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Dear diary,
now, after have visited Oliver’s parents, I have to write everything down because so much happened last night that I’m likely to forget it otherwise.
When we drove up the avenue, the house looked so damn huge! I was really surprised. I knew that his parents were wealthy, but I didn’t know that they were that rich! They have servants (I saw at least one) and until then I thought only people in former times had servants! His father must make a lot of money if he can afford that.

The situation was really strange, his parents tried the whole time to keep the conversation going and Oliver did everything to avoid and to block that. I couldn’t understand him! I mean, this meeting was really important for me and he did everything to spoil it! I know that he’s rebelling against his parents, especially against his father, but I don’t think that he had to do it when I was meeting his parents for the first time! He was really rude and I was ashamed a bit. There wasn’t any reason, I know, and it wasn’t my fault, but I felt really embarrassed.

His father wants him to continue the family tradition, but he wants to break every rule and he doesn’t even care what he’s doing as long as his father doesn’t like it. He wants to do his own thing, he wants to cope with his problems alone, without any help. And I can see his point.

I felt all the time his parents were looking at me and judging me, and he was behaving like the last idiot! In the end I was really angry with him. And more and more I thought he might just have presented me to them as another object of his rebellion. And not just because he liked me. Was this the real reason why he took me to his parents? And why didn’t he want to stay for dinner? He was so unsure and nervous. Actually, I think his parents´ opinion about me was quite important to him. I know that I was mean by telling him everything he knew inside but didn’t realize. But that was the only way to make some things clear to him! For instance, that I am not just someone he can use when he wants to. I hope I didn’t go too far!

Segal´s LOVE STORY differs from the romance genre

There are a lot of points which might attract first-time readers

There are many controversial opinions about this book, but generally most of the people think positively about it, and the reason why they like it is that it differs from other books in many ways. When used to reading books from the romance genre, one would normally expect a female narrator, as women write and read those kinds of book more often than men. However, in this book the narrator is male, and this gives another impression and another view on a love affair, which makes the book particularly interesting, and, resulting from this, there is the non-sentimental way in which is told.

But this is not the only controversy this book contains. You seem to expect a happy end in a book that bears the title "Love Story". By letting Jenny die, Segal plays with the title and the reader is wondering. Can you actually still say that this book is a love story, when one of the lovers has died? Is it not more of a death story? I think it can still be called a love story, since Jenny’s death does not weaken, but makes their love stronger! And if Jenny had not died, this would just have been another very boring boy-loves-girl=happy-end story.

Another thing which I think captures the reader’s attention was showing that love triumphs over different economic class backgrounds. Jenny lets Oliver feel, probably for the first time in his life that neither money nor a famous name, nor looks mean anything compared to the character.

The book follows one of the most important rules in Greek tragedy: Oliver, the main character, or hero, has a bad side, but overall is more good than bad. Sometimes he seems really arrogant and you hate his behaviour, but that is what makes him real and alive. Segal wants to show us a normal person, with all his good and bad sides, and he has reached his target. Oliver could be a neighbour, or a friend, a boy with whom you can easily identify. Many people would see themselves in Oliver and Jenny; despite all differences a dream couple, and this makes you identify with them. A major, if not the most important point for a great book is that you identify with the characters in order to attract readers.

As well as the content, the style definitely influenced the success at a high rate. Many young people who did not like reading before might have changed their minds about reading now, as this book seems to have been written for them, in an easy language, just like young people used to talk at that time. It is also a short novel, so you are likely to finish it in a few hours. The simplicity of the story, i.e. only following two plots (Oliver-Jenny and Oliver-Father) might have attracted some readers as well.

Drama - a good forum for politics

Even the uneducated could join the political debate

Already in ancient times drama was a forum for politics, especially because many people went to see plays. There were often different versions of one story, and although all the spectators knew the story they went to see how the playwright conveyed the story, the different characters and how he thought about the whole situation. By doing this the author showed his own opinion through the (mainly well-known) characters to the audience.

