Hi, you receive this email because you went or still go to school in the UK. I have to prepare a presentation about Media Education and read a lot of theoretical texts and researches, but I'd like to hear some reports on your experiences. It would be really great if you could tell me something about Media Studies as a subject or the meaning of media (I'm referring to electronic media only) in other subjects and school contextes. The following questions should help you, but don't see them as a questionnaire. Just write a short text about your experiences or concentrate on something remarkable, if you have some time. Or send this link to friends who might be able to help me. Thanks in advance! (And excuse my bad English).

- Were you mainly taught how to use media, such as working with certain software or effective internet research, or rather about the benefits and risks of media?

- Did you discuss current debates about children's media usage like the danger of addiction, obesity, glorification of violence in video games, pedophiles in internet chat rooms etc.?

- Did you produce any kind of media (videos, websites...)?

- What was your teachers' attitude towards media? Were you allowed to use websites, for example wikipedia, for homework?

- Did you talk about media in other subjects or did you compare different kinds of media, such as a comic strip and it's video game adaptation?

- Did you use electronic media in your lessons, for example powerpoint presentations?

- Had your lessons any influence of your private media use?

Ok, thanks a lot and share this link, please! :)

Getting one's hair cut

In Germany, there’s the saying ‘alte Zöpfe abschneiden’ which means literally ‘to cut old plaits’ and figuratively to abandon antiquated traditions or just to make a fresh start. When a girl gets her hair cut and dyed, professionally, not at home by her 16-year-old sister or by herself in front of the bathroom mirror, she thinks it’s exactly what she does, to make a new beginning. Indeed, going to the hairdresser’s has many advantages. Your bathroom won’t need a complete renovation and you won't look like as if someone accidentally emptied a paint bucket over you.

Common reasons for a change of style are changes in life such as a new job, a move or something the like. Maybe you’re just sick of being called ‘emo-girl’ by your friends or hate people saying: “You look exactly like your mother”. But the most likely occasion for a new haircut and/or -colour is a break-up or at least some disappointed hopes. Girls try to convince themselves that their new haircut is an expression of regained self-confidence (You liked my blonde locks? I give a fuck about your opinion, I go for a ginger bob) and emancipation.

In fact, it’s just the other way round. Girls are aware that boys aren’t really interested in their hair. Usually men ask every second time you meet “Oh, new haircut? Looks good!” because they know there’s a realistic chance that they will be right at some point. They only tell you how much they like the smell of your hair because they saw it in some film and think they can impress you by pointing out the obvious. Unfortuntaly, girls also believe they become a different person by changing their style. “If he doesn’t want to fuck the blonde me anymore than maybe the ginger one”.

Actually, the visit at the hairdresser’s doesn’t make a girl feel better, prettier or more self-confident. It’s just another way to torture oneself. In case you’ve already stopped eating, sleeping and seeing friends, paying €100 for sitting in an uncomfortable chair all day long with an itchy scalp, is just the right way to feel even worse. In addition, you’ll get an every morning shock when looking in the mirror for at least one week. But getting one’s hair cut is just one of various classic over reactions after having been left or rejected or misguided.

Another usual reaction is to sleep with the next best guy who is around. Luckily, most boys are willing to take advantage of an insecure and hurt girl’s situation. Women would never abuse a man’s feelings. They don’t sleep with anyone because of a favourable opportunity. They only have sex out of love. Admittedly, mostly out of disappointed love for someone else, but still love. In most cases the feeling of regret after having slept with a random stranger is more painful than the rejection by the boy you actually like or rather would like to have in your bed.

Some girls don’t understand that boys have emotions, too. (They enter the hairdressing salon, sit down, get their hair cut, pay €14 and look almost exactly as they did before when they leave). In their opinion, boys only play with feelings or rather assure that they don’t want to do it, totally disregarding that girls can look after themselves and probably like being abused. You will hurt a girl most if you try to avoid it. They expect you to be totally simple minded and dick-driven, hoping if they show you their boobs, everything will be ok again.

