Discussion with Steinmeier: I just want to be able to people again in the Arm

It sounds like a cry for help: "I just want to be able to people again in the Arm." The head of the Berlin health office, sitting at a long table under a very stable-looking tent-like roof, is new, and for the first Time in the garden of the Bellevue Palace was built. Diagonally across from him sit two metres away Elke Büdenbender, the wife of the Federal President, and her husband, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. After the Coronavirus has forced the President over a number of months, Mainly by phone and Video interview to find out what to think of his compatriots, along comes three years ago that he created "coffee table" on Thursday at 11 a.m. in the garden of the castle. "I enjoy the way that we are sitting here together," says the head of the health office.

Eckart Lohse

head of the Parliamentary office in Berlin.

What may at first sound banal – the joy of the gathering under the presidential trees in glorious summer weather, is at the same time, the core of the two-hour conversation in which a teacher, a mother and a parent representative, a master Metal worker, the employee of a Bank and an activist in the climate movement "Fridays for future" to participate, the names shouldn't be in the newspaper. "When I fight, then I can't do it by video conference", says the man from the health Department. Despite different opinions, the term dispute would be wrong to characterize the conversation. What is meant, it is nevertheless clear that Certain questions can be clarified only by face-to-face.

a Lot of it can not be replaced by electronic communications

communication takes place "face to face", says the teacher. She leaves no doubt that the pandemic has placed a great deal of the equipment of the schools and the students with digital options open. Students from a "difficult environment" be advised, therefore, also occasionally from view. However, beyond this to have been a member since March of knowledge, it becomes clear, what can not be replaced by E-Learning, the actions in the network, or other forms of electronic communication.

the presence of The students and teachers in the school is described as important. Even the distance of 1.5 meters seems to be too much. "You can't make pedagogy from 1.5 meters distance," says the teacher. The parent and parent representative describes the especially in the early Phase of the lock downs existing problems with Learning at a distance, especially when the parents have to work in a home office also. Only you and your husband with the children had decided that there was common time, in which all fulfilled their respective tasks. As the have as not practicable because the children would have needed help, have you abandoned "after three days, and shifts are made".

The difficulties of distance can be made to the President in other areas. The metal Builder had to for four weeks in the short-time work with his company. In may, the business went, but then again, he says Steinmeier. He stood in front of the Alternative, digital or analog, because the balcony railing is now time not from the home office via video conference to assemble. Nevertheless, the pandemic limitation of its appearance to the craft in front of a large Problem. The education fairs at which school-leavers about the career opportunities can inform, fall away. Young people who are still unsure, do have a harder time with the decision for an apprenticeship, extending perhaps from this uncertainty, but the school time. You tried it with a video measure, says the master craftsman. However, this can be difficult.

"There's a Hashtag"

at the table, the activist of the "Fridays for future", indicates the boundaries of digital possibilities. First of all you do as a student. The teaching of course content, it seems as the main Problem to be considered. The go digital quite well. There was finally learning platforms. A bigger Problem is that the study was in the exchange with other students. The is currently, however, only to a very limited extent saturated, at least beyond the electronic communications sector.

Even more obvious, she outlines the disadvantages for civil society. It makes clear how difficult it is to mobilize the network for climate policy objectives. "There's a Hashtag trendet time," she says to the Federal President. It calls in the network "in the bubble hang". To mobilise the network was "incredibly difficult". At the same time was unclear, for when "Fridays for our future," a major air strike could organize. "The pressure from the street is politically relevant," she says Steinmeier. This is not online yet. The Digital could be a Supplement, but never enough. The Federal President "can only agree," he says. "Politics for a living, that there are public spaces."