The summer of 2009 - free and easy

The attached photo was taken on my very last day of school - July 1...most students are happy that the second semester turned out nicely for them...some will have to pass a make up exam in August and the option to repeat the semester is also available for those very few who didn't quite make it.

For me it was time to clear my desk and to return all keys to the office - I had hoped to be able to return for yet another semester or two of subbing ( substitute teaching )but that didn't materialize - a colleague will be back from his sabbatical and another colleague increased her teaching load - this meant redundancy for me and my partner colleague H.T.

I am confident that something very useful will come out of this - and one great option that would otherwise not be available for me is to visit my cousin Didi in Canberra,Australia for two exciting weeks in November....

Good Bye in 100 seconds - Stufen ( Mai 1941 ) H.Hesse

My teaching contract at the college is about to expire and a colleague will take over and teach the new semester......I keep telling myself that this change will - like all other ones before - be a change for my own good...and who knows what LIFE has in store for me next...I enjoyed my one year teaching "gig" at the college and I thank my students for the learning experiences they provided me and also for their patience and good will.....some will have to either repeat the semester or to explore alternatives..the core group however has established itself and I am optimistic and confident that most of them will graduate and pass their Abitur in two years from now....I hope they will still remember me by then and send me an invitation to their graduation party....enjoy the attached poem by Hermann Hesse - I find the lyrics very touching and therefore quite appropriate for my departure.... the text is spoken in German.

Digital Inclusion

A friend of mine sent me this funky video - it pretends she was in Cannes and part of the glossy people there..then the company behind it allows for entering your own name into it - in other words to include myself digitally...see the result for yourself:

Ist die Luft schon raus?

I have not been blogging for quite some time - and there can be only one explanation: somehow my motivation to blog for myself and to encourage my students to do likewise has hit a snag - in Germany we say: Die Luft ist raus...and that may well be the case now that we will have only seven English sessions before the official summer break starts on July 2...there are however two more major tasks ahead of me: I need to come up with a fair grade for each student based on her or his individual performance during the last semester AND four students will have to come in and write their make-up tests.

In the meanwhile I continue my studies of the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and by visiting his new website I was linked to this fast paced TV interview...I hope that you will not only understand the spoken English but that you may enjoy these thirteen minutes of great insights as well...and let us not forget: Eckhart used to have Ulrich as his first name and he was born in Lünen not very far from our college - that makes him almost one of us.

All Learning is state dependent...

It is so obvious that the state ( Zustand ) I am in - deeply influences my learning progress...so in what state are my students in when I enter the room? And am I able to change their states for the better once I start the lesson of the day?And do I manage to maintain their by then hopefully resourceful state throughout the entire lesson?

And what about my own state? In what state am I in most of the time?

And who helps me to "recharge" either during or after the lesson?

Lots of good questions with their inherent consequences....so here is a video about how Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were introduced to a group of journalists the day before Mother's Day....just watch how people change their states in just a few seconds...so I know it can be done...and maybe I should bring a portable CD/Cassette player and turn up the volume and play some wake-up music as I enter room 1.11 at 7:45 in the morning ??? - this would certainly be a great pattern interrupt!

Which one? The iPod Touch or the new Kindle DX

I love well designed high-tech gadgets...there are two that have caught my attention for some time new: the Apple iPod Touch ( without the phone function ) and the latest version of the Amazon Kindle e-reader.

Once you have watched the video you may just decide that paper based materials are definitely not as hot any more as they used to be - and maybe the paperless office
or the paperless school is not that far off anymore...

Are we as humans the only creatures who are conscious.Yes or No?

In class we are currently practicing how to write a comment.There is a certain structure to it and it usually has four parts etc. etc. and as I was searching for some additional topics for our pre-test practices I hit upon the above key question involving human consciousness and it led me to a series of ten minute YouTube films - the speaker there is Peter Russell whose book: The Global Brain is available in German under the titel:Die Erwachende Erde.