Aristophanes

When Aristophanes (445 - 385 BC) wrote "The Clouds" he was making fun of Sophokles, one of the greatest Greek philosophers and politicians. He displayed him lying on a cloud giving good advice to the people on earth. Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) as well wrote a lot of political dramas, for example "Hamlet" or "Julius Caesar". In all his (political) dramas Shakespeare describes the relation of a ruler with the power he has. When people were not allowed to speak about the bad situation during times of absolutism or about certain independent rulers and the totalitarian system, they wrote plays to make the situation obvious. Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805) in "Die Raeuber" for instance wrote about problems between a harsh father and his son, when he actually wanted to complain about his lord and against the absolute regime. So he gave his drama a second title: "in tyrannos", which means "against rulers". Nearly all plays Bertolt Brecht (1898 - 1956) wrote are politically important, e.g. "Mutter Courage" and "Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui", and some of them discuss very recent matters.

From the beginning of human civilisation theatre has played an important role in the cultural life of people. Drama makes people see situations from different points of view, because each person on the stage has another view on the situation happening, and the writer can put the emphasis on any character he wants to "highlight". So even people who could not read were able to understand the message or the moral told by the author and could now join the political debate. Drama gave power to the uneducated, they did not feel secluded anymore and they were much more integrated into society. Of course, there were different themes or topics of drama for each class, but drama was something even a small farmer could understand; and it gave him the opportunity to discuss it with other people.

Most of the plays nowadays as well are not only entertainment but they also have a message. This message does not have to be political, it can be critical against society or anything else. As one can see in J.B. Priestley´s "An Inspector Calls" (1945), it is hard to differentiate between those plays with a social-critical message and those which have a political message.

Immigration to America- now and then

Today America has lost interest because they have problems themselves

In his inauguration speech George W. Bush said that "America is a rock in the raging sea". This statement was once surely true, when millions of refugees came to America, since they had to flee their own country because of poverty, famine, war or similar reasons. And America all welcomed them. But right from the beginning America was in a different position than the other countries.

When Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, there were only a few native Americans and lots of space to spread out on. The British followed with John Cabot in 1497 and started to settle down in North America. Their district was then called New England. The conquerors started to drive out the native Americans and either took away their land, which they now needed in order to build cities and train services, or killed the buffalo, which was a main supply of their existence. In oder to cultivate the free acres and morgens of land, America needed more farmers who wanted to start a new life in a new world.
So, actually, is the "American" of today not an immigrant as well, originally either from Great Britain, France or Spain?

There were two different types of motivation for immigrating to America:

• Push (people needed to leave their fatherland in order to survive)
• Pull (people were attracted to a new way of life)

There were many different reasons for coming, but the main reasons were the economic opportunities and the religious and political freedom.
Many people made a fortune with cotton farms, which led to a third form of immigrants, those (mostly African) people who were forced to work on such farms.

Masses of people were attracted by the New World, as it was called, and moved to America, although it was a rough journey in those times.
America welcomed all these immigrants as it was yearning for workers and farmers to develop their industry. Later, in the 19^th century, America was not yet saturated with people, there was still space for newcomers and there was an abundance of jobs.
Since there was a decrease in birth rates and an increase in industry and civilization, America as a popular place to go to because it seemed to be a country of gold, the El Dorado, where everything was possible. The image of the "American dream" was created.

Nowadays America has stopped accepting unlimited masses of refugees and immigrants, but it currently offers 55.000 "green cards" per year to those who are chosen by drawing lots. The last large influx of refugees to the USA was in the 1960s, when Fidel Castro took over power in Cuba. In the last 40 years the Americans developed different methods of restricting the number of immigrants. Today there are still single immigrants, but the situation is not comparable to the times when masses of one ethnic origin came to seek refuge in America. I partly agree with Bush’s statement, but it was not only pity that led the Americans to invite all the "tired, the poor, the huddled masses" but also self-interest.Today America has lost interest because they have problems themselves to find jobs. The USA once was a rock all the refugees could seek asylum on, but now it has become like all the other states and therefore I do not think that the statement is still valid today as far as immigrants are concerned.

Is there an ideal form of education ?

A mixture of the German and British school system would be perfect

Why should people learn?

An old proverb says: A man is nothing without education. And, in a way, it is true, because through the knowledge one obtains from education one gains the possibility to have one’s own view on any situation and own opinion, which helps developing character and mind. Only our own opinion allows us to make own decisions and lead our life full of self-confidence.

