Tomasz: Notes on Future Ways of Learning, Working, and Living: Educational Projects and Experiences on a Farmstead in Anhalt, Eastern Germany

By Joachim Broecher

In the next few years, politics and society would do well to throw open two hitherto closed gateways: on the one hand, by introducing an unconditional basic income for all intended to furnish the wherewithal and motivation for active, entrepreneurial and socially responsible behavior; and, on the other, transform compulsory school attendance into mandatory but self-directed education. The combination would allow people to team up to buy vacant farms in the countryside or to launch urban projects for developing into centers of learning, working and living differently: across generations, sustainably, holistically, ecologically, inclusively, and innovatively.

Institutionalized childhoods would become a thing of the past. Parents could step off the treadmill of the 9 to 5 job, work part-time or freelance, leaving them time to look alternately after their children and themselves within a framework of transformative community projects, including in an educational sense. The years of adolescence could be self-determined as years of apprenticeship and wandering, to be spent in diverse projects. The still existing schools would then be relieved of adolescents who have difficulty coping with the competency-based curricular learning offered in them or who do not want to be there for other reasons. Children and young people would grow up healthier, both emotionally and socially. Vocational schools and universities could hold entrance exams for which young people prepare themselves independently. In the next few years, tens of thousands of such projects could sprout in Germany, with a variety of perspectives, certainly also under state supervision, so that democratic conditions are givens in the projects. The current society of control (Deleuze, 1992) would thus become a civil society of entrepreneurs.

The present volume documents the first small steps toward realizing such a dream on a farmstead in Anhalt, eastern Germany. It does so with more than 400 photographs and brief descriptions. At first, the focus is on mundane, practical tasks – on cleaning up, renovating, planning – to be followed soon by making the first educational, social and cultural connections, but always with an appreciative eye for the high value of hands-on craftsmanship – and on Tomasz, the shepherd boy from the Beskid Mountains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Mar 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9783757866068

Joachim Broecher

Joachim Broecher explores Berlin's urban spaces as well as progress in building a transformative community project in eastern Germany's Anhalt region, going on from there to discuss emotional and social geographies in Polish literature. For more about his prolific teaching and consulting in schools, universities and international venues, see https://broecher-research.de/

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Joachim Broecher explores Berlin’s urban spaces as well as progress in building a transformative community project in eastern Germany‘s Anhalt region, going on from there to discuss emotional and social geographies in Polish literature. For more about his prolific teaching and consulting in schools, universities and international venues, see https://broecher-research.de/

