Who ever met Maria will remember, how she was able to crosslink the current situation with other events. No matter how far such events appeared distant in space or time, Maria could establish surprising connexions with a few words.
Her domain was intensively encountering humans ad hoc with all her intuition and emotion, while writing down impressions or thoughts was not Maria's domain. So, how the stories here found representation by scripture, deserves explanation:
During her last year Maria spent much time in bed, however wide-awake and frequently involved in discussions with her husband Walther about everything and anything. At a certain moment Walther said: "In a few years I probably cannot repeat what we are talking now; so let's stop here and I'll write it down." So Walther filled pages of scratch paper during the discussions, transferred them to the computer and Maria enjoyed proof reading.
Only lately Maria agreed to make public the collected texts -- much of the contents she wouln't have told personally to many people mentioned in the texts. Now the written record may reflect the variety and secrets humans carry in themselves.
Belatedly can be stated, that Maria felt in peace with all humans, in particular those mentioned in the stories. May Maria's pleasant laughter resound in the ears of everyone, who reads the stories. Note: We did not translate the texts; they evolved ad-hoc and translation would never be satisfactory. To give an idea, the titles below are translated, however.
Maria left prematurely; so behind some of the titles there are only catchwords, which were not worked out, finally.
Contents
As a starter one story from each domain: family, ancestry. principles of education,
felicitous experiences in school and wishes for the future of school:
Family, closeness and distance
On the farmers of Upper Austria
"A kid is not allowed to will!"
Project week in Leogang
On education of teacher students
What children need to grow up, that is addressed by most stories here; the following
ones concern school as well as family.
Grading, being better and "do somebody down"
How children become independent
Too much physicalness: the balls replacing chairs
Support women with kids
Saint-Exupéry and Theodor Litt
To be a teacher, that was Maria's mission. Her enjoyment in working at school went
over to her pupils and their parents. This joy overrode (most of) the shady sides of school,
which are addressed here explicitly.
Power games instead of service
Independence, outsiders and teachers' salary
Embarrassing failure
Power games under observation
New potentates
(Almost) bullying towards retirement
Stories about the family, who prepaired husband Walther for life and later on
flavoured Maria's family life and education of her kids with tensions, despite best intentions.
The curse of an ancestor
Matrimony in the shadow of war
The firstborn an eccentric
Folk music and "the Love of Life"
Why I don't like celebration of birthdays
And finally some other topics.
Turkey I: archaic und pre-biblical
Being a teacher anytime, anywhere
Money is for living not for saving
What a teacher gets salary for
Moral courage and respect for otherness
Human-to-humam or class conceit ?
Tucholsky and "the best teacher in town"
Epilogue of husband Walther
The bag of velvet in Maria's suitcase