East German teachers and students before and after the reunification. Challenges and problems (PDF)

Academic Paper from the year 2010 in the subject History Europe - Germany - Modern History, grade: A, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Curriculum & Instruction), course: EDUC 590, language: English, abstract: This paper shall attempt a discussion of the impact the German reunification had on the former East German teachers and students. The biographical account of a sample teacher, Anna Große, as described by Melanie Fabel-Lamla in her ethnographical studies from 2004-2006, will be used as a cliffhanger to hear some of the authentic voices of those people concerned.

Not even the most liberal teacher, uh, can have the illusion that for his school, all this does not apply or so, or that one could cancel it out, this function of the state.... I want to stay with the students. And I hope that I can give them something on their way through their lives.... And I give a shit whether this suits somebody politically or not. (Fabel-Lamla, 2006, p. 172)

Anna Große, a former East German teacher whose radical words are repeated here, is but one of the victims of our educational reform-the teachers and students who lived through the East German educational system, and for whom a dream-or a fear?-came true after the reunification in 1989. One country, two ideologies-after the "Wende" (Change), Germany had to face the issue of bringing East and West together with a common educational goal, so that the youth of the future could be educated in a democratic way and under academic freedom. For the West, everything remained the same (apart for the additional taxes for "Aufbau Ost"-"Rebuilding the East," a term whose condescendence has always bothered me); we still had our 13 years of education in the West, whereas the East was suddenly threatened to adapt its 12-year system (which, by the way, is common in the other European countries, as well as in the U.S.) to our school system.

But it is not only a matter of structure-what went on in the minds; what about the East German teachers and students? How could they combine their upbringing and previous education, which was marked by ideological infiltration, unfair grading, favoritism of the politically engaged, hindrances regarding school and subject selection, suppression and persecution of teachers, professors, and students, with the new "freedom of expression" which the West bounteously threw at their feet? What have those teachers and students lost; what have they gained? How did they fare, and if they were rebellious under the Communist regime, was their fight honored afterwards accordingly?