My very personal story
I was one of those kids who was raised to believe that no mountain is too high to climb. The important thing is “just” to follow your passion. My passion has always been to help people and bring out the best in them. I followed my desire and became a slightly different German teacher.
Now, many of you are probably wondering why I decided to go into business for myself as a German teacher. And yes, it’s not exactly typical, as most teachers work at a school. But my path was a little different….
When I came to Vienna in 2004, I actually desired to study something completely different. But as life goes, I came across educational science and realized: This is exactly my thing! I was fascinated to learn about the inner psychological development of children and adults. What happens in the development of a person? How does that person change? And how do they learn?
But why was this so important to me? To explain that, I have to backtrack a bit, because it has a lot to do with my own school experiences. You probably won’t believe this now, but I repeated a class twice in junior high. It was a very bad time for me. I felt stupid, inferior, and like a failure. And that even as a child. My teachers and schoolmates didn’t predict a great career for me. For them it was clear: whoever stays down will not get far in life.
During this time, I also developed many physical symptoms. At the age of 13, I suffered from migraines, insomnia, and school anxiety. Every evening, when I was preparing my things for the next day, I had a knot in my stomach as well as palpitations (which I still get today when I think about it and while I am writing these lines). I was scared because I knew that the next day would be another struggle, a school day filled with failure and rejection.
As hard as I tried to be a good student, I just wasn’t succeeding. Hours were spent over my books, but I just didn’t get it. I longed SOOO much to succeed, but one setback followed another. I just didn’t want to go back to school. It was simply a nightmare for me.
But then the day came when I changed schools. And that was the “gamechanger” for me. Because I graduated there very successfully, then started studying (which no one would have expected) and completed my bachelor’s thesis at the University of Vienna with a “very good” final grade. “How does that work?” you might be asking yourself now.
By figuring out for myself how I learn best. That I absolutely cannot learn with fear and under pressure. At that time, I thought there was something wrong with me. Today I know that it is biologically quite easy to explain. Because with fear, our limbic system in the brain blocks, and learning doesn’t work properly.
In the course of my life, I have found out that learning, as it is taught in school, does not work for most people.
As an adult, I also realize why I had such a hard time learning back in junior high. It was the time when my parents got divorced. And I, as a sensitive child, took it all too personally. Because of all the worries and problems, my head was “blocked,” and I just couldn’t think, let alone learn anything.
Fear, worry, problems, pressure – all of it prevented me from being a successful student. Now I could sit here and whine and blame everyone else for the hard time I had in school. But instead, I say THANK YOU! Thank you for these experiences. Because without them, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Without these experiences, I would never have thought about how important a good teacher is. Maybe I would never have become a teacher myself. And I would never have been able to help so many amazing women learn German and become independent again.
For these reasons, I have developed my very own unique teaching method with which I have been helping people learn German very successfully for more than 10 years now. Because learning can, no, MUST be fun. That’s how we come into the world: as beings who love to learn.
Interested in learning German? Jump on a free ZOOM call (no strings attached) and let`s find out how I can support you best!