Oberhausen College – too good to be true

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From Chitbodhi’s memoir, One Life. Co-protagonists are: “A teacher, Dr. L. and 26 incredible classmates!”

Oberhausen College

A friend in the dormitory from day one, Donald; a teacher, Dr. L; and 26 incredible classmates!

Dr. L. was still pretty young, maybe 30, but he appeared to be at least 50 to 60 years old. He walked a little subdued-like, and bent over. This, and probably what he was wearing, gave the impression that he was aged.

He always wore a grey suit of the most old-fashioned kind, two sizes too big, almost like out of the movies from the 1950’s.

It turned out that inside he was a pretty liberal guy who was all heart for teaching.

The suits were his father’s, who was already dead, we found out later. During these two years, in two very rare, open moments, he also shared dark events of his childhood. He was a psychological wreck. Taking pills so he could get through the day.

He still lived with his dominating mother. His father must have been a complete asshole. Also a teacher, he had drilled his kid to obedience and beat him constantly. If the kid was not quick enough with learning and writing, he had to put his both hands on the table while his father took a small bamboo stick and beat his hands until they were bloody.

After the death of his father the tyranny went on with his mother, not in a physical way, more a kind of psychological terror. He was forced – in honour of his father – to wear all his old suits.

That’s terror – right? At least we all thought that. No wonder he was on tablets. For sure nobody in the school knew that, and we shut up. Although he looked so funny and old like a wreck, over the first six months we learned to respect him tremendously.

It all started on the first day. That first day changed everything in our class. And L. started it.

His speech: “You are now 27 in this class,” his eyes sweeping over us, stopping for a split-second at each one.

“By the end of this year 10 of you will have failed. After the three years here, only 7 of you will be left to take the final exams, and, we hope, pass. I and the other teachers will have to fail many of you, because otherwise there will be no space for the ones from the class above you, who will fail, and have to repeat the year in your class. That’s the statistics, and it will be like that. Statistics never lie.”

“It is now required that you choose one of your class as your speaker. The speaker will have no rights at all, but you have to choose one. Tell me tomorrow whom you have chosen as your speaker. I have to register him.”

Maybe it was this speech which changed it all. The classes finished that first day – but nobody left. We were all in shock. What a warm welcome to this school! Wild and heated discussions started the moment we were left alone in the classroom.

“How can he say something like that? What an asshole!”

“Is he a leftover from the war?”

“He looks like a Nazi.”

Outrage, and in some of us depression, on that first day. One of us said – I still remember his name – Hardenberg: “I know for sure I am one of those who will fail. I’ve never been good in school. My parents will kill me.”

After three or four hours of discussion we had a consensus: We just have to go against the trend. Fuck statistics. Show this idiot that we are different.

Now, to choose one of us as class speaker was impossible. To survive in this school, one was not enough to talk for us and speak for our rights. Five of us! Everybody had agreed. We were all in high spirits.

We are 27 and we will stay 27 and the class is full. No space in our class for others!

His speech really had annoyed all of us.

Not with us! We will fight and we will all survive. To the very end, and we will finish with 27, as we are starting with this first day.

It was almost like one of those Hollywood movies at the end: All one, all standing together, all touching hands. We are one! We didn’t touch hands and no American national anthem was playing in the background. Funny, right? …Thinking back today.

The next day, “German”, with our teacher L. He taught German and Sociology.

“Have you chosen one? Have to register him later in the secretariat.”

Five of us got up. One was me, another was Anne, the other names I don’t remember now.

L., sweeping our class with his eyes: “Not possible, only one allowed. Which one of you?”

“All five, or nobody!”

The five of us sat down, ignoring him. Nobody spoke and a long silence ensued. Speechless, lost, helpless in his large grey suit, he didn’t know what to do next.

Finally: “OK. I am your teacher. I have to be on your side, and I want to support you. I will try.”

We didn’t hear any news for a week. We also didn’t want to ask him, or explain ourselves to him. All five or nobody; we were proud.

After one week he arrived for sociology class, and he smiled for the first time. Standing in front of the class: “It was a tough fight against them. I stood by you. Finally they gave in and all five of you are registered as class speakers. But one only can attend the teacher’s conference. Sorry, that’s the best I could do.”

