Leisure gap is not only about fitness and resting; it's about developing meaningful connections to others.
www.zeit.de/familie/2025...

Went on a hike with a friend this weekend. Social hiking for moms is still rare in my circles. Most of the people I ask never seem to take a day off for something like this; it is a truly special thing if they do.

Gratulace! Very nice cover!

... and the winners are:

Olena S. Dmytryk, “Communicating community: Early Internet and trans* digital cultures in Ukraine and beyond”

Honorable Mention: Eralda L. Lameborshi: “'My Body, My Choice, My Country, My Voice': Kosovar Film, Women’s Rights, and Postwar Trauma”

... and the winners are:

Olena S. Dmytryk, “Communicating community: Early Internet and trans* digital cultures in Ukraine and beyond”

Honorable Mention: Eralda L. Lameborshi: “'My Body, My Choice, My Country, My Voice': Kosovar Film, Women’s Rights, and Postwar Trauma”

My Vokabelheft from 2013, when I moved to Germany - many common words in it - to show the students that you can improve your language skills (in their case english) as an adult. Funny to see "scheitern" ("to fail") on the list - but can you really fail if you don't even know the word for it?

We set up a shared pad where students can indicate if they want printouts. If they do, I’ll bring them to the next session. I know some students prefer working with analog copies but also live on a tight budget, so they often print 4 pages on 1. I wanted to remove this barrier in this seminar.

For the next session, they received a printout of the introductory texts and a task of focusing on the word level (Which words are unfamiliar to me? Which ones will I look up? Which ones not? Where do unknown words go?) + the general idea of the texts.

First step: finding something seminar-related in current media
We read a lengthy feature from Zeit Magazin about a radical anti-sitting doctor. The students were encouraged to read it while not sitting. We discussed both their reading experience and the article's content
www.zeit.de/zeit-magazin...

We discussed current statistics on time spent online, based on the representative Postbank study: the age cohort that includes me and the students (18-39): 85 hours/week! I then presented my small goal of carving out just 2 of those hours for reading as part of this seminar.

To be clear, I also need to return to reading with fewer interruptions; maybe this works better as a collective endeavor.

Will do!

The problem with a grading system that relies heavily on the Hausarbeit (the sole component of the final grade here!) is that it doesn’t encourage broader reading; most syllabus texts aren’t relevant to students’ projects. I see reading as analogous to listening, much needed now, I believe.

Also planning to offer free printouts for anyone interested, to help move us away from screens.

I was inspired by the techniques used in my kid's elementary school (reading alone, reading out loud, with a partner...) and by this thread: bsky.app/profile/akta...
Curious to see whether this will work out!