The teachers of the Oberdingen Realschule addressed their students with an emotional message in Corona times. The reactions to the 17-minute video were no less emotional.
Oberding - At the still young and comparatively small Oberdinger Realschule, you see yourself as a committed school family. Everyone knows everyone here, you stick together. The best example of this is a video of the teachers greeting their students who are studying at home because of the corona restrictions. 31 teachers participated in the almost 17-minute clip, which can be found on the school's homepage and on YouTube - almost the entire college. The school then received countless reactions, for example via email, from enthusiastic parents and students. There were even tears of emotion, says director Martin Heilmaier.
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"Actually, we would like to be back in school," he quotes one of the reactions in which melancholy resonates. "The teacher is just a caregiver. If he speaks to you directly in this way, that's moving, ”says Heilmaier. By Tuesday noon, the video had been played almost 2400 times on YouTube alone. Our newspaper shared it on their Facebook page on Friday, where it received well over 100 “likes” and was shared almost 40 times. And there were also some comments. They ranged from "Great and very nice words to the students", "We found it totally emotional" to "We can definitely recommend this school".
Emotional video in Corona times: teachers send messages to students
But what can you actually see in the video clip? It starts with a classic countdown of ten. "Secondary school in Oberding. We are waiting for you, ”it says, before Heilmaier's deputy Dirk Gärtner with the camera in hand first goes to the secretariat and to the caretaker, asks if everything is okay and, of course, jokingly asks whether there is a good distance. When walking through the hallway to the classrooms, Gärtner only has one statement: "Everything is empty."
Now follows the individual, quite imaginative and, above all, entertaining greetings from the teachers. "Peter, did you understand me?" Kilian Handlos asks one of the Playmobil figures in front of him on the table. Of course, she doesn't react to it. "As you can see, I miss the school and especially you very much," says the teacher to his real students at home.
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Important corona message: "Make Oberding great again!"
Clear toilet paper also plays - attention, wit! - a role. So a teacher juggles standing on the treadmill, while another is wrapped up while playing by the son with his double bass. Music and sports occur more often, greetings from the wild are also included. Sebastian Huber meanwhile gives Donald Trump, is looking forward to the time after Corona and demands: "Make Oberding great again!"
In the style of the YouTube hit "Annoying Orange", organic teacher Sonja Bratky turns into a green, speaking dragonfly, and math teacher Dominik Wittmann calculates a very complicated formula that ultimately results in "da-hoam = lead". Finally, Director Heilmaier sends encouraging words to the students - from his living room and home office, with a Monopoly game board in front of him. Another countdown follows and, as a surprise, a teacher snoring with his head under the physics book at the end, whose name we would rather not reveal at this point.
The idea for the video came from Thomas Kirchmeier, Chairman of the Personnel Council. "Everyone was immediately enthusiastic and got to work," Heilmaier reports. So Kirchmeier was able to cut the video quickly.
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The director says that the learning is going quite well. With regard to his school in Oberdingen, he has the impression that the students definitely learn more than 40 percent of what they would take with them from their regular lessons at home. This number had been estimated by Heinz-Peter Meidinger, President of the German Teachers' Association.
"We are almost 100 percent digital," says Heilmaier about homeschooling. According to Prime Minister Markus Soder's announcement of the school closings, the pupils were given "what else was possible" on books and paper, but otherwise most of the work was done via portals and platforms such as Mebis. Lists were made available on the school website so that the pupils did not lose track of the stack of tens of pages of working paper at home.
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"From 5a to 10b it says what each class has to do," Heilmaier explains. There is also digital material for voluntary learning for the current Easter holidays. "At some point the exam will come, you just don't know when," says the principal.
"Thanks to our young college, we have always been well on the digital track," Heilmaier explains. Therefore, the teachers would know well about learning apps and the like. In the current situation, older colleagues would also be involved. And the students are “maybe even having fun doing something digital”. Nonetheless, Heilmaier says: “If this continues until Pentecost, it will eventually run out. Direct contact is always important.
