Interview with Raj*

Sunday August 31
*Name has been changed.

Raj was a German exchange student who came to my high school around three years ago. We were both in my school’s orchestra. I got in touch with him through Facebook and conducted this interview via Skype so that I could get a better understanding of German youth.

Raj lives in Gottingen, which is about four hours away from Berlin. He just graduated from Gymnasium, and is about to head over to university in the UK. He wants to study psychology, but has to choose two other subjects as well. It is common for young people of sufficient means to study outside of Germany, though German universities are funded by the state.

Raj was born in Germany, but his parents are from India and immigrated because of his father’s job. He was eager to tell me his hobbies: soccer, badminton, table tennis, flute, and piano. “And, of course, my studies” he added. As in the US, there are students who give highest importance to academics. Raj says that he was more “socially active” than politically active when asked this question. “There are people who write in newspapers and such, “ he continued, “but I did things like the student union, I was head boy, I had meetings with headmasters.” It was clear that I was interviewing the valedictorian of a Gymnasium school – an individual who is clearly at the upper end of the education spectrum.

I asked about volunteering, and if community service was a requirement as it is in Washington State. He was surprised about this, because he responded that here there is a required year of civil service after graduation. How does a national rule that requires service affect the youth and the greater society as well?

It seems to me that community service is both highly valued and highly rewarded in America. However, youth must be influenced and taught to give to society, and this creates a large breadth of motivation. We see American youth who change the world beyond the requirements, and we also see nihilism and violence. You will find those extremes in Germany youth as well, but the difference is the strong influence of the state in the civil service requirements. In my high school, not doing the 60-hour service requirement only meant that you would not graduate (resulting in a lower graduation rate for the school itself, which has ramifications because of the Patriot Act, and so on). In Germany, a student who does not plan to go to University still must spend a full year doing civil service as enforced by the national government. The inevitable year creates less motivation to volunteer through high school, but it also decreases the numbers of youth who will never perform community service in their lives.

Raj educated me about the German system of education (before Professor Isensee transatlantic education talk). There are three types of school: Gymnasium, Realschule, and Hauptschule. The Gymnasium is “like all the AP classes”, the Realschule is “for average students”, and the Hauptschule is for “really bad students, like from the poor districts.” Raj was nonchalant in these statements. It can be inferred that Gymnasium parents and students share his attitude towards the other schools. After fourth grade tests, the student is put on a track into one of the three schools.

I was surprised at this system, for it seems like it would really split up “youth”: young people would identify more with their type of school rather than other youth as a whole. I asked Raj what he thought about the system, and he said, “I think the system is good”. I asked whether there is interaction among the three types of schools and he said, “I could not imagine a really good Gymnasium student having talking to a Hauptschule student”. Raj revealed that German youth indeed are split up. When I asked him whether he thought the German education system is good, he said yes.

These are Raj’s thoughts on Berlin:
The hub of history and music (rappers and hip hop are all from Berlin)
Big city (he did not know about the youth nights of Kareem’s experience)
Berlin people have a different, “funny” accent

These are Raj’s thoughts on the wall and East Germany:
They don’t really think about East Germany
Saxons
“Rundown, little crappy”
E. is racist
Conservative
Accent is “a little weird”
The quality of life is not as high

What I noted most in this interview was Raj’s implicit emphasis upon quality of life, something that came across as very important to him. He was not driven by political activism or religious motivation or dreams of changing the world, but was most interested in securing a good quality of life in the future.