These books were published in the early eighties - just after my return from a very stimulating sabbatical year in San Francisco and they played a major role in my renewed interest in human consciuosness - the first exposure happened thru the writings of Timothy Leary in the mid-sixties..then Peter Russell crossed my path and now some 25 years later the writings of Eckhart Tolle deepen my understandings in this area even more.

And my thought was: what if my students were one day ready to argue in ENGLISH the most difficult question if we as humans are indeed the only creatures who are conscious - and as a meaningful preparation for this exam we would go thru some of these fifteen YouTube based mini lectures?

Seeking Oneness via Twitter?

Most teachers would probably argue that nothing good will come out for our students when they engage in the microblogging service Twitter....some would state it is just another annoying platform - like Facebook or MySpace and the rest - that hinders the student to appreciate written language...they fear that what gets expressed within Twitter's 140 character frame will be the profane and not the profound...

I have not tried it myself but I would go along with the embedded cartoon - Twitter seems to be just another "form giving" tool whose constant "in-form-ations" distract students and retirees alike...but then I had a second thought:what if Twitter messages ( tweets ) get rushed out of my electronic device or onto any of my chosen screens in such a rapid sequence that it would create an almost permanent reporting link between myself and my "friends" who would share my entries all so very fast that the feeling of a networked ONENESS could suddenly pop up in a logged-on user??

Just as the early pioneers who experimented with basic flying devices were bicycle riders - they had a sense or intuition that if only they were able to pedal fast enough and achieve a certain speed they would eventually have lift-off!So if a given medium is accelerated beyond a certain point ( a grounded bike with extended wings on it ) something completely new is created: an airplane.

If the tweets are blogged and read at an ever faster rate by a circle of users - the previous sense of being separated and isolated may suddenly be transformed into a knowing and feeling as being ONE with the others....if Twitter achieved that liberating and sought after felt-sense of ONENESS in our students it would radically change the current meaning and experience of our present competition based educational system for the better and turn even sceptical teachers into supportive twitterers.

How to write a perfect pro and con comment (essay)

Soon our final English test for this semester will come up: it will again have two major parts: part A: Grammar and this section will most likely again cover the following topics: reported speech;if sentences; passive constructions and hopefully also the ability to recognize and name any given tense in i.e. a newspaper text.

Part B: Writing..here the students will be asked to write a pro and con comment or essay on a given topic using a minimum of about 250 words or so.

In class we practised our very first steps by using a Time article about the first baby steps the Obama administration may want to or should initiate to carefully lift the legal restrictions that presently govern the use of marijuana in the US and in most parts of the western world.So far we phrased the topic,listed the pro arguments,stated the arguments against the free use of pot and next we will have to develop a catching introduction and also our concluding paragraph.

While researching essay writings in pro and con style I came across this informative entry on youtube.com and I want to share it here....don't be mislead by the narrator's voice: this is NOT comedy....this is actually a genuine teaching video about how to write an great essay on the topic of outlawing fast food restaurants like McDonalds.....maybe we should have used this topic instead of the marijuana one!!?

Fighting back

While I was vacationing in beautiful Spanish Andalusia we stayed at a very popular hotel that tried so very hard to meet the expectations of its customers...every morning P. W. the Assistent Manager of the hotel would greet the guests for breakfast and sure enough P.would be there at dinner time and "work the tables" making sure the guests were satisfied and happy....

I am sure that his hard working style will eventually promote him to a higher position within this well recognized Spanish hotel chain ( just as it happened to our class text hero Mr. Horst Schulze )....and then one morning something really "bad" happened and I first informed the receptionist - she ran out to inform P.W....... he then gave his orders to undo what had happened but when evening came the damaging evidence was still there and after I had informed the Assistent Manager once again serious action was undertaken and the spook was finally taken care of!

I now wonder what would have happened to that hotel and its reputation if I had filmed what I had witnessed and had put that clip up on YouTube - just as two workers had done in North Carolina recently at a Dominos Pizza place?

