Abitur NRW Englisch 2022 · LK · Nachtermin

Klausurteil A

Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me

The novel by McEwan takes place in an alternate version of the 1980s.

[A]rtificial humans were a cliché long before they arrived, so when they did, they seemed

to some a disappointment. The imagination, fleeter than history, than technological advance,

had already rehearsed this future in books, then films and TV dramas, as if human actors,

walking with a certain glazed look, phony head movements, some stiffness in the lower back,

5 could prepare us for life with our cousins from the future.

I was among the optimists, blessed by unexpected funds following my mother’s death and

the sale of the family home, which turned out to be on a valuable development site. The

first truly viable manufactured human with plausible intelligence and looks, believable

motion and shifts of expression went on sale the week before the Falklands Task Force set off

10 on its hopeless mission. Adam cost £86,000. I brought him home in a hired van to my

unpleasant flat in north Clapham. I’d made a reckless decision, but I was encouraged by

reports that Sir Alan Turing, war hero and presiding genius of the digital age, had taken

delivery of the same model. He probably wanted to have his lab take it apart to examine its

workings fully.

15 Twelve of this first edition were called Adam, thirteen were called Eve. Corny, everyone

agreed, but commercial. Notions of biological race being scientifically discredited, the

twenty-five were designed to cover a range of ethnicities. […] He weighed 170 pounds, so

I had to ask my upstairs neighbour, Miranda, to help me carry him in from the street on the

disposable stretcher that came with the purchase.

20 While his batteries began to charge, I made us coffee then scrolled through the 470-page

online handbook. Its language was mostly clear and precise. But Adam was created across

different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm of a nonsense poem. ‘Unreveal

upside of B 347k vest to gain carefree emoticon with motherboard output to attenuate mood-

swing penumbra.’

25 At last, with cardboard and polystyrene wrapping strewn around his ankles, he sat naked at

my tiny dining table, eyes closed, a black power line trailing from the entry point in his

umbilicus to a thirteen-amp socket in the wall. It would take sixteen hours to fire him up.

Then sessions of download updates and personal preferences. I wanted him now, and so did

Miranda. Like eager young parents, we were avid for his first words. There was no loudspeaker

30 cheaply buried in his chest. We knew from the excited publicity that he formed sounds with

breath, tongue, teeth and palate. Already, his lifelike skin was warm to the touch and as smooth

as a child’s. Miranda claimed to see his eyelashes flicker. I was certain she was seeing

vibrations from the Tube trains rolling a hundred feet below us, but I said nothing. […]

Before us sat the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the triumph of humanism – or its

35 angel of death. Exciting beyond measure, but frustrating too. Sixteen hours was a long time

to be waiting and watching. […]

Would Adam become a bore? It’s not easy, to dictate while trying to ward off a bout of buyer’s

remorse. Surely, other people, other minds, must continue to fascinate us. As artificial people

became more like us, then became us, then became more than us, we could never tire of them.

40 They were bound to surprise us. They might fail us in ways that were beyond our imagining.

Tragedy was a possibility, but not boredom.

What was tedious was the prospect of the user’s guide. Instructions. My prejudice was that

any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not

worth its keep. On an old-fashioned impulse, I was printing out the manual, then looking

45 for a folder. All the while, I continued to dictate emails.

I couldn’t think of myself as Adam’s ‘user’. I’d assumed there was nothing to learn about

him that he could not teach me himself. But the manual in my hands had fallen open at Chapter

Fourteen. Here, the English was plain: preferences; personality parameters. Then a set of

headings – Agreeableness. Extraversion. Openness to experience. Conscientiousness. Emotional

50 stability. The list was familiar to me. The Five Factor model. Educated as I was in the

humanities, I was suspicious of such reductive categories, though I knew from a friend in

psychology that each item had many subgroups. Glancing at the next page I saw that I was

supposed to select various settings on a scale of one to ten.