Education throughout history

The first people to believe in the needs of education were the Greeks. There were two different methods in Athens and in Sparta. Although they were rather different, the one thing they had in common was the attitude that education would produce better people, physically und morally. Perfection was always the highest aim of the Greeks, so they believed that a raw, unseemly person could be shaped into a "good" (in every way) person by the means of education.

But what is education? What were the priorities in the past?

In Athens rich people could afford private lessons given by a school master or a slave.They were taught grammar and syntax, poetry, rhetoric, politics and law. Basically, they received a full education in the Arts (as opposed to the Sciences) in order to become a politician, lawyer or maybe a poet. The Spartans had completely different views. They did not want to have academic children, but a well trained army. Their sons learnt horse-riding, javelin-throwing, marching, fortifying a camp, building up a rampart and similar things a soldier would need every day. They needed to show that they could be on watch continuously for three days or prove that they were not afraid to fight against wild animals. Resulting from that, the Spartans had the best army. We do not know much about the Spartans transmitted by themselves; our sources are poets or historians who came from Athens or sometimes Asia Minor. Today only the Athenian way of education has survived. But even in Athens itself there were different methods of teaching: There were the philosophers who did not really care about teaching because their aim was research. But sometimes they accepted one or two scholars to assist them while carrying out observations and experiments. They were not teachers in the common sense, but the name "philosophers" might be leading astray as well since they were also scientists. At that time people did not distinguish between physics and metaphyics.

The ideal of the Spartans was to have  the best army in the world

The Sophists were proper teachers, who set up schools, and claimed a great amount of money for the education in things they considered important: rhetoric, politics and so on, but also "human" things like politeness and general virtue.
Socrates was always opposed to them because they were not teaching to tell the truth, but to talk persuasively by whatever means there are. To Socrates it seemed morally wrong to teach something you yourself were not convinced of, and the Sophists did not consider what was right and best for the community, but only what was best for them, in other words: they were selfish and arrogant, because they thought they were the wisest since they could turn people around, from one opinion to the other.

How does modern education work?

Nowadays, education is still an important way to convey knowledge, but there are various mediators of it: school, parents, church and religious groups, society and friends.
All countries have their own educational system and each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
The British system, for instance, specializes very early, around the age of 15. At that point pupils need to make their choices for the 6^th form, in which they study only four subjects. So at that age they need to know what direction they want to go and work in, because for certain courses at university you must have studied certain subjects, e.g. you need an A-level in Chemistry in order to study medicine and at least two other sciences, and you cannot study medicine with the combination classics-art-drama. This specialization shortens studying time at university, but people are lacking general knowledge in the other area (which they have not been studying), which would be languages and arts in this case, and some have never learnt a foreign language.
The German system is the opposite, where pupils need to take approximately ten different subjects until they leave school.
In my opinion, both systems are not perfect. A mixture of both would be perfect, where Germany has the Central Abitur Exam and only twelve grades, so that people are younger when they start studying at university. But in any case, I think pupils should not specialize, and school should offer a great variety of knowledge.

Parents nowadays need to do the moral and ethical education (sometimes helped by the school), and, in Germany they do not give their children away for this. In Britain, everyone who can afford it gives his children into a boarding school, and sometimes only for the 6^th form, if it is too expensive. This has been tradition for a long time and I think it will continue for another while. Parents even raise money on mortgages in order to be able to pay the school fees. Then, of course, the boarding school takes charge of all kinds of education including religion and morals. However, it is still the parents’ choice to look for a boarding school with the right principles and "spirit", e.g. a religious or sportive school in order to carry out the educational ideals out the parents.

I think most people forget friends and society when they talk about education, since it seems so self-evident to us, but it is not. They form us in a way no other influence could, because they decide the rules we have to live with. It is in their hands if we can integrate into society or not. And we encouter the rules of society more often than we think.

Has Rita found a better song to sing ?

