FROschTOsch

by Martin Piechullik and Jill de Clerque (BvA)

Płock is a city in central Poland. It was the capital city of Poland during their reign from 1079 till 1138. Płock is a city full of history, a place where you can see century-old tradition and history of state and the nation. The most important church of Płock was built in the beginning of 20^th century. It is called “Temple of Mercy and Charity “. It is located on a steep, high hill called Wzgorze Tumskie situated above the bank of the  river Vistula (German: Weichsel). This impressive, monumental building was reconstructed many times. There are relics of the following architectural periods: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Classicism. Documented historical sources present Płock as a significant, dynamic centre of politics, culture and art.

When the Polish and German students visited the city of Płock, we first walked at the market square. After walking a while  though Płock we were standing in front of the church of  Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Płock .We had a guide who showed us the treasury of the relies of the church. After that we visited the church inside and were able to see the coffin of Bolesław Krzywousty who was buried there in the 14^th century. When the guiding tour was finished,  we moved to the river Vistula. There we had a great view over the city.

The bus took us from the river Vistula to the shopping centers of Płock where we had time for shopping and to have some food. The shopping centers where  as big as those in Germany. After two hours we were taken back to our hotel by the bus.

All in all, Płock is a small old history town which was very interesting to visit.

 by Niklas Altgen (BvA)

It’s the year 2006, summer, Germany. The whole world was looking to my country. One huge event took place in the summer of 2006 in Germany: the FIFA World Championship. An event, when the whole world was looking onto Germany for a month. A world championship always has a political implication somehow. What I mean is the patriotism that you feel especially at this time. More than in “normal” times. When your country is playing, you walk around covered all over with flags tattoos or face paintings in your national colours. Usually, nearly everyone has got a flag in his window or these funny flags for the outside mirrors of his car.

Well, that’s what it is like in most of the countries, which take part in the tournament. But not in Germany. For many years it wasn’t acceptable for many Germans to show such big patriotism, because of our history. This has changed with the 2006 World Championship. Germany was a complete black-red-gold country for a whole month. Everyone was proud to show “See, I’m German and love my country.”. I mean, why shouldn’t it be okay as a German to show, that you’re proud to be German? Every time I’m in England, I can see lots and lots of English flags or the “Union Jack” in the windows, even when there is not any kind of tournament.

And I think that is okay. You should be proud of being what you are and you should be able to show it, without having a guilty conscience. You don’t do anything wrong or forbidden, do you? I’ve seen every single match of the German team on the public viewing screen in the park with thousands of other fans. Everywhere, virtually on every single square centimetre of the park, you could see flags. Not just German flags, also English, Polish or Argentinean flags, depending on what country our opponent in the match was. This was an absolutely gorgeous and overwhelming atmosphere. We were partying peacefully together with the other fans and had so much fun. No one had problems with the patriotism of other nationalities.

Nowadays, that should be normal. Even for us Germans with the load of our history. You see, the thing with history is, that it is history. We are living now and shouldn’t let us control by our history for all times. That’s why I think that it is totally correct and acceptable, that even we Germans may show our love for our country.

In this sense, we are allowed to say:

I love England

Kocham Polska

Ich liebe Deutschland

by Niklas (BvA)

You could discuss this topic for days and days. For the majority of the boys, being a dancer is boring, stupid or not masculine. The majority of the girls has got a different opinion. If a boy can dance, he is very grown-up, masculine and interesting in the eyes of most girls.

I’m a ballroom and hip hop dancer for more than two years now. I started when I was 15 with a standard course. I had never heard of “Quickstep” or “Rumba” before. But I’ve quickly started loving it. Not just because of the nice girls who where in my group . Dancing is a real sport. People who have never danced before would think it isn’t, but it really is. You can compare 90 minutes of dancing with half an hour of running. Hip hop is even harder than ballroom dancing. After one hour of hip hop training, you’re totally exhausted.

The good thing is not only the dancing itself, it’s the feeling of doing something different. If you ask around, you’ll hear “Oh, I play football” or ”I’m into basketball” or whatever. Dancing is still something special nowadays.

You also get to know many things, you’ll need in job interviews or on occasions like that. Part of the standard course is a behaviour training and “Dining-Seminar” where you learn, how to behave when you’re dining out and how to avoid all the traps that reveal “bad manners”. Another point is that you learn to control your body and get a better feeling for it. On top of that people say dancing improves your ability to concentrate and your memory.

All in all you can say, dancing is a sport for everyone who loves being active in a modern and fancy way. Especially for young people. So, don’t be a fool and say “Being a dancer is boring!” Get up, go to your local dancing school and take a look. You’ll love it!

by Gesine Franke   (Year 11, BvA)

I was one of the newcomers. One of those, who didn’t know where to find the rooms and who the people were. And exactly this was my problem. On the one hand I was really excited to meet new people and to master a new situation. But on the other hand I had a bit of a stomachache. What if they don’t like me?

“Ok, there we are.” It is a beautiful building. It’s not like the other schools. It’s colourful. It isn’t just a grey barrack, where you know you don’t want to go in only by looking at it. It’s a place, where you like to go and spend half of your day in it.

I breathed in and out. “Ok, you want to go to this school.” On the school yard I felt like everybody was looking at me. There were two girls. I thought they looked like newcomers, a little bit disorientated, and they were my age. I pulled myself together and spoke to them. “Hey. Are you new here, too? I don’t know where to go and hoped you can help me. By the way, I’m Gesine and you?” Uff….. They looked at me. The silence lasted ages to me. But then they smiled. “Yes, we are newcomers, too. You can wait with us. We hope we will find somebody, who can tell us where we have to be.”

This was my first step into a new future. The two girls are good friends of mine today. The first day at this school I was still a little bit disorientated, but my classmates were all really nice and helped me.

I found a lot of friends and all my worries didn’t come true. I’m really happy to go to this school now.

by Nina Weber, Linnéa Tölle (BvA)

Our school has made the commitment to help Tibetan people with a winter school for refugee children.

For six years we have been supporting this project now. Within this project many people work together really well to help them get the best possible education and a good start into adult life.

For sure you are very curious where our partner school is, aren’t you? The school is located in northern India, more precisely in Ladakh. By the way: Ladakh lies between the mountain ranges of the Himalayas and has 270,126 inhabitants. The land area amounts to 86,904 square kilometres.

We support the partner school with money for teachers, books and pens, which we earn with social projects in our school. In winter we always organize a bazar, where we sell for example donated books, candles and  Christmas tree decorations. In summer we have two opportunities for helping them: On the one hand we celebrate our traditional summer festival where you can find our Ladakh stall. On the other hand we also have our traditional Charity Run, where each participant collects money for the laps he or she runs from family and friends.

On 10^th March every year, the international “Day of the Tibetan Flag” takes place and we go to either Hilden or Langenfeld to point out and explain the hoisted flag to people who walk down the precinct.

We do this because of the situation in Tibet.

Tibet has been under Chinese rule since 1959 und Tibetans are not granted the human right to practise their culture and traditions freely. Many Tibetans, among them many children, have therefore left Tibet and found refuge south of the Himalayas. Most of them crossed the dangerous mountains on foot and under the threat of being detected and killed by the Chinese. Our partners have their new home in Choglamsar near  Ladakh’s capital Leh.

by Marta Lewandowska and Małgorzata Leonarcik (LOG)

School is really important in every youth’s life. Education determines our future career – our job, our status, our satisfaction. This is why deciding on our path is such a serious matter. In every field, we need different qualifications. School can help us develop our abilities.

When we decide on our school life, we also choose our leading subjects. That means we learn the subjects we need in our future job, e.g. Maths for engineers, Biology for doctors. However, when choosing a path, we are still very young and inexperienced. It is hard to make a proper decision. Youths are likely to change their mind as they learn new things and find their new passions and interests. It means that even if someone has been learning History diligently for 2 years, he can suddenly go on to learning Physics and taking a path of an engineer.

We conducted a survey at our school. We wanted to find out opinions of our schoolmates that chose different majors. The questions was their future job and their reason for picking it out. We think that the survey made many people think about their life.

The results of our work are quite interesting. We found out that people that chose Science as their main subject (and also Biology, Geography, etc.) are more likely to take jobs connected with it. People learn Biology and Chemistry because their plan for life is being a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist.