I’d been expecting a friend. I was ready to treat Adam as a guest in my home, as an unknown I

55 would come to know. I’d thought he would arrive optimally adjusted. Factory settings – a

contemporary synonym for fate. My friends, family and acquaintance, all had appeared in

my life with fixed settings, with unalterable histories of genes and environment. I wanted

my expensive new friend to do the same. Why leave it to me? But of course, I knew the

answer. Not many of us are optimally adjusted. Gentle Jesus? Humble Darwin? One every

60 1,800 years. Even if it knew the best, the least harmful, parameters of personality, which it

couldn’t, a worldwide corporation with a precious reputation couldn’t risk a mishap. Caveat

emptor.

God had once delivered a fully formed companion for the benefit of the original Adam. I had

to devise one for myself. Here was Extraversion and a graded set of childish statements. He

65 loves to be the life and soul of the party and He knows how to entertain people and lead them.

And at the bottom, He feels uncomfortable around other people and He prefers his own

company. Here in the middle was, He likes a good party but he’s always happy to come home.

This was me. But should I be replicating myself?

Annotations:

9

Falklands Task Force – reference to the Falklands War of 1982; unlike in the novel Britain defeated Argentine

11

Clapham – part of London

12

Sir Alan Turing – English mathematician and computer scientist pioneering in the field of Artificial Intelligence

23 – 24

to attenuate mood-swing penumbra – here: to reduce the risk of emotional instability

50

The Five Factor Model – psychological model to describe personalities

59

Darwin – Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), English biologist who is known for the theory of evolution

61 – 62

Caveat emptor (Latin) – the legal principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality of the goods she or he buys

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

1.

Outline the information the extract gives us about Adam.

(Comprehension)

[12 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me

The novel by McEwan takes place in an alternate version of the 1980s.

[A]rtificial humans were a cliché long before they arrived, so when they did, they seemed

to some a disappointment. The imagination, fleeter than history, than technological advance,

had already rehearsed this future in books, then films and TV dramas, as if human actors,

walking with a certain glazed look, phony head movements, some stiffness in the lower back,

5 could prepare us for life with our cousins from the future.

I was among the optimists, blessed by unexpected funds following my mother’s death and

the sale of the family home, which turned out to be on a valuable development site. The

first truly viable manufactured human with plausible intelligence and looks, believable

motion and shifts of expression went on sale the week before the Falklands Task Force set off

10 on its hopeless mission. Adam cost £86,000. I brought him home in a hired van to my

unpleasant flat in north Clapham. I’d made a reckless decision, but I was encouraged by

reports that Sir Alan Turing, war hero and presiding genius of the digital age, had taken

delivery of the same model. He probably wanted to have his lab take it apart to examine its

workings fully.

15 Twelve of this first edition were called Adam, thirteen were called Eve. Corny, everyone

agreed, but commercial. Notions of biological race being scientifically discredited, the

twenty-five were designed to cover a range of ethnicities. […] He weighed 170 pounds, so

I had to ask my upstairs neighbour, Miranda, to help me carry him in from the street on the

disposable stretcher that came with the purchase.

20 While his batteries began to charge, I made us coffee then scrolled through the 470-page

online handbook. Its language was mostly clear and precise. But Adam was created across

different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm of a nonsense poem. ‘Unreveal

upside of B 347k vest to gain carefree emoticon with motherboard output to attenuate mood-

swing penumbra.’

25 At last, with cardboard and polystyrene wrapping strewn around his ankles, he sat naked at

my tiny dining table, eyes closed, a black power line trailing from the entry point in his

umbilicus to a thirteen-amp socket in the wall. It would take sixteen hours to fire him up.

Then sessions of download updates and personal preferences. I wanted him now, and so did

Miranda. Like eager young parents, we were avid for his first words. There was no loudspeaker

30 cheaply buried in his chest. We knew from the excited publicity that he formed sounds with

breath, tongue, teeth and palate. Already, his lifelike skin was warm to the touch and as smooth

as a child’s. Miranda claimed to see his eyelashes flicker. I was certain she was seeing

vibrations from the Tube trains rolling a hundred feet below us, but I said nothing. […]

Before us sat the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the triumph of humanism – or its

35 angel of death. Exciting beyond measure, but frustrating too. Sixteen hours was a long time

to be waiting and watching. […]

Would Adam become a bore? It’s not easy, to dictate while trying to ward off a bout of buyer’s

remorse. Surely, other people, other minds, must continue to fascinate us. As artificial people

became more like us, then became us, then became more than us, we could never tire of them.

