Christina Lyons – författare

Academic Paper from the year 2009 in the subject History of Germany - Postwar Period, Cold War, grade: A, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Curriculum & Instruction), course: C&I 584, language: English, abstract: Alas, as Arnswald (2004) bemoans, today's generation of German students has no recollection any more about this part of German history, two decades after the peaceful revolution in the GDR and the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Students of other countries will have even less memories of images seen on TV, or accounts read in the print media - moreover, they have not lived through these experiences. This justifies the following literature review, which will give evidence of educational inequality during the GDR regime under the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands; SED). It will be organized in five sub-chapters: 1. the case study of Ute, the "e;privileged"e;; 2. a historical overview of the East German school system; 3. the East German School system as viewed by proponents and opponents; 4. the purging of East German schools after the unification (political "e;soundness"e;); and 5. the implications for female students after the "e;Wende"e; ("e;Change"e;; unification). We knew what the rewards were.... And we wanted them. The coaches and teachers reminded us every week that we were the Priviligierten. Even if we didn t always feel so privileged, we believed we were the elite . This comes from the mouth of an East German student. Can one be privileged in the educational sector, thus having unique career opportunities that fellow students do not have? The striking case study of an East German athlete, skater Ute, shall shed light on the unethical and politically and ideologically infiltrated practices of the school system of the former German Democratic Republic.

Academic Paper from the year 2010 in the subject History of Germany - Modern History, grade: A, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Curriculum & Instruction), course: EDUC 590, language: English, abstract: This paper shall attempt a discussion of the impact the German reunification had on the former East German teachers and students. The biographical account of a sample teacher, Anna Groe, as described by Melanie Fabel-Lamla in her ethnographical studies from 2004-2006, will be used as a cliffhanger to hear some of the authentic voices of those people concerned. Not even the most liberal teacher, uh, can have the illusion that for his school, all this does not apply or so, or that one could cancel it out, this function of the state . I want to stay with the students. And I hope that I can give them something on their way through their lives . And I give a shit whether this suits somebody politically or not. (Fabel-Lamla, 2006, p. 172)Anna Gro e, a former East German teacher whose radical words are repeated here, is but one of the victims of our educational reform the teachers and students who lived through the East German educational system, and for whom a dream or a fear? came true after the reunification in 1989. One country, two ideologies after the Wende (Change), Germany had to face the issue of bringing East and West together with a common educational goal, so that the youth of the future could be educated in a democratic way and under academic freedom. For the West, everything remained the same (apart for the additional taxes for Aufbau Ost Rebuilding the East, a term whose condescendence has always bothered me); we still had our 13 years of education in the West, whereas the East was suddenly threatened to adapt its 12-year system (which, by the way, is common in the other European countries, as well as in the U.S.) to our school system. But it is not only a matter of structure what went on in the minds; what about the East German teachers and students? How could they combine their upbringing and previous education, which was marked by ideological infiltration, unfair grading, favoritism of the politically engaged, hindrances regarding school and subject selection, suppression and persecution of teachers, professors, and students, with the new freedom of expression which the West bounteously threw at their feet? What have those teachers and students lost; what have they gained? How did they fare, and if they were rebellious under the Communist regime, was their fight honored afterwards accordingly?

Academic Paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: A, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Department of English), course: English Drama (August Wilson), language: English, abstract: In his play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, opened at the Yale Repertory Theatre on April 6, 1984, the African American playwright August Wilson evokes provocation, individualism versus general conceptions of the Black man's world, conservatism versus progressiveness, and exploitation. The play surprises by its unanticipated, cruel ending, is relatively poor in action but subtly embeds external conflicts (respectively, racial issues), as well as internal conflicts (trivial quarrels among the characters). Since I see a crucial juxtaposition between two characters Toledo, the intellectual, and Levee, the ignorant, who theatrically become opponents in the final man-slaughter scene I am focusing on a comparison between those two after a brief description of the plot and the set of characters. The first third of the play bears a faint resemblance with Waiting for Godot, because it depicts the impatient White producer and manager, as well as the quarrelling Black band members waiting for their singer, the famous Ma Rainey, who takes her time getting her big black bottom to the rehearsal scheduled for 1:00 p.m. She banishes one band member, ignorant, conceited, and vain Levee (who is constantly seen polishing his shoes), from future productions. Levee dreams of establishing his own band, anyway, hoping to become famous with his more modern songs not this old jug band shit (16) that the White producer has promised to record with him. However, the latter retracts his offer, offering him ridiculous five dollars for each of his songs, leaving Levee stranded, who is already so overheated that he overacts, pulls his knife, and in affect stabs his colleague Toledo who accidentally steps on his shiny shoe. This shoe stepping scene (which takes place on page 87: Hey! Watch it shit! You stepped on my shoe! ) is foreshadowed by a similar event when another band member, Slow Drag, by mistake commits the same crime (p. 26: Damn, Slow Drag! Watch them big-ass shoes you got. ) The irony of the play is that the most understanding of all characters is killed for nothing, for having left a tiny mark on the unstained, immaculate, eleven-dollars-worth of shoes.

Academic Paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: A, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Department of English - Southern Illinois University Carbondale), course: August Wilson Play Analysis, language: English, abstract: August Wilson's The Piano Lesson (1987) which plays in Pittsburgh in the kitchen and parlor of a railroad cook's house in 1936 is the third drama of his cycle of an investigation of Black Americans' lives in the U.S. after slavery. Boy Willie travels with a friend to his uncle s, a railroad cook s, house where his sister Berniece lives, in order to sell their mutual heirloom, a piano bearing carved life scenes and faces of their ancestors, to buy the dead slave owner s land for farming. Two of their ancestors once were sold as slaves for the price of this piano, and their father ultimately had been burned in a railroad car of the Yellow Dog for stealing the piano he conceived as family possession. The almost deadly argument between brother and sister ends in not selling the piano, after Boy Willie had to fight the ghost of the murdered slave owner, and Berniece saved his life by playing an exorcism song on the piano she had not dared to touch for years. Wilson s characters make gothic experiences at the famous railroad crossing at Moorhead, MS, where allegedly the ghosts of the Yellow Dog talk back to the seeker. Says Wining Boy, the musician: The train passed and I started to go back up there and stand some more. But something told me not to do it. I walked away from there feeling like a king. Went on and had a stroke of luck that run on for three years. (35) What do ancient African sacrificial rites have to do with American railroad lore? This review paper will focus on the importance of railroad music in The Piano Lesson, and the mystical veil covering the railroad crossing, where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog.