teachers confessions
How school really is
"Dear readers! How should teachers address pupils without discriminating against the addressee or the addressee based on his or her gender?
Are you already tired of reading on because you are bothered by the bulky wording? You're in good shape because you can just click away! As a teacher, I have to hear and read these bureaucratic phrases every day - at conferences, in government letters and in letters to parents.
Even worse: Because the school management always starts their emails with 'Dear students', I can no longer come with 'Dear students'. Because this norm from the highest level practically abolished the gender-neutral form. Then I write: 'Dear pupils, please come tomorrow for the first hour, I'm well again', the girls may stay at home.
Or I get a ruffle from the school management or I am elected Chauvi of the month. I am a passionate diaper changer, laundry hanger, cook, kitchen wiper, parental timer, bedridden, anti-careerist, even a French teacher! But as such it also has a language aesthetic - and when I read these word bubbles and monsters, my carotid artery always swells. Language always as simple as possible and only as complicated as necessary!
'Students' - this only makes sense if it leads to some more meaning. But there is hardly a case in which I only address one gender. Why should I also ask: 'The pupils do task 3 and the pupils task 4'? Task 3 with ponies and number 4 with cars? We were actually already over that.
I personally got to know some children who are not really suitable for either sex, and they suffered a lot. Why do we have to insist on this division into two and draw attention in every speech to the importance of gender?
'Student body' sounds woody
Admittedly, in the meantime I had almost made peace with my colleagues by simply writing KuK, SuS or LuL. Until exactly one such colleague declared that this 'internet language' should not be part of a proper protocol.
So what do you do to please the authorities and still bravely face the word monsters? I like to conform with 'students', 'college' or 'dear people'. If necessary, even with a 'student body' - that sounds a bit woody, but less annoying.
Surprisingly, an IT professor at the Hagen University of Applied Sciences found an interesting solution. In a course on programming methods, he only uses the feminine form in response to a decision by the rectorate on language use: it is not an option for him to 'sacrifice understandable language on the altar of equality', as the preface says.
In a subject that around 80 percent of men study, some may find this absurd. On the other hand, I've always been annoyed that I used to have to share my male form with the cross-gender form! How nice it would be to have a shape entirely for my gender!
By the way, I will now file a complaint with the school board. An invitation from the school management says: 'Dear student representatives!' It should read: 'Dear student representatives, student representatives!' "