40 They were bound to surprise us. They might fail us in ways that were beyond our imagining.

Tragedy was a possibility, but not boredom.

What was tedious was the prospect of the user’s guide. Instructions. My prejudice was that

any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not

worth its keep. On an old-fashioned impulse, I was printing out the manual, then looking

45 for a folder. All the while, I continued to dictate emails.

I couldn’t think of myself as Adam’s ‘user’. I’d assumed there was nothing to learn about

him that he could not teach me himself. But the manual in my hands had fallen open at Chapter

Fourteen. Here, the English was plain: preferences; personality parameters. Then a set of

headings – Agreeableness. Extraversion. Openness to experience. Conscientiousness. Emotional

50 stability. The list was familiar to me. The Five Factor model. Educated as I was in the

humanities, I was suspicious of such reductive categories, though I knew from a friend in

psychology that each item had many subgroups. Glancing at the next page I saw that I was

supposed to select various settings on a scale of one to ten.

I’d been expecting a friend. I was ready to treat Adam as a guest in my home, as an unknown I

55 would come to know. I’d thought he would arrive optimally adjusted. Factory settings – a

contemporary synonym for fate. My friends, family and acquaintance, all had appeared in

my life with fixed settings, with unalterable histories of genes and environment. I wanted

my expensive new friend to do the same. Why leave it to me? But of course, I knew the

answer. Not many of us are optimally adjusted. Gentle Jesus? Humble Darwin? One every

60 1,800 years. Even if it knew the best, the least harmful, parameters of personality, which it

couldn’t, a worldwide corporation with a precious reputation couldn’t risk a mishap. Caveat

emptor.

God had once delivered a fully formed companion for the benefit of the original Adam. I had

to devise one for myself. Here was Extraversion and a graded set of childish statements. He

65 loves to be the life and soul of the party and He knows how to entertain people and lead them.

And at the bottom, He feels uncomfortable around other people and He prefers his own

company. Here in the middle was, He likes a good party but he’s always happy to come home.

This was me. But should I be replicating myself?

Annotations:

9

Falklands Task Force – reference to the Falklands War of 1982; unlike in the novel Britain defeated Argentine

11

Clapham – part of London

12

Sir Alan Turing – English mathematician and computer scientist pioneering in the field of Artificial Intelligence

23 – 24

to attenuate mood-swing penumbra – here: to reduce the risk of emotional instability

50

The Five Factor Model – psychological model to describe personalities

59

Darwin – Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), English biologist who is known for the theory of evolution

61 – 62

Caveat emptor (Latin) – the legal principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality of the goods she or he buys

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

2.

Analyse how the narrator’s state of mind is portrayed, concentrating on the narrative techniques and the language used.

(Analysis)

[16 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me

The novel by McEwan takes place in an alternate version of the 1980s.

[A]rtificial humans were a cliché long before they arrived, so when they did, they seemed

to some a disappointment. The imagination, fleeter than history, than technological advance,

had already rehearsed this future in books, then films and TV dramas, as if human actors,

walking with a certain glazed look, phony head movements, some stiffness in the lower back,

5 could prepare us for life with our cousins from the future.

I was among the optimists, blessed by unexpected funds following my mother’s death and

the sale of the family home, which turned out to be on a valuable development site. The

first truly viable manufactured human with plausible intelligence and looks, believable

motion and shifts of expression went on sale the week before the Falklands Task Force set off

10 on its hopeless mission. Adam cost £86,000. I brought him home in a hired van to my

unpleasant flat in north Clapham. I’d made a reckless decision, but I was encouraged by

reports that Sir Alan Turing, war hero and presiding genius of the digital age, had taken

delivery of the same model. He probably wanted to have his lab take it apart to examine its

workings fully.

15 Twelve of this first edition were called Adam, thirteen were called Eve. Corny, everyone

agreed, but commercial. Notions of biological race being scientifically discredited, the

twenty-five were designed to cover a range of ethnicities. […] He weighed 170 pounds, so

I had to ask my upstairs neighbour, Miranda, to help me carry him in from the street on the

disposable stretcher that came with the purchase.

