Abends Schule? Das klingt ungewöhnlich. Gemeinsamer Unterricht von Jugendlichen aus Essen und Istanbul? Auch das gehört nicht gerade zum Routine-Programm. Am Freitag, dem 19.11.21, war also alles ein bisschen anders als gewohnt. 22 Schülerinnen und Schüler aus Frau Heups Bilingual-Kurs in Klasse 9 trafen auf 25 Schülerinnen und Schüler aus dem Englischkurs von Herrn Akduğan. Online tauschten sich die Jugendlichen in englischer Sprache über das Nachhaltigkeitsthema “Gender Justice” aus.

Diese länderübergreifende Kooperation schließt an unser Schwerpunktthema Just Justice?! – Ganz einfach Gerechtigkeit?! im Netzwerk ‘Schule der Zukunft’ an und widmet sich den UN-Nachhaltigkeitszielen 5, 16 und 17. Zu Beginn ging es um Fragen wie “What role do gender stereotypes play in your country?”, “Do girls and boys have the same opportunities?”, “Which gender issues do we need to deal with to stop discrimination and gender-based violence?”. Über das Videokonferenz-Tool von Teams konnte die gesamte Gruppe zugeschaltet werden, aber die Diskussion lief vorrangig in Kleingruppen in Breakout-Rooms.

Über den Online-Austauscht mit den türkischen Schülerinnen und Schülern berichtet Can Y. aus der 9. Klasse:

Our online conferences with a Turkish school

On the 19^th November and 15^th of December 2021 our class took part in online video conferences with a Turkish school in Istanbul. The video conferences took place in an app called Microsoft Teams, which allowed us students to join and discuss with each other. After a certain time in the conference, we were put into different groups. Each group consisted of 5-7 people from Germany and Turkey.

The point of the video conferences was not only to get to know the different opinions of another culture, but also to discuss specific topics and to share different or similar views with each other. Especially if the person with whom you were exchanging ideas had completely different living conditions, both in an economic and an everyday sense, it made us as students fully aware of other people’s way of living and thinking and this also expanded our knowledge about one another.

After joining the groups for the first time, it was important to get to know each other to create a more comfortable and open conversation, before talking about our views. It was quite fascinating to hear about the other students’ opinions on gender. Especially when many others expected that the point of view of a person from a wholly different culture would be completely different from ours. Most German students, for example, did not expect the Turkish students to be so much against traditional gender roles or that they were against Erdogan’s view on women.

There were even a couple of groups which tried to find solutions in order to break up gender roles and put an end to inequality against women. A stereotype that we could break is the idea that blue is a color for boys and for boys only. If we stopped showing boys in the media only wearing blue or playing with blue toys, but introduced boys and girls to a variety of colors for them, this would help children to grow up in a society without stereotypical gender roles, at least with regards to color and gender.

Overall, it can be said that it was an interesting experience and it was great to have the chance to exchange opinions and to get to know more about the current situation in Turkey, because the conversations we had maybe even managed to change other people’s point of views.

We are all looking forward to talking to the Turkish students again next year.

Can Y., Year 9