"Why didn't the dishwashing service wipe the tables?" - "Bilal is bleeding!" - "We found a haunted house in the forest, someone must have been held prisoner there!" Uh, please, wait a minute.
Not all at the same time.
who is bleeding
"Help, a bee flew into the girls room." Oh, of course that has priority.
Just kidding, of course, Emmanouela.
Open the window, maybe the bee will find its way out again, I'll be right there.
Where is Bilal?
I only really understood that I was really going on a class trip when I left on Monday morning.
Inside the bus, when I'm sitting in the front, where the teacher and supervisor are sitting - and wave out.
And don't stand outside on the sidewalk and wave in with the other parents.
Five days class trip, the first ever.
Five days away from home alone, a first in life for most 4a students.
And also for me, who for five days is no longer just the father of a student, but the supervisor of the whole class, alongside the class teacher.
She needs a second supervisor for 24 children, but doesn't want to further thin out the staff at the Frankfurt primary school for the trip.
Caution callers and both eyes turners
So I'm sitting in the front of the bus, feeling the vibes and the excitement of 4a and 4b, who are also traveling with me, on my back - and I have no idea that it will be five days as a contact person and secret keeper, night watchman and referee, hiking guide and medicine man, pack donkey and kitchen help , play partner and sports comrade, driver and brakeman, comforter and exterminator.
Five days, in which homesickness has to be alleviated with words here and a tick removed from a boy's buttocks there.
Five days as someone who called for caution and as someone who squeezed both eyes, as a constant supervisor and above all: as an amazement.
It's only now that I'm really realizing how elementary school binds our children together.
How attuned and familiar they are after four years together in the class.
How conflicts naturally pop up and are sometimes stirred up, but then are cushioned by a group dynamic in which some voices are heard, others are silent, some have the power to exercise power and others do not.
In the dispute mostly superficial and free from hurtful malice, because the classmates can ultimately rely on each other.
children in a state of emergency
Elementary school is not only math, German, general studies and Co., but a fitness maker and enabler, a lovable, communal cocoon that nevertheless prepares for life out there.
"Don't pee on the seat" is a rule that the children of 4a gave themselves beforehand and stuck to when it came to "bus travel".
It certainly seems to have been heeded.
Although the long pent-up and only partially suppressed excitement swells again when the barrier to the Frankfurt school camp Wegscheide lifts - and the bus comes to a standstill behind three others.