A change of style is also a sign for friends: I suffer, pay me some attention! Girls always exaggerate their grief because they need an excuse for eating loads of chocolate. And most of all they try to make themselves believe that they didn’t sleep with a guy just because he has a cool haircut or is in a band. But in fact, girls don’t distinguish between different boys as long as they feature a certain attribute that the particular girl fancies at the moment. Therefore, boys should be happy if they suit her current preferences and always remember that they might change as easily as her haircut.

This Is Germany V - We are not sorry

Well…, this is part three of my little series explaining my beautiful country, it’s lovely people and their weird behaviour. Don’t take me too serious, please! And I’m sorry for my bad English ;)

If someone comes to the UK and doesn’t speak any English, the first word he will learn is certainly ‘sorry’. Sometimes you’re walking along a street or queueing and you don’t even notice that there are other people around when someone suddenly says ‘sorry’. How annoying! You have to take off your earphones and ask what the other person said and then it emerges that he only wanted to apologize for accidentally touching your bag. But English people don’t only make excuse for things that aren’t worth it. If you bump into another person because you are in a rush or reading tweets on your phone, he will be absolutely sorry because usually people in England don’t crash.

Shopping in Germany is like this: If it’s not Saturday, the city centres of the medium big town are pretty empty. So there is a lot of space to walk, to stay, to watch… Nevertheless, Germans are unbelievable talented in running into other people. If they do so, they don’t stop and say sorry. While they keep walking they turn around and shout “Use your eyes!” at the other person who responds… well, I don’t think it’s something you should write in a blog-post. On Saturdays all our city centres are totally overcrowded…, why? You can’t go shopping on Sundays but in the main stations. Therefore, Sundays are the most boring days here and everybody hates them.

In Germany we don’t even use the word ‘höflich’ (polite) anymore. People who describe others as polite are either very old, ironic or hypocritical. We rather say ‘friendly’ or ‘nice’. Further, people who behave politely don’t seem authentic to us. The words ‘bitte’ (please) and ‘danke’ (thanks) are supposed to be forgotten as soon as your grandma is dead because she’s the only one who taught you them. In case she has a long life, you’ll forget them right after primary school. But maybe we just have to be rude because we’re too stupid to understand mockery and subtle signals of rejection. (I guess it’s a consequence of our Nazi-history - such as all our bad attitudes ever).

If you want to tell a German girl that you don’t like her, it won’t be enough to ignore her or to make sarcastic comments on what she aks, you either have to tell her “I don’t like you, fuck off!” or - and that’s just a suggestion - have sex with her. So many relationships start with falling in love and end with hating each other. It would be nice the other way round for a change, wouldn’t it?

This Is Germany IV - Growing Up

Everyone looks forward to finally finishing school. But in most cases life won’t be like what it was supposed to be. In Germany, you have to move out as soon as you finished school. It’s not actually a law or a rule, but if you ever want to be taken seriously or like to have a long-term relationship, there won’t be any other way. Rents are much cheaper in Germany. If you come from a middle-class family, your parents will be able to afford your flat and if you’re from a working class family, the state will. While living at home seems to be normal for boys and girls over 18 in the UK, it’s only acceptable for disabled persons and Jehova’s Witnesses here.

Lots of Germans are afraid of not getting a job after school. For this reason, they just start studying something. Although we have tuition fees for a certain time now, studying in Germany is much cheaper than in UK and keeps you from unemployment for at least five years. The average student needs six or seven years to find out what he really wants apart from party every night. It appears, that a lot of people in the UK don’t go to university, even if they’re smart, because they know, they’ll find a job anyway, whereas most German universities are full of idiots who want to become teachers because they realize they can’t compete in a free enterprise system.

Further, post-graduate studies don’t seem to be common in the UK. If you left university with a bachelor’s degree here, you would have fewer chances to find a job than before. (My mom uses to say “You haven’t reached anything yet”). In fact, you can neither find employment related to your field of study, nor hope for a job at McDonald’s or Lidl because you’re overqualified. Usually, German students are not friends with non-students. Despite knowing that they aren’t smarter than them, they have to maintain the image of being superior. However, among students it’s cool to pretend that you just started studying because you wanted to spend some lazy years.

