No.iente chair, no frontal lesson. The classroom lives, the desks move, the music starts. And young people, even those who have recently arrived, feel like protagonists. On 5 October, for the World Teachers’ Day established by Unesco in 1994, it arrives in Italian cinemas Mr Bachmann and his classthe documentary by Maria Speth presented at the Berlinale 2021.
The film Mr. Bachmann and his class is in theaters from October 5, World Teachers’ Day
Long (lasting more than 3 hours), but intense, the film follows a school year of Professor Bachmann, now close to retirement, in Stadtallendorf, a German industrial city with high immigration. In Bachmann’s class the students, between 11 and 14 years old, are all immigrants: some recently arrived barely know German, while others are second generation. They come from many countries – especially Turkey but also Bulgaria, Russia, Morocco – they speak several languages, they feel strangers to the place where they live. They attend a preparatory class before high school, within a few months their paths will separate and the teachers will decide which path will be best for each one and parents will not be able to oppose it (not like us, where the judgment of the teachers, in the eighth grade, has only an indicative value and in fact it is the families to choose).
Bachmann is a professor who is not at all traditional, he dresses informally, he strongly believes in dialogue and in the fact that every student has his passions and talents, which should be encouraged. Of course, knows how to enforce discipline – if at the moment of entering the classroom someone speaks, everyone must go out and re-enter again – he gives the floor only to those who raise their hand and do not interrupt.
World Teachers’ Day: the example of Professor Bachmann
But it is not so much with the discipline that a teacher manages to be respected. Bachmann uses music to make children talk about themselves, just as a colleague of his makes them express with the kitchen. The reading workshop – mandatory – is another important moment, and above all the children who want to go on in their studies must take advantage of it. One senses a school system very different from ours, more rigid and with very defined paths. But in this apparent lack of flexibility, Bachmann inserts a great love for his work. And certainly for the music: drums and guitar are a continuous background.
On 5 October, World Teachers’ Day, the documentary Mr Bachmann and his class is released in Italian cinemas.
After all, it takes very little to win the trust of the boys: you have to start from listening. Interested in the fact that, for the family party at school, many parents will not be able to come because they will have just finished the night shift at the factory, while many mothers will be busy with younger children. OR just ask how do you say “homeland” in their own language to discover that the boys do not think of Germany, even if they grew up there, but of an indistinct distant homeland, perhaps never known, where their grandparents are buried.
But diversity is a richness, Bachmann thinks, and the teacher’s task is to stimulate the aptitudes of each one to help him and help him find his way in life. Only in this way can inclusion work.
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