Anna, Katja and Ralf have two difficult years ahead of them: their teaching practise now follows their theory-dominated study. The traineeship brings conflicts for the future teachers, since they must simultaneously prove their abilities as teachers and as learners. It barely matters at which type of school the young educators teach, whether a primary school, secondary school or a comprehensive school. For viewers, too, ZWISCHEN DEN STÜHLEN (BETWEEN THE STOOLS) may offer new experiences: the profession is now much tougher than it perhaps once was many decades ago. Not all of the three candidates will reach their goal first time round. Not one candidate will make it without developing doubts about the educational system or the loss of illusions.

As the teaching post candidates are sworn in they still have no permanent job. Their academic training lies behind them, and before them lies their traineeship – no matter whether their goal is primary school, grammar school or comprehensive school. At first glance the differences are small. Pupils are undisciplined, badly brought-up, indifferent and ill-mannered to such an extent that older viewers, or even those who have grown up in more authoritarian systems, may fluctuate between anger and disbelief. The profession of the teacher is considered - mainly due to the associated civil service status, the extensive holidays and the curricula, which change only slowly over the years – as a comfortable dream job. The reality looks rather different. ZWISCHEN DEN STÜHLEN (BETWEEN THE STOOLS) makes it transparent why the sickness rate and the number of burnouts are particularly high.

A few decades ago, which student would have dared to discuss his grades with a teacher, or even to protest in a form now referred to on the football pitch as "mass confrontation"? Anna has to accept that some kids simply sleep in elementary school; Katja can barely intervene when the boys begin to fight in the classroom and has next to no chance to interest the class in any topic; Ralf endlessly takes great pains to provoke his students to reflect about their own situation with reference to Hermann Hesse's "Unterm Rad" (“Beneath The Wheel”), and about the general question of how far the school system is oriented towards generating domesticated, assimilated and thus useful members of a normalised society. This ought to provoke a burning interest in the children, but they react without passion or any recognisable willingness to grapple with it. It remains admirable how actively the educators resist an early resignation. At one point the camera cuts briefly to a short shot of a cage in the hallway in front of the classrooms and shows a hamster running in a wheel - a perhaps banal, but nevertheless fitting, illustration of the teacher’s situation.

The trainees are in a Catch 22 situation: on one hand they are supposed to grade their pupils’ efforts, and on the other hand they themselves are subjected to their examiners’ assessments. One of them gives Ralf a sobering piece of advice: a brilliant student has no more chance in this system than a bad one. What’s sought is mediocrity. It is astonishing how much value the instructors place on rigorous methodology, and how little charisma, spontaneity, and enthusiasm count - as if one might get bogged down with such virtues in the present school system. Questions concerning the curricula prescribed by the administration (which are, in at least a few German states, very different) and concerning their advantages and disadvantages simply do not arise amid the chaos of everyday practice. The viewer merely wonders what the teachers have learned during their academic training. Of didactics, at least, they ought to understand more than it appears here.

The film’s structure isn’t always purely chronological, but instead obeys an inner logic: it may be that on a table in the teacher's room an Advent wreath announces Christmas, while outside the trees are covered in green leaves. The original sound is sometimes difficult to understand making even foreign language subtitles very helpful. This leads to a documentary vividness that makes it easy for all participants, teachers and pupils alike, to forget the presence of the camera and the microphone.

ZWISCHEN DEN STÜHLEN (BETWEEN THE STOOLS) was awarded the Goethe-Institut’s Documentary Film Prize in 2016. According to the jury's verdict, "The film sensitively accompanies the progress of two female trainees and one male trainee on their way to the teaching profession. The ideals of the protagonists are put to the test in the conflict area of modern educational concepts and everyday school life. Closely observed by the film, and without explanatory commentaries, the film shows how hard it is to put blueprints into practise.”

Hans Günther Pflaum

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

2012-2016

Production Year

2016

color

color

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Documentary

Genre

Biography / Portrait

Topic

Work, Education, School, Psychology

Scope of Rights

Nichtexklusive nichtkommerzielle öffentliche Aufführung (nonexclusive, noncommercial public screening),Keine TV-Rechte (no TV rights)

Notes to the Licence

DCP und BD zusätzlich mit folgenden UT: Tschechisch

Licence Period

14.03.2024

Permanently Restricted Areas

Germany (DE), Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH), Liechtenstein (LI), Alto Adige, Luxembourg (LU)

Available Media

DVD, Blu-ray Disc, DCP

Original Version

German (de)

DVD

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar), Czech (cs)

Blu-ray Disc

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar)

Note on the Format

UT indonesisch;#tschechisch nachtragen

DCP

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Arabic (ar), Indonesisch (id), Czech (cs)

• Zwischen den Stühlen
• Jakob Schmidt
• Zwischen den Stühlen
• Jakob Schmidt