Due to the fact, that you have to move out of your parent’s house at the age of 18, students and non-students are also spatially divided. Students usually share 3-room-flats in pre World War One buildings located in former working class quarters where - apart from them - mostly immigrants, unemployeds, artists and all kinds of freaks live. Very handy, because you won’t have to move after UNI. There’s no need to ever leave this quarter: UNI and library are close, alternative venues around the corner and you can go shopping as well. If they’re lucky, they’ll never see any people but each other. Good for them though, confrontation with real life might be hard.

A German girl would never date a boy with a lower educational level than hers. Admittedly, she would rather date a stupid boy than someone who still lives at home, nevertheless it’s very unlikely. For Germans, education is just more important than work and it’s clear: if someone has a boring job, he must be a boring person. English boys seem to be different: they can work in an office and wear checked shirts and still be the most interesting and even sexiest persons. But I probably just think so because I only understand half of what they say. Smart boys would demand too much of me and make me feel even more like a retard when I talk to them.

"Passive" Hospital Experiences

Girls love ill or injured boys. Being ill is as good as being in a band. They distinguish between different kinds of illness, though, in the same way they distinguish between different kinds of band members. Diseases are not very attractive, you can compare them to the drummer of a band, but sporting injuries are highly appealing just like the singer. Injuries caused by skateboarding accidents correspond to Ian Watkins, injuries caused by figure skating to… I don’t want to offend anyone. Scars can be beautiful if you got an interesting story to tell about them.

The reason why girls love ill boys is very simple. It’s hard to be a girl. (No, I don’t talk about what you think). Your moms want you to get a better job than they had, your teachers want you to be interested in maths and physics and the economy would prefer you becoming an engineer. But all you want is to take care of someone. There are different possibilities to deal with this problem: 1. buy a cat, never get a boyfriend and end like Eleanor Abernathy (Crazy Cat Lady), 2. buy a tiny bikini, get a boyfriend and manipulate his skateboard.

The time your boyfriend spends in hospital is going to be the best you will ever have. You see 28 to 31 days a month because everyday he has a new idea what he could need: fresh underwear, magazines, sweets or you could make some visits to the authorities he wanted to have made last month. Further, you spend more time in his flat tidying, doing the laundry and looking for the charger of his phone that must be somewhere in his room, but will be found in his car. And finally you can change the bedclothes and hide this poster of Angelina Jolie.

While your own flat gets dirtier and dirtier you detect some unexpected talents. You learn how to make pudding like his granny used to, giving foot massages and organizing your time much better. As long as he’s confined to his bed, you don’t have to watch stupid action films in the cinema or pretend to like these poker sessions with his friends. The most important advantage: He can’t meet another girl during his stay in hospital. And before smart phones were invented, there was absolutely no chance he could get to know one.

If your relationship is in a crisis, it might be a good chance to get closer again. Suddenly, you appear to have so much in common. After having seen each other three days in a row, you usually don’t have any topic left to talk about. So you are supposed to kill your time in another way: if he wants to watch handball on TV, it will become your favourite sport and if he’s happy to see you lose, chess will be your favourite game. For some girls it could be a problem not to have sex for a month, but seeing him with a catheter should kill any urge for sex.

It’s just a good feeling that you seem to be valuable for him beyond sex and occasional pseudo-intellectual conversations. And he pays it back to you by admitting that he’s afraid, that he suffers and worries about his future (will I ever be able to ride on a roller coaster again?) and that he doesn’t do it because he wants your sympathy, but because he’s a crybaby, a very cute and adorable one though. It’s a shame, that this bad period of his life is one of your best. But girls can only be happy if a guy is in pain (and they can hold his hand).