20 While his batteries began to charge, I made us coffee then scrolled through the 470-page

online handbook. Its language was mostly clear and precise. But Adam was created across

different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm of a nonsense poem. ‘Unreveal

upside of B 347k vest to gain carefree emoticon with motherboard output to attenuate mood-

swing penumbra.’

25 At last, with cardboard and polystyrene wrapping strewn around his ankles, he sat naked at

my tiny dining table, eyes closed, a black power line trailing from the entry point in his

umbilicus to a thirteen-amp socket in the wall. It would take sixteen hours to fire him up.

Then sessions of download updates and personal preferences. I wanted him now, and so did

Miranda. Like eager young parents, we were avid for his first words. There was no loudspeaker

30 cheaply buried in his chest. We knew from the excited publicity that he formed sounds with

breath, tongue, teeth and palate. Already, his lifelike skin was warm to the touch and as smooth

as a child’s. Miranda claimed to see his eyelashes flicker. I was certain she was seeing

vibrations from the Tube trains rolling a hundred feet below us, but I said nothing. […]

Before us sat the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the triumph of humanism – or its

35 angel of death. Exciting beyond measure, but frustrating too. Sixteen hours was a long time

to be waiting and watching. […]

Would Adam become a bore? It’s not easy, to dictate while trying to ward off a bout of buyer’s

remorse. Surely, other people, other minds, must continue to fascinate us. As artificial people

became more like us, then became us, then became more than us, we could never tire of them.

40 They were bound to surprise us. They might fail us in ways that were beyond our imagining.

Tragedy was a possibility, but not boredom.

What was tedious was the prospect of the user’s guide. Instructions. My prejudice was that

any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not

worth its keep. On an old-fashioned impulse, I was printing out the manual, then looking

45 for a folder. All the while, I continued to dictate emails.

I couldn’t think of myself as Adam’s ‘user’. I’d assumed there was nothing to learn about

him that he could not teach me himself. But the manual in my hands had fallen open at Chapter

Fourteen. Here, the English was plain: preferences; personality parameters. Then a set of

headings – Agreeableness. Extraversion. Openness to experience. Conscientiousness. Emotional

50 stability. The list was familiar to me. The Five Factor model. Educated as I was in the

humanities, I was suspicious of such reductive categories, though I knew from a friend in

psychology that each item had many subgroups. Glancing at the next page I saw that I was

supposed to select various settings on a scale of one to ten.

I’d been expecting a friend. I was ready to treat Adam as a guest in my home, as an unknown I

55 would come to know. I’d thought he would arrive optimally adjusted. Factory settings – a

contemporary synonym for fate. My friends, family and acquaintance, all had appeared in

my life with fixed settings, with unalterable histories of genes and environment. I wanted

my expensive new friend to do the same. Why leave it to me? But of course, I knew the

answer. Not many of us are optimally adjusted. Gentle Jesus? Humble Darwin? One every

60 1,800 years. Even if it knew the best, the least harmful, parameters of personality, which it

couldn’t, a worldwide corporation with a precious reputation couldn’t risk a mishap. Caveat

emptor.

God had once delivered a fully formed companion for the benefit of the original Adam. I had

to devise one for myself. Here was Extraversion and a graded set of childish statements. He

65 loves to be the life and soul of the party and He knows how to entertain people and lead them.

And at the bottom, He feels uncomfortable around other people and He prefers his own

company. Here in the middle was, He likes a good party but he’s always happy to come home.

This was me. But should I be replicating myself?

Annotations:

9

Falklands Task Force – reference to the Falklands War of 1982; unlike in the novel Britain defeated Argentine

11

Clapham – part of London

12

Sir Alan Turing – English mathematician and computer scientist pioneering in the field of Artificial Intelligence

23 – 24

to attenuate mood-swing penumbra – here: to reduce the risk of emotional instability

50

The Five Factor Model – psychological model to describe personalities

59

Darwin – Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), English biologist who is known for the theory of evolution

61 – 62

Caveat emptor (Latin) – the legal principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality of the goods she or he buys

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

3.1

On its website, an independent group of academics at the University of Cambridge asserts that “the uncontrolled accumulation of power by technology companies poses major threats to democracy and the planet”. Evaluate this statement.