Project lead: Philipp Broecher

Financing provided by: Karin-Anna Jung-Broecher and Joachim Broecher

Building renovation, reconstruction and expansion lead: Uwe Kelling, Leitzkau

Energy consulting: André König, Dessau

Interior and exterior design, landscaping: Karin-Anna Jung-Broecher

Academic support and journaling: Joachim Broecher

Inhalt

The Background, or: Krakow, Southeast Poland and Andrzej’s Legacy

Empirical Educational Background and Theoretical Considerations

A Farmstead in Anhalt, Dating from Germany’s Imperial Days

The Farmhouse

The Living Quarters

The Benjes Hedge

Local, National and International Communities

The Farmhouse Attic

The Loft in the Barn over the Chicken Coop

Debris Disposal

The South Facing Field

The Former Fodder Kitchen in the Stable

The Garage from GDR Days

The Garden behind the Barn

The Hayloft in the Stables

Historical Artifacts

The Wooden Deck Fronting the Field

Firewood Supplies

The Former Chicken Coop in the Barn

The Farmyard

The Three Tiled Stoves in the House

The Farmhouse Cellar

Tearing down Small Stalls and Sheds

Climbing and Gymnastics in the Barn

The Former Cowshed

Improvising Life on the Farm

Making and Restoring Furniture

The Fruit Trees

The Old Horse Stable

The Barn

The Five Chimneys

The Former Pigpen

First Seminars and Workshops

A Range of Reflections

Learning Polish and German, Reading Literature

The Stable

Transformative Community Projects

The Water Supply

Pastures

The Workshop

Plans, Ongoing Development, Prospects

Bibliography

Picture Credits

Acknowledgments

Abstract

The Background, or: Krakow, Southeast Poland and Andrzej’s Legacy

I had no inkling that this would be the last time visiting Andrzej. I had not seen him in years and he, too, had stopped coming to Germany, only to now find him about to depart this world. Nor would it have occurred to me that in those same wintry days, with Andrzej soon to breathe his last, he would still help launch me into a new phase in my life. Not long before my visiting him, I had stood captivated before a painting in the old Jagiellonian University in Krakow, that city pervaded by melancholy, appearing to slumber in a depth of centuries. The painting had seemed to speak to me, but its message at the time eluded me. Soon after, Piotr had joined me from Warsaw, and we set out driving on winding roads, eventually heading southeast, into the Beskid Mountains, toward Ropki, the village Andrezj had retired to after a lifetime as a pediatrician and teacher and then at the universities in Warsaw and Krakow. The village was snowed in, thick white blankets covering the roofs of its wooden houses. The village dogs kept pace with us, cavorting alongside our car until just before we reached Andrzej’s place.

There was much to catch up on with him, many experiences and thoughts to share. We ate trout and drank white wine in his wooden house, warmed by a crackling fire as the frigid night descended outside. We debated politics and history, reminisced about the 1980s and the educational exchange projects we had collaborated on in those Cold War days, he as a professor, I as his student.

We also digressed to the German occupation of Poland and Andrzej’s time with his father in the Warsaw uprising. That brought us back to the current situation in Poland and Germany and all it portended for education and both our societies – and, of course, we ended up sharing our personal concerns.

One evening, Andrzej invited several people from his academic circle to his secluded homestead. Its rooms were filled with icons, dressers, tables, chairs and beds, many of them handed down from his grandfather, who had been a professor in St. Petersburg. This ensemble of furnishings created a darkly evocative atmosphere. In bright contrast amidst it all posed a two-foot high replica of Michelangelo’s David.

And then there was Tomasz, a lad of perhaps sixteen, always hovering near Andrzej and helping him manage his everyday life. Living with them also was the boy’s uncle, Paweł by name. Tomasz, like a good factotum, would tend to the stove, look after the old German shepherd dog, handle Andrzej's mail, set the table and see to the meals, the drinks and the dishes.

We learned that Andrzej, with no family of his own, had taken Tomasz in years ago as if he were a son or grandson and had homeschooled him. The boy had never attended public school. He came from an ethnic minority of herders called the Lemkos native to the Carpathian Mountains. What exactly had brought this boy with the dark curly hair to Ropki under Andrzej’s roof was never explained, and I did not ask. Tomek, the diminutive Andrzej liked to address him with, at this point knew practically no German.

In our talks, a shadow of worry would cross Andrzej’s face whenever the question of Tomek's future came up. When I happened to mention that I had acquired an old farm in the Anhalt region of eastern Germany where I was planning to start a new kind of educational project, Paweł and Andrzej broke into an enthusiastic conversation in Polish. The next day, no doubt having deliberated further, the pair asked me to take the boy to Anhalt with me and to take over his education, picking up where Andrzej had left off. It would take the form of years of teaching and trekking, exposing him to new and unique ways of learning under my tutelage. I now realized how close Andrzej must have felt his own death approaching. Apparently, the two adults had also already prepared Tomasz for this move. He sat silently listening at the table, finally raising his eyes to fix me in his gaze in an agreeable, friendly way. It seemed that fate had handed me a new task.

As I now learned, Paweł was a highly skilled carpenter who had kept up the buildings on Andrzej's property and had also added on living space for himself and his nephew. He promised to lend a hand with renovating my Anhalt farm but wanted first to stay by Andrzej’s side in the time remaining to him. Later he planned to go to the Alps as an itinerant carpenter and roofer, but now and then would drop in on us in Anhalt and help spruce up the farm buildings. Given the circumstances, I could only acquiesce. In truth, I had already taken to this quiet, enigmatic and self-contained shepherd boy when I first walked through Andrzej’s door and so was ready to take him under my wing. Admittedly, also playing a role in my decision was the prospect of having Paweł’s energetic handiwork help me fix up the rundown buildings I had just acquired in Anhalt.

My conversations with my traveling companion Piotr, first in our lodgings in Ropki and later in one of Krakow’s famous vaulted cellar bars, before we went our separate ways with Piotr returning to Warsaw and I to Berlin, only strengthened my commitment. It had been left that Paweł would accompany Tomasz to Berlin in about four weeks, from where we would drive together to the farmstead in Anhalt. When I had bid Andrzej farewell in Ropki, as a going away present he pressed a small barrel of vodka on me whose contents he had ennobled himself with herbs according to the traditional Ropki recipe. Nine months later in October, I received the news that he had passed away.

Empirical