Lehrer

As my loyal readers know, Red Baron went to secondary school in Hamburg. Even though I never attended an elementary school in the Hanseatic city, some school-related news electrified me. We used to rhyme irreverently, Nichts ist hehrer als ein Lehrer (Nothing is loftier than a teacher). Today, only 12.7 percent of the staff at Hamburg's elementary schools are men.

So over the years, the nation's Prügelknaben (male scapegoats) have become female (Prügelmädchen). Educators are beaten up morally and sometimes even physically by parents, students, authorities, and all those who, in their youth, were traumatized in primary schools, like Red Baron with his knuckles rapped.

Spanking the palm of a hand (©Die Welt)

I went to school where adults obviously having been harmed by their own spanking naïvely trivialized, "A spanking didn't hurt me."

Physical integrity is an inalienable and inviolable human right also for children. Chastisement in schools is nothing other than ritualized child abuse.

Back to Hamburg. Its school board wants to change the disparity. "We want this to be a gender balance," said the School Senator.

A student campus will be held up to twice a school year, providing information about "the varied and sometimes challenging daily work of an elementary school teacher."

Wilhelm Busch’s role model: Lehrer Lämpel

The attempt to bring men into the elementary school teaching profession is also about creating role models for young students "because the boys at school should also see and understand that education is not just something for women, but also for boys and men," the senator said.

Do I read correctly that education is something for boys and men? After years of more women than men studying, especially in teaching professions, do we need a male quota? Is this a gender gap backward?

By the way, my best teacher was a woman to whom I owe a good knowledge of English grammar and my love for history.

*