In Willy Russell´s "Educating Rita" the hairdresser has to overcome many obstacles 

Rita began attending the Open University with the hope and dreams to have something proper and real. She wished to lead her life like all the other "educated" people, as she would call them, so she started an English Literature course. In the beginning, Rita is a working-class character, who is not typical of her own status, since she would like to change it, and that is what makes her different. She does no longer want to be a hairdresser, especially because she came to understand that this will never satisfy her.

In the first scenes Rita is all innocent and naïve, but "so hungry" for a different lifestyle that she does not think that there could also be any disadvantages. The situation is very difficult for her because neither her friends nor her family understand and realize why she needs to change. They think that it is just a sort of "silly phase" Rita has, and do not support her. Denny, for example, is already satisfied by having the choice between eight different kinds of beer. But even through these obstacles Rita stays firm in her mind. Only once she considers dropping the course and returning to her old life, when Frank invites her to his dinner party and she does not go. But as soon as she has gone to the pub instead, where her family and Denny are, she understands that she cannot live like that any longer. This becomes clear to her when her mother says crying "we could sing better songs than those". She recalls these "better songs" because they remind her of former times, probably after the war. Times of sense of community and will for survival, which she being an elderly woman can still remember.Then there was hope for a better future, and this hope I still burning in Rita, although the times have changed.

Rita is so determined to change herself from the inside that she does not anticipate how much she will have to give up for that. It is not only her direct manner of speech, but also her "honest and passionate" subjectivity and in the end her whole personality. Frank realizes this much earlier in the play than Rita, which is the reason why he says "I don’t know if I want to tell you, Rita, I don’t know that I want to teach you" (1,8). Frank knows that if Rita wants to have this different life and culture, she needs to change completely and all her good qualities will get lost because they are neither required nor wanted in the academic society, so he is in doubt if he is doing a good job "educating Rita".

Rita only learns this much later, nearly at the end of the play. I think she knew it inside her mind that there cannot be the perfect life without a catch in it, but "did not want it to be questioned". Only when Trish, formerly her great idol, tries to commit suicide, she understands that Trish’s (and also her) environment was just made up by illusions. Now she also notices that Frank is not only jealous, selfish and disappointed that she has become independent and does not need him any more by saying that she has not found a better song to sing, but only a different one. He liked her as she was, because she was different and special, charming and delightful, which at the end of the course has changed to normal and indistinguishable from the other students. So this is where their relation becomes closer again after a short time of distance.

I think Rita is now happier than before, although she still needs to recover from discovering the reverse side of her new culture. She has found what she defines as culture, to be intellectual, to go to theatres and museums instead of pubs. But what is most important for her is that she has now got the choice. Even if she went back to work in hairdressing (as it is suggested by the end of the play), she at least would have the choice and it would be her own free decision to return, not a forced one.

However, I do not think she will do that. She has become independent now, which is also made clear by the last scene, where she declines to join Frank on his trip to Australia. I also think that Frank is not serious about asking, since he knew Rita would not come now that she has choice for the first time. Although her new culture is not as good as Rita has first thought, it was still the right decision to carry on with the literature course in order to find herself. Only now that she has experienced it, she can say that taking an exam "might be worthless in the end", which she has never thought of before.

Education- it’s asking questions all the time

"Roots" by Arnold Wesker

In Arnold Wesker’s play "Roots" (written in 1959) Beatie, the protagonist, states that it is the working class’ fault that they are not educated since they are only consumers and look for the easiest way of living. At the beginning of the play, she does not even think about being a literate person or not, what music to listen to and so on and she does not understand that it does matter to herself. But after meeting Ronnie, her "intellectual" boyfriend, he opens her eyes what education is really about: not, as she had thought for a long time, how to grow vegetables or flowers or how to treat animals, but as a continuous process of questioning her own way of life, and not to agree with other people´s opinions without having thought about them!

Ronnie awakens in her an insatiable thirst for knowledge, which she would like to explain to her family. Although she tries hard, she feels that she does not make any impression on them whatsoever. At the end of the play her family, however, is still in the same state she was in before she met Ronnie: a state of accepting the allotted fate and not asking for means to change it. In addition, her family would not consider themselves "less educated", and so they react with disapproval when Beatie confronts them with her thesis about the roots and social background she needs and desires. Her family members are even talking to each other without including Beatie into the conversation (JIMMY: "What is she on about?") They do not understand her; but this is in fact not the real problem, the problem is that they do not want to understand. Life is easier without asking questions, and without considering new abstract and "weird" ideas. Her family does not even have the courtesy to wait until Beatie has finished speaking before being occupied by something else, but they interrupt her several times asking her to cease talking about this topic, since they are not interested in it.