This is Germany III - Your Kings Are Our Kings

We always smile at the British and other European monarchies as well as all the media circus they make when any member of the royal family marries, dies or wears a nazi-uniform. Although we would be glad to have one more bank holiday, living in a monarchy is a strange imagination for us. The fact that someone is not only the head of a state but also of a church by birth is absolutely ridiculous. How could a religious leader ever have sex? That they are virgins for their lifetimes, is a fundamental requirement to not take them seriously. Catholic priests giving marriage guidance are as absurd as…, no, I guess it’s the most absurd thing in the world. I wonder if the Queen has an opinion on abortion and contraception.

But this is just one of a hundred things that’s weird about the UK. It seems that they don’t really want to be part of Europe. Not only the Channel divides them from us but also the fact, that they are a union by themselves and that they drive on the wrong side. Crossing streets is always an adventure. We know inches only from our TV screens and monitors and our coin sizes are (were) related to their values. And as if it wasn’t confusing enough that they live in their own time zone, their daytimes are different from ours. In Germany we never ask: “What are you doing tonight?”. The evening lasts as long as we are awake or kicked out of the disco at six in the morning, so the only possible answer to this question is: “Sleeping.”

Despite all these differences, we have one thing in common, that appeared to be one of the biggest discrepancies. There is a reason why we always think of Elizabeth (or Freddy Mercury) when we hear the word queen. For a certain period of time the kings of Hanover have been the British kings. Which means British people are all some kind of worse Germans. They just stick to their ancient monarchy. (Fortunately, even Charles knows who the real prince of Wales is). But we also have our own royal family and a prince of Hanover with his own scandals in the media for beating up journalists with umbrellas and peeing in public on the Turkish pavilion at the Expo 2000 (the only thing my city is famous for but our former war industry and cookies).

Just in case all members of the British royal family decide to make a nice trip together, charter a flight and accidentally die in an air crash, he could still become king. And you know the consequences of having a German king. Everyone would have to wear “lederhosen” and eat “sauerkraut” only. Joke aside…, everyone knows that Germans are not like this, only Bavarians. However, living here is pretty cool. You can use almost any socket in the world to charge your phone and you never have to buy water because you can drink it from the pipe. You choose the checkout counter where you want to pay with the result that you always decide for the slowest queue. But you better be thankful that you only got our kings and not our rockbands, dictators or me.

Compliments (how to make a girl sleep with you)

Everyone knows about the importance of compliments for the human courtship behaviour. If a boy compliments you, he must have certain intentions, because boys are never just nice (except for English boys maybe). Compliments from girls are more difficult to interpret. Either they like girls or - in case there is a boy around - they pretend to be with the aim of impressing him. This might be the major difference. Boys are impressed and girls impressing. While men think they can make a woman sleep with them by asking: “Have you ever worked as a model?” women dress like that to show: “Hey, look at me, I’m so sexy, I could be a model.”

It's obvious that girls like compliments as well as chocolate, flowers and diamonds, but of course they don’t like all kinds of compliments by everyone. Unless you are not their professor, they don’t want to hear how smart they are and you should only tell them that they are nice if you don’t want to see them ever again. Compliments mustn’t be exaggerated. Avoid superlatives. Girls know that they aren’t the best, hottest or most passionate lover (and even if they were, they would be much too modest to admit it). They want to be taken seriously.

So the best thing you can do: tell her that you love her breasts because she will appreciate your honesty and acknowledge that you really mean what you say and don't try to invent any pseudo-cool chat-up line to show off. Certainly, you can’t praise a girl’s breasts who wears a size L hoodie although she seems to be an XS. But maybe she wears a mini skirt or colourful lipstick. Then you know what you have to do. The secret is to find out what a girl likes about herself and if she claims she has too small breasts it’s not fishing for compliments, it’s just fact.

You might wonder whether it’s dangerous to be that direct and if you rather scare than attract them? Not really. Girls have an opinion of you before you had a proper conversation. Just like boys, they only pay attention to your appearance. It doesn’t only include physical attributes but also style. A nice body doesn’t compensate a Barbour coat and a Burberry scarf. Every girl has her special preferences though. Generally binding: either they like how you look or you won’t have a chance. But if you got a cool haircut and the right band's name on your T-shirt, it doesn’t matter if you first say “Hi” or immediately “Wanna give me a blow job?”