury's survey on British students (Daily Mail), is unfair and misleading. It not only ignores that students lead totally different lifestyles than the rest of the human race, it also fails to praise what they CAN do.

Instead of criticizing one in three students for being unable to even boil an egg we should celebrate the two-thirds who CAN. Presumably they boil the egg long enough so that the yolk doesn’t splatter all over their lecture notes.

The report also says one-fifth can barely make toast for breakfast. But the other four-fifths don’t get up for breakfast at all. Just as well that lectures at British universities rarely start before 10 o’clock.

As for being unable to make a pot of tea, it’s no secret that Brits simply pour milk into a cup, throw a tea bag in and pour hot water over it all. Tea pots, it seems, are for wimps.

If it's true that 50 per cent of students can't use a tumble dryer then the other half must spend their time and money not in the bar but in the launderette. Watching the tumbler go round and round, just like in that hilarious episode with Mr. Bean.

Every student knows this is nonsense. In summer you hang your washing out of the window, in winter you wrap it over the radiator. Time and money saved is spent in the bar, of course.