If one spends much time on Maths, he probably dreams about being an architect, a banker or a businessman. The reason for that can probably have something to do with a specific character of the subject. A student needs to think logically and to understand many rules and laws of the nature.

There’s a difference in regard to humanistic subjects. The subjects are rather not very specific and it may be the reason why students’ plans differ so much. It is quite common to find people who want to be psychologists, lawyers, journalists, but others prefer being geodesists and doctors! They don’t care that it’s difficult to take this path, while they aren’t used to learning Science. They want to fulfill their dreams no matter what. Maybe humanists are just such full of passions people that think with their heart and not their common sense…

We also asked about motivations of young people. Most of them chose… money. Maybe Poland is still a poor country and that’s the reason why every one dreams of being rich. Wealth can help fulfill all the dreams and aspirations. Isn’t that sad?

However, many people choose their job according to interests. When someone likes drawing, job of an architect is actually perfect for him. One can realize his potential and be satisfied in his life. We are also proud that some of our schoolmates just want to help others- that is the reason for being a doctor or a policeman. Other causes can be: a contact with people, traditions in family, travels and prestige.

However, it is also quite disappointing that not every one has a good reason for choosing a particular path. Life is sad when one doesn’t have a motivation. It is harder to achieve your goals, when you don’t feel like really achieving them. That is why, our young age can actually create a problem. We are still indecisive and we don’t know much about the world. We can dream, but we can’t be sure… And (for good or for bad) it is the most important time for us, when our future life is being determined.

Let’s take this challenge!

- Do video games encourage violence? -

by Ailish, Frauke und Oliver (BvA)

Many experts are discussing if video games make young people aggressive. Some of them say that video games should be prohibited for adolescents.

In our opinion video games aren’t the worst thing leading to an aggressive youth; in fact, those who play them need special skills when it comes to reaction, logic and agility. Multiplayer games also encourage teamwork.

Most TV shows for children encourage violence even more than video games. If small children at about 6 years of age already watch cartoon characters killing each other in a bloody bout and see them laugh at it, to us that is a lot more violence-encouraging than adolescents’ playing e.g. ‘’Counterstrike’’ – that is just the next step on what has started in their childhood.

Video games can be violence encouraging, too. But those youngsters who really became a danger for the people around them were mentally ill before they started playing those games.

So, to us it’s clear that most video games aren’t as bad as it is always said after one of those killing frenzies. It depends on who is playing them and it’s impossible to judge all adolescents by some exceptions.

by Christoph Leppin (BvA)

On 28 September 2010, three students of the Bettine-von-Arnim Gesamtschule went to the Bayer CropScience laboratories, in order to compete against three other schools, each providing three students, at Bayer’s annual ‘Science Day’.

Our three students, namely Tanja Jockel, Philipp Maibaum, and Christoph Leppin, were eager to get to know the ‘real thing’, that is working in a professional laboratory, along with professional scientists and equipment. Although our school does offer a variety of equipment when it comes to subjects like biology and chemistry, their experience at CropScience was mind-blowingly different from what they experience in class.

This, on the one hand, was of course due to the more advanced and complex assignments they were to fulfil. On the other hand, they had never before been involved in the development of inhibitors (i.e. anti-catalysts), which have proven to be vital for modern agriculture’s fight against weeds, fungi and parasites. Basically, their assignment was to find out which inhibitor to use in order to block a specific enzyme of a plant. In addition they were to determine its optimal dose, examine how they interact and, ultimately, how they work on biochemical basis and what to improve. This might sound easier than it is, and, needless to say, has proven to be quite a challenge for every student involved.

While, in the end, our school did not turn out to be the winner, we were more than satisfied in achieving third place and returning home with an amazing experience, brand new iPods, and a prize of 1000€.

As one of the contestants, I would like to thank Bayer CropScience and its team for organizing the event and our biology teacher Mrs. Mosebach-Garbade for signing us in, thus helping us to this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

by G. Fiedler (BvA)

On March 23, 2010 the FROschTOsch project meeting had the privilege to welcome two very special guests, Ms Erna Funk and Dr. Stephan Lipski. They were both born into the German minority in Gostynin before World War II and told the FROschTOsch team about how Germans came to live in Poland 200 years ago, what life was like as a German among Polish neighbours and what they experienced under Nazi German occupation.

2 Germans born in Gostynin report