Wow, victory! We had him on our side. All of us had noticed the “against them…”

He had made a decision. The decision was for us. Although most of us found him pretty ridiculous still, as a teacher in his old suit, two sizes too big – but we had five class speakers, and that was a fact.

Classes went on and after the first few months and the first two tests in each subject, it became pretty clear who was good in what subject, and who was bad, and who could fail at the end of the year.

From day one: the classes finish, but nobody goes home. We still spend some time together in our classroom. Sometimes to discuss some problem we had as a class, sometimes just to hang out together.

Three more months to go to the end of the first year. 5 or 6 of us will fail for sure. Something has to be done now so that nobody fails. We had to react as a class. Discussions started. A solution became clear after a short time; the good ones had to help the bad ones. And the bad ones had to work with the good ones to get better. We had to organize it ourselves.

How to organize it, that was the job of us five speakers.

In detail, a list was worked out, who was in danger of failing, in which subject, and who was very good in these subjects. Extra classes were organized, starting immediately after official classes finished. Two good and two bad ones, in all the subjects anybody was in danger of failing – all so simple.

This kind of unity is probably difficult to achieve today, nor was it normal in the past, anywhere, in any school. But in this class it worked, without much discussion, just naturally.

It worked. Extra classes became regular and were adjusted to need.

We didn’t tell anybody. Nobody in the school knew. One afternoon L. entered the classroom, two hours after the official finish. He stopped, surprised, in the doorway. Obviously he had expected an empty classroom.

Two groups were happening and all 27 of us were still there. He just stood there, watching. We ignored him. He saw what was going on. After a while he left without a word.

The extra classes really helped, but didn’t give us a guarantee that everybody would pass. For that we had to come up with some extra measures, and we had to do it in a good and clever way.

Cheating!

Someone who is bad cannot suddenly write an excellent test. Just looking over and writing exactly what the neighbour did was also out of the question. The bad ones needed to get test results that just safely lifted them into the zone where teachers could not fail them.

All main tests had to be written in the big school meeting hall, each of us alone at a table with one metre distance from your neighbours left and right, and to back and front.

An extensive meeting was held before big Tests. How to cheat, that none of the teachers would notice? We prearranged between us who would sit where. Who would help whom? Which solutions could be given without raising suspicion?

For example: Walking into the test room, 27 of us sat down at the exact table that we had prearranged. The one who had to help was never placed beside the one he needed to help. There would always be a go-between who was not active in helping, just assisting. No solutions on paper were handed over between them. 50% of the solutions were transferred through the go-between on his own test papers. The rest of the test he had to manage on his own.

We prearranged clearly-readable pens that could be seen and read from a distance, even testing them beforehand in our classroom.

For us it was not really cheating. We had all worked hard together, and each one of us – believe me! – when we all passed our final test at the end, had deserved it. Cheating was just to help a little bit so that everybody was safe and saved.

The first year we started with 27 and we all passed into the second year. No-one joined us from the class above because our class was full. The fact that all finished who had started was already something that had never been heard of in the German school system. Teachers told us so.

The second year 27 started and 27 finished. We were still complete, all still there who had started. We had earned the respect of all the teachers, and some showed it openly. L. offered to assist in the groups and the French teacher even worked out special material to use during the after-hours study.

And never ever had there been any suspicion that we also cheated… Maybe there was, who knows, but then, all teachers knew we had worked hard. The spirit in our class was high.

Edited excerpt from chapter 5 of Chitbodhi’s book, One Life

One LifeOne Life: A True Account
by Chitbodhi (Karl Ludwig Malczok)
ASIN: ‎ B00T1LKX6A
Kindle eBook: Amazon*

The eBook is also available in a German version:
Ein Leben: Eine Wahre Erzählung
ASIN: ‎ B01F7YK6U2
Kindle eBook: Amazon.de

Chitbodhi

Before coming to Osho in 1978, Chitbodhi studied Psychology at the Free University Berlin. He is the author of a memoir and lives in Bali.

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