There apparantly one of them put some cheese up his nose before placing it onto the sandwich that was destined for a customer...his female co-worker filmed the prank and provided the narrative...the damage must have been so intense that the top manager of that major US pizza system felt the urge to go on camera and to make the following statements......

The meaning of all of this will make great material for further discussions and maybe even writings in our class...and I wonder how I or my college or the Spanish hotel would be able to "fight back" if some of the students decided to post something similarly damaging onto the web and later retract it by claiming: "we are sooooooo very sorry"! We are living in very interesting and challenging times indeed.

Here is Dominos video based "defense":

BBC Listening comprehension exercises

Not long ago I brought a listening comprehension test to class...it was part of the larger TOEFL (Itp) procedure.The students listened to thirty short campus related conversations and tried to mark the correct answer on their answering sheet....the results were interesting: the student who had exposed himself to watching most of his DVD based films in English and not in the 'dubbed - in' German version had trained his ears in such a way that he scored the highest of the rest...great job Karsten!

And you wonder why the lobby of the English teachers in Germany ( if there is such a thing )is still not able to break the monopoly of these have-to-dub companies!?

Other countries like Holland and Sweden never dub their films - not even in their cinemas...I recently saw the film: MILK about the gay movement in San Francisco in pure Amrican English while chewing on popcorn in a Swedish movie theater....

So here are some more interesting and up-to-date listening exercises to improve our listening skills... they involve the ears and the eyes and the computer mouse.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/london/unit1/listen1.shtml

How to write and structure a characterization

So far we have read two great short stories by Roald Dahl in class.The coming test requires us to get involved with the writing of a characterization...and we are practicing it by using the logical levels a la Robert Dilts as our structuring tool.That means the text will be structured as follows: introduction; the environment of the main character ( where and when );the behavior ( what );the capabilities ( how );the values,attitudes and beliefs of the character ( why );his or her sense of identity ( who );followed by the conclusion....

I hope this scheme will will help us to compose a well-rounded and well written text about i.e. The Landlay or The Man from the South or My best friend

And then this short sentence that anyone of my students could say to me - came back to me - it was used by Robert Dilts himself when he taught us ( in Hamburg ) about this elegant model: I can not do this here - do you see the beauty of the example? I - identity;- can not beliefs;- do capabilities;- this behavior;- here environment...thank you Robert.

From wellness to Oneness

This early morning while I was out jogging this idea came into my head:some years ago it was important to have a good health.Today you can hardly open a travel brochure that does not try to lure you into booking trips that offer the experience of Wellness - and there are always these seducing pictures that go with it...somebody does something gentle to another person - like dripping warm oil across someone's forehead etc.

So, I assume wellness means more than just being in good health...and as I jogged along it became clear that the next higher experience might just be about getting a felt-sense of ONENESS.

Maybe I should contact a patent lawyer....in a few years the deep experience of ONENESS with All Life ( most likely a virtual and software based undertaking ) may just be more sought after and life changing than any spa, cruise or visit to Disney World!! could ever achieve.... MONEY! BIG MONEY!??

yes we can...the real one.

While I was trying to find a good joke about folks who copy and use the works of others ( see entry below ) - I came across the real "yes we can" video at www.funnymalaysia.com - we surely do live in an interconnected world! I hope my students - and you - will read or sing along with these powerful words.






"It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --

Yes. We. Can."

Celebrities featured include: Jesse Dylan, Will.i.am, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Nick Cannon

Yes we can....jump on a bandwagon?

Some days ago these posters appeared on strategically placed billboards in my city...and I still wonder about their underlying message....what exactly is it that we are able to do so well as to justify the usage of the Obama campaign slogan?

I guess I need help - I am just not "getting it"! Are they merely talking about the integration of new-comers into our educational system.....??

A Man from The South and The Zippo Lighter

In class we just finished reading the brilliantly written short story ( full version )by Roald Dahl " A Man from the South"....and while searching around at Youtube.com I just found this modern adaptation of that wonderfully gruesome black-humor story...but somehow this video lacks the intensity of the written story....somehow this is just a bunch of kids who may have had a project to complete in their film making class....nothing wrong with that - it is just that - in me at least - there wasn't this: well done! resonance effect as it came through when I first read the story and even by rereading it I felt the same fulfillment - sorry "boys"...I rather go for the Cadillac!

