Word: dudelitz
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...months ago, half a year after the Berlin Wall fell, the teachers asked the town council to drop the name. They are still awaiting action, but they are patient and confident -- with some reservations. "It would not be proper to ignore our entire history," says Barbel Dudelitz, an English-language teacher who has yet to take down portraits of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in her classroom...
Economic insecurity only adds to such worries. Dudelitz, 39, who has 16 years of teaching experience, receives a net monthly income of 1,100 ostmarks, or about $655 at the 1-to-1 conversion rate that went into effect July 1. That is roughly a third of what a West German counterpart is paid. "We will be earning even less when rent subsidies disappear and pension contributions rise," she says...
Even so, Dzerzhinsky, with its 270 pupils ages six to 16, is not the school it was a year ago. The first class of the day still opens with a student announcement: "Attention!" Andre Berndt, 16, two tiny hoop earrings glistening in each ear, bids his classmates. "Mrs. Dudelitz," he continues, "Class 10 is ready for the English lesson." Before the revolution, the students replied with "Friendship," the official greeting of the Communist youth organization. Now they simply say, "Good morning...
Whatever the fears and doubts at Dzerzhinsky, they are overshadowed by new freedoms. When the town council named a woman with ties to the Communist Party as replacement for the retiring headmaster, the faculty rebelled and put up its own candidate: Barbel Dudelitz. The embarrassed appointee withdrew, and Dudelitz handily won in a balloting of teachers that excluded council members. As soon as she is confirmed, Dudelitz, who under the old regime was not allowed to travel abroad, hopes to make a lifetime dream come true: a language-study tour of Britain...
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