[Hinweis: Wahlaufgabe 3.1 oder 3.2]

(Evaluation: comment)

[14 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me

The novel by McEwan takes place in an alternate version of the 1980s.

[A]rtificial humans were a cliché long before they arrived, so when they did, they seemed

to some a disappointment. The imagination, fleeter than history, than technological advance,

had already rehearsed this future in books, then films and TV dramas, as if human actors,

walking with a certain glazed look, phony head movements, some stiffness in the lower back,

5 could prepare us for life with our cousins from the future.

I was among the optimists, blessed by unexpected funds following my mother’s death and

the sale of the family home, which turned out to be on a valuable development site. The

first truly viable manufactured human with plausible intelligence and looks, believable

motion and shifts of expression went on sale the week before the Falklands Task Force set off

10 on its hopeless mission. Adam cost £86,000. I brought him home in a hired van to my

unpleasant flat in north Clapham. I’d made a reckless decision, but I was encouraged by

reports that Sir Alan Turing, war hero and presiding genius of the digital age, had taken

delivery of the same model. He probably wanted to have his lab take it apart to examine its

workings fully.

15 Twelve of this first edition were called Adam, thirteen were called Eve. Corny, everyone

agreed, but commercial. Notions of biological race being scientifically discredited, the

twenty-five were designed to cover a range of ethnicities. […] He weighed 170 pounds, so

I had to ask my upstairs neighbour, Miranda, to help me carry him in from the street on the

disposable stretcher that came with the purchase.

20 While his batteries began to charge, I made us coffee then scrolled through the 470-page

online handbook. Its language was mostly clear and precise. But Adam was created across

different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm of a nonsense poem. ‘Unreveal

upside of B 347k vest to gain carefree emoticon with motherboard output to attenuate mood-

swing penumbra.’

25 At last, with cardboard and polystyrene wrapping strewn around his ankles, he sat naked at

my tiny dining table, eyes closed, a black power line trailing from the entry point in his

umbilicus to a thirteen-amp socket in the wall. It would take sixteen hours to fire him up.

Then sessions of download updates and personal preferences. I wanted him now, and so did

Miranda. Like eager young parents, we were avid for his first words. There was no loudspeaker

30 cheaply buried in his chest. We knew from the excited publicity that he formed sounds with

breath, tongue, teeth and palate. Already, his lifelike skin was warm to the touch and as smooth

as a child’s. Miranda claimed to see his eyelashes flicker. I was certain she was seeing

vibrations from the Tube trains rolling a hundred feet below us, but I said nothing. […]

Before us sat the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the triumph of humanism – or its

35 angel of death. Exciting beyond measure, but frustrating too. Sixteen hours was a long time

to be waiting and watching. […]

Would Adam become a bore? It’s not easy, to dictate while trying to ward off a bout of buyer’s

remorse. Surely, other people, other minds, must continue to fascinate us. As artificial people

became more like us, then became us, then became more than us, we could never tire of them.

40 They were bound to surprise us. They might fail us in ways that were beyond our imagining.

Tragedy was a possibility, but not boredom.

What was tedious was the prospect of the user’s guide. Instructions. My prejudice was that

any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not

worth its keep. On an old-fashioned impulse, I was printing out the manual, then looking

45 for a folder. All the while, I continued to dictate emails.

I couldn’t think of myself as Adam’s ‘user’. I’d assumed there was nothing to learn about

him that he could not teach me himself. But the manual in my hands had fallen open at Chapter

Fourteen. Here, the English was plain: preferences; personality parameters. Then a set of

headings – Agreeableness. Extraversion. Openness to experience. Conscientiousness. Emotional

50 stability. The list was familiar to me. The Five Factor model. Educated as I was in the

humanities, I was suspicious of such reductive categories, though I knew from a friend in

psychology that each item had many subgroups. Glancing at the next page I saw that I was

supposed to select various settings on a scale of one to ten.