And Now: Twitter.com - First we shape our tools - then they shape us!!

I am planning on either reading or writing about an article on how people find out via Twitter when the next Mexican-Korean yummi food-truck will be arriving in their Los Angeles neighborhood...I had no idea how these hungry folks would share that information other than by the conventional methods: email;cell phone; messaging; Now I just learned there is a new way ( should I say: new for me ): they communicate the truck's arrival via Twitter...watch the above video - it tells you how this can be done and gives some more details about additional features of this latest "join me with the rest of world" tool.

So here is my question: why is it still so very hard to deeply understand and know that we are,have been and always will be ALL connected by the invisible force called ONE LIFE - I mean some of us are almost addicted to the above technologies and yet most of us have no clue about the everlasting and ongoing connection that binds us together!! In other words: How much more technology do we need - before we finally get it???

"Ich war noch niemals in New York??" Not me....

I still remember my very,very first day in New York City....roughly 16.300 days ago - and now I was there again and there must have been some 10 to 15 visits in between as well..this time,however,it was all very different: we flew to see this unique city as a small family of three - and BIG APPLE welcomed us as dreamers, tourists, and shoppers....we had three easy going evenings and two full days..enough time to explore most of mid-town Manhattan,have a relaxed dinner with our American friends and to see the musical In the Heights.

There was hardly any jet-lag and the comfortable Lufthansa return flight took just a little over six short hours...all in all it was well worth the organizational efforts - and I enjoyed showing my wife and my daughter around..they were impressed about my first place of residence: right on the corner of 90th and Broadway...the building looks impressive and there was even a doorman inside the entrance....so what did I learn in these 16.300 days between then and now?

The answer: My brain is still stretching and being stretched especially by the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and if you are or plan to be on a spiritual path I would highly recommend listening to his message - it has the potential to let you understand who you truly are and to reap the benefits that will come with such an insight.

So - one might say that although the "story of ME" which kick - started in New York City a long time ago - is still in progress it is no longer the self-concept defining saga that it used to be... and that is quite a liberating feeling.

E. Tolle My present teacher on TV

Originally I had wanted to embed the interview with Mr. Tolle here which he gave last night (Feb. 15,2009) on ABC news...but since I was somehow unable to copy the film here I looked for other materials about him at: www.youtube.com and I found this clip about his second book: A New Earth among many other videos.And I like what he says about the incoming new consciousness - and yes, it will have the power to dramatically change our present world of forms and things.

I see myself as someone who is in the process of helping to bring about and usher in some of these changes and I see clearly the vanity that results when I allow my neurotic ego to show me the ( wrong ) direction...and it is ironic that my young daughter just loves to use her latest English verb: to upgrade!! It figures - and maybe at her age it is still appropriate to dream about wanting to be special and to be more....not realizing that she couldn't be more complete than she is right now.

For us adults,however, that path is slowly coming to end and hopefully just in time....and as a teacher I wonder of course what will the "new school" be like....and Eckhart Tolle would say to that: Jay,don't be too concerned about it - as long as it is based on the new consciousness it will manifest all by itself...and yet: I am still curious...will we have a 45 minutes based schedule? will there be tests and grades and competition?And what subjects will be taught in such a school...

It is the perspective that changes everything

I remember how electrified I felt when I saw the first pictures of our planet taken from space....I immediately sensed how precious and "fragile" my home was and somehow I realized that it may just be one huge organism....later on I read in a book somewhere that this body is called GAIA.

In this context Neale Donald Walsch taught me this:perspective influences perception.Perception influences beliefs,attitudes and values.These three influence our behaviors.Behavior influences our experiences. The experiences we have influence our reality...and then our reality will influence our perspective etc. etc. so to be able to see the Earth from Space led me to look within - and ever since then I have never been "without".