The Dishwasher

Only an hour ago I was saying "We don't need a dishwasher.", so it's hardly surprising that an article about "The Dishwasher" in jetzt.de caught my attention. Tellerwaschen gegen die Bildungsnachteiligung is about a magazine and accompanying blog called The Dishwasher and is aimed at students from working class backgrounds. A large part of the article is an interview with the editor, Andreas Kemper.

One thing that you can do with interview texts like this, where what was said is quoted rather than reported, is turn sections of it into reported speech.

For more reading on students from non-academic families take a look at Fikus-Referat and my post First student in the family?

First student in the family?

Being the first in your family to go to university can be difficult. Not that I know personally because I didn't get to be a student. Statistics certainly show that if you come from a working class background then you are less likely to read for a degree. I certainly had encouragement from my family but that came from the realm of wishful thinking. They wanted the best for me but had no idea how to help me get there. And I never really knew what I wanted to achieve. Lack of clear goals coupled with the naturally laziness of a teenage boy would never get me anywhere. I certainly would not have thought I'd be learning German as an adult. I only just scraped a pass in the exams (GCE O-level back in those days) and was encouraged to take science subjects because those had given me better results.

Why am I blogging about something so far back in my past? Only because I watched an interesting video report from 3Sat about a support organisation set up to support and advise would be students from a working class background. Arbeiterkind.de is an internet portal for anyone trying to be the first from their family to get through higher education.

Als Arbeiterkind an die Hochschule

Die Initiative "ArbeiterKind." ermutigt Abiturienten zu studieren, auch wenn die Eltern dies nicht getan haben. Die Idee stammt von Katja Urbatsch. Sie ist auch ein sogenanntes Arbeiterkind.

You can watch the video featuring Katja Urbatsch - it's just 3mins27secs.

Do you think it's more difficult for kids to get to university if no-one from their family has been?