I’d been expecting a friend. I was ready to treat Adam as a guest in my home, as an unknown I

55 would come to know. I’d thought he would arrive optimally adjusted. Factory settings – a

contemporary synonym for fate. My friends, family and acquaintance, all had appeared in

my life with fixed settings, with unalterable histories of genes and environment. I wanted

my expensive new friend to do the same. Why leave it to me? But of course, I knew the

answer. Not many of us are optimally adjusted. Gentle Jesus? Humble Darwin? One every

60 1,800 years. Even if it knew the best, the least harmful, parameters of personality, which it

couldn’t, a worldwide corporation with a precious reputation couldn’t risk a mishap. Caveat

emptor.

God had once delivered a fully formed companion for the benefit of the original Adam. I had

to devise one for myself. Here was Extraversion and a graded set of childish statements. He

65 loves to be the life and soul of the party and He knows how to entertain people and lead them.

And at the bottom, He feels uncomfortable around other people and He prefers his own

company. Here in the middle was, He likes a good party but he’s always happy to come home.

This was me. But should I be replicating myself?

Annotations:

9

Falklands Task Force – reference to the Falklands War of 1982; unlike in the novel Britain defeated Argentine

11

Clapham – part of London

12

Sir Alan Turing – English mathematician and computer scientist pioneering in the field of Artificial Intelligence

23 – 24

to attenuate mood-swing penumbra – here: to reduce the risk of emotional instability

50

The Five Factor Model – psychological model to describe personalities

59

Darwin – Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), English biologist who is known for the theory of evolution

61 – 62

Caveat emptor (Latin) – the legal principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality of the goods she or he buys

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

3.2

Your English class is working on a project to put together a reader about literary visions of the future. The extract from McEwan’s Machines Like Me is one of the texts under consideration for this reader. Write a debate statement in which you take a position for or against including this text.

[Hinweis: Wahlaufgabe 3.1 oder 3.2]

(Evaluation: re-creation of text)

[14 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me

The novel by McEwan takes place in an alternate version of the 1980s.

[A]rtificial humans were a cliché long before they arrived, so when they did, they seemed

to some a disappointment. The imagination, fleeter than history, than technological advance,

had already rehearsed this future in books, then films and TV dramas, as if human actors,

walking with a certain glazed look, phony head movements, some stiffness in the lower back,

5 could prepare us for life with our cousins from the future.

I was among the optimists, blessed by unexpected funds following my mother’s death and

the sale of the family home, which turned out to be on a valuable development site. The

first truly viable manufactured human with plausible intelligence and looks, believable

motion and shifts of expression went on sale the week before the Falklands Task Force set off

10 on its hopeless mission. Adam cost £86,000. I brought him home in a hired van to my

unpleasant flat in north Clapham. I’d made a reckless decision, but I was encouraged by

reports that Sir Alan Turing, war hero and presiding genius of the digital age, had taken

delivery of the same model. He probably wanted to have his lab take it apart to examine its

workings fully.

15 Twelve of this first edition were called Adam, thirteen were called Eve. Corny, everyone

agreed, but commercial. Notions of biological race being scientifically discredited, the

twenty-five were designed to cover a range of ethnicities. […] He weighed 170 pounds, so

I had to ask my upstairs neighbour, Miranda, to help me carry him in from the street on the

disposable stretcher that came with the purchase.

20 While his batteries began to charge, I made us coffee then scrolled through the 470-page

online handbook. Its language was mostly clear and precise. But Adam was created across

different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm of a nonsense poem. ‘Unreveal

upside of B 347k vest to gain carefree emoticon with motherboard output to attenuate mood-

swing penumbra.’

25 At last, with cardboard and polystyrene wrapping strewn around his ankles, he sat naked at

my tiny dining table, eyes closed, a black power line trailing from the entry point in his

umbilicus to a thirteen-amp socket in the wall. It would take sixteen hours to fire him up.