Beatie tries to explain that questioning one´s own behaviour and making an effort are the means to improve one´s own life, but they will not listen. But Beatie argues well when saying that the "working class" does not have any roots. The working class is consuming what is presented by the radio and TV-stations and by such 3^rd rate newspapers that show more pictures than (political) news. The slop singers that are presented there will only stay in the charts for a short time, and for this time the people will listen to their music. But when the new album is not issued three months later or the star wears the wrong dress, he or she is immediately out of the heads of a million people and forgotten, while in the "academic class" such composers as Bach or Haydn are still listened to and appreciated, although their music is more than 200 years old! And this is the same with literature, drama, art and various other cultural aspects.

As Beatie puts it, people from the non-academic background (as she is) are only consuming, but not contributing to society. They see themselves as single individuals in a great mass that cannot move or change anything; and so they have no spur to make an effort or input to the community. They need to learn first that every single voice counts, no matter where it comes from. Hence it might result that at elections many people from this background do not go to vote for the party they want to have, simply because they do not see what they can change with a single vote. They do not question, what the media say, so it is difficult for them to have their own opinion. Many readers of such papers as "The Sun" , for example, will not ask if a story about a pop-star or slop singer is maybe only made up because there was nothing else to write about. They take for granted what they are told by "upper-class" people that organize everything, as if they could not change it.

So I think it would be right to say that the consumers today have replaced the "working class", but with the restriction that this is only partly true. Nobody is a full-time consumer, there is no such thing as white or black. Today, we do not have a class system anymore, or at least we are trying to avoid it, but I would say that there are still some boundaries between certain groups of people. There are no real "workers" anymore, because nowadays all hard work is operated by machines, but all in all I agree that there is still a group of people whom I would call consumers.

I do not think that Wesker’s play "Roots" was aimed at a special group. I think he wanted the less educated to become aware of their situation and to change it, like the age of enlightenment tried in the 18^th century. At the same time he liked the educated class to be indulgent to the others and not to take advantage of their ignorance, but to help them recognize the use of education like Ronnie did for Beatie. The play is written to show that people can change classes, or step over the boundaries of their educational limits and no-one is captured within them. Most people only do not know how to get out; so it is a kind of a vicious circle: if the parents do not break out of it, the children will be born in the same environment and it will also be hard for them to break out. This wall between the classes can only be broken down, if some people from one side wish to change to the other. Since the educated class does not want to do so, it is the duty of the less educated class to start the movement, while, of course, the educated class has "to reach out their extended hand" and help them up the wall. After some time, the wall will seem smaller and smaller for those, who have not yet tried to pass to the other side. People need to learn that the wall is only existent in their heads, and that it is not difficult to surpass it once the process of questioning has started. Beatie, for instance, knows that she cannot stand having these "un-educated roots" forever, and therefore wishes to change.

Today, even the children’s TV programmes say: "Who, how, what? […] Those who don’t ask remain stupid" is the intro of the Sesame Street (at least in the German Version). The views on education in the working class - or more correct nowadays: non-academic class - have changed since the play was written. Today, many more people from a non-academic background finish secondary school and start a degree course at university.

The play was aimed at a group which could not find any help for self-realization at that time, but nowadays it goes on just as a simple trick to sell more books about it and the media will always find a group which needs "self-expression" and "self-realisation". At the moment, many women who normally only work in the household start doing art and make pottery or paint for "self-realization". This latest trend of education is being misused for commercial reasons today, however, I think that the message of the play is still valid in our environment today, especially related to those ethnic minorities and their children that cannot speak German at all, but need to go to a German school. Some of them can neither properly speak their first language nor German, and I think it is very important to support those people in learning our language, because otherwise they will also be unemployed and have no chances for the future, which means, that the vicious circle is closing again, because then they cannot convey to their children what education is about.