When he finally managed everything, with his secondary school diploma in his pocket, Tom, 16 years old, says: “I think you have to see that the young people went through a lot.

They obeyed the rules, they showed solidarity.

And I think the government or the country owes something to the youth.

It's time we got something back. "Marvin, 18 years old, said a few weeks earlier, when he was still studying for his Abitur, about the Corona period at school:" A piece of personality will be torn away. "

Anna-Sophia Lang

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Petra Boberg and Christine Rütten from Hessischer Rundfunk show two young men, two lives, two perspectives in the sixth part of their series “Am Limit ?!”, which can be seen in the ARD media library.

In the documentary series, the team accompanies students of different ages over several months and mainly lets them have their say.

Contrary to what one might expect, this is not depressing at all, but rather: encouraging.

It shows a young generation that is stoic, creative, funny, interested, and who, in view of what they have been through in the past year and a half, needs and deserves the support of the elderly.

Between perseverance and worries

"It really amazes me that I would say that: that I like going to school," says Marvin, who did his Abitur at the model school in Frankfurt. Tom, who graduated from the Heinrich Schütz Comprehensive School in Kassel, also realizes that you can count yourself among the lucky ones if you are allowed to attend class every day. Like many of their classmates, the two vacillate between perseverance and the worry that their degree will end up being less valued.

They try to persevere with the goal in mind, have to motivate themselves, which does not always succeed, some lack support from home, or the back and forth in school increases the feeling of deficits that are already there in normal times. "You have to make sure that you fight your way through," says Tom. And then there is the youthful search for identity, which is neglected in the isolation of a society at a distance, but still works for Tom and Marvin. Maybe because the two of them, with their indestructible joy in life, always find a way to stick with it.

Not everyone can do this without help.

But that is exactly what all the young people want - stick with it, participate, create something - that can be seen and heard.

You just have to look and listen, and above all: take young people seriously.

"Courage and hope," says Tom, is what it takes to get through school in the pandemic.

He and Marvin did it, we were rewarded with graduation ceremonies and champagne showers.

Now you have your next goal in mind.

The documentary series “At the Limit ?!

Now WE are talking! ”Can be seen in the ARD media library