From Enthusiasm to Refusal
Tuesday, February 21, 1984: A Student’s Political Awakening in the GDR.
Seventh Tuesday in pretrial detention. We assemble Bakelite plugs and agonize our way through the day.
It was fifth grade.
My first geography class—my favorite subject, in which I had the best grade point average until the end of eighth grade.
Right in the first lesson, our geography teacher informed us that my name was of Huguenot origin and was pronounced “Schannoh.”
We all liked it so much that the French pronunciation of my name became my one and only nickname.
Russian became a compulsory subject, in which I valiantly struggled to achieve a solid B in six report cards over three years.
In seventh grade, we were faced with a choice – either English or French.
Of course, I wanted to learn English so I could understand AC/DC, Bob Dylan, and Pink Floyd.
But our class teacher, who always acted very sophisticated, lured us with a nasty promise: anyone who chose her French class would get to go on a school trip to Paris, which I actually believed.
But from eighth grade onwards, I couldn't stand the red light radiation anymore.
More and more subjects were completely absurd and contaminated with political rubbish.
Subject by subject, I switched off.
My grade point average dropped.
Because I unabashedly and increasingly vehemently disagreed when things got too red for me, I got a D in “behavior” for the first time.
When it became clear that a class trip to Paris would never happen, I went on a learning strike and got my first F's.
Things got dicey in tenth grade.
In the middle of a FDJ meeting (abbreviation for Freie Deutsche Jugend, Free German Youth, a political organization), I ripped the obligatory blue shirt off my body and quit the “club.”
For the final exam, I put it back on for that one day and ignored the snide remarks of our principal.
I got a solid B in German language and literature, Russian (!), math, physics, astronomy, and chemistry.
The Cs and Ds in the other subjects were ugly but irrelevant.
I passed my final exam with a C.
This reminds me of a beautiful saying in French: "Il faut savoir tout prendre avec le sourire" ;-)