Then sessions of download updates and personal preferences. I wanted him now, and so did

Miranda. Like eager young parents, we were avid for his first words. There was no loudspeaker

30 cheaply buried in his chest. We knew from the excited publicity that he formed sounds with

breath, tongue, teeth and palate. Already, his lifelike skin was warm to the touch and as smooth

as a child’s. Miranda claimed to see his eyelashes flicker. I was certain she was seeing

vibrations from the Tube trains rolling a hundred feet below us, but I said nothing. […]

Before us sat the ultimate plaything, the dream of ages, the triumph of humanism – or its

35 angel of death. Exciting beyond measure, but frustrating too. Sixteen hours was a long time

to be waiting and watching. […]

Would Adam become a bore? It’s not easy, to dictate while trying to ward off a bout of buyer’s

remorse. Surely, other people, other minds, must continue to fascinate us. As artificial people

became more like us, then became us, then became more than us, we could never tire of them.

40 They were bound to surprise us. They might fail us in ways that were beyond our imagining.

Tragedy was a possibility, but not boredom.

What was tedious was the prospect of the user’s guide. Instructions. My prejudice was that

any machine that could not tell you by its very functioning how it should be used was not

worth its keep. On an old-fashioned impulse, I was printing out the manual, then looking

45 for a folder. All the while, I continued to dictate emails.

I couldn’t think of myself as Adam’s ‘user’. I’d assumed there was nothing to learn about

him that he could not teach me himself. But the manual in my hands had fallen open at Chapter

Fourteen. Here, the English was plain: preferences; personality parameters. Then a set of

headings – Agreeableness. Extraversion. Openness to experience. Conscientiousness. Emotional

50 stability. The list was familiar to me. The Five Factor model. Educated as I was in the

humanities, I was suspicious of such reductive categories, though I knew from a friend in

psychology that each item had many subgroups. Glancing at the next page I saw that I was

supposed to select various settings on a scale of one to ten.

I’d been expecting a friend. I was ready to treat Adam as a guest in my home, as an unknown I

55 would come to know. I’d thought he would arrive optimally adjusted. Factory settings – a

contemporary synonym for fate. My friends, family and acquaintance, all had appeared in

my life with fixed settings, with unalterable histories of genes and environment. I wanted

my expensive new friend to do the same. Why leave it to me? But of course, I knew the

answer. Not many of us are optimally adjusted. Gentle Jesus? Humble Darwin? One every

60 1,800 years. Even if it knew the best, the least harmful, parameters of personality, which it

couldn’t, a worldwide corporation with a precious reputation couldn’t risk a mishap. Caveat

emptor.

God had once delivered a fully formed companion for the benefit of the original Adam. I had

to devise one for myself. Here was Extraversion and a graded set of childish statements. He

65 loves to be the life and soul of the party and He knows how to entertain people and lead them.

And at the bottom, He feels uncomfortable around other people and He prefers his own

company. Here in the middle was, He likes a good party but he’s always happy to come home.

This was me. But should I be replicating myself?

Annotations:

9

Falklands Task Force – reference to the Falklands War of 1982; unlike in the novel Britain defeated Argentine

11

Clapham – part of London

12

Sir Alan Turing – English mathematician and computer scientist pioneering in the field of Artificial Intelligence

23 – 24

to attenuate mood-swing penumbra – here: to reduce the risk of emotional instability

50

The Five Factor Model – psychological model to describe personalities

59

Darwin – Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882), English biologist who is known for the theory of evolution

61 – 62

Caveat emptor (Latin) – the legal principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality of the goods she or he buys

Klausurteil B: Sprachmittlung isoliert

4. You are part of an e-Twinning project about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our daily lives. Together with your partner from a British school, you plan to give a presentation on how AI is used in education. While researching, you have found an article about the programme Area9.

Using Claudia Euen's article as a basis, write an email to your e-Twinning partner in which you present the German government's initiative as well as the programme Area9.

Textgrundlage: Claudia Euen: »Künstliche Intelligenz im Unterricht / Testphase soll Einsatzmöglichkeiten aufzeigen«

Mathematikunterricht am Gerda-Taro-Gymnasium in Leipzig. Schüler der 10. Klasse bearbeiten ihre Schulaufgaben am Computer. Seit ein paar Wochen testen die Schüler das neue Programm Area9, in dem Künstliche Intelligenz zum Einsatz kommt.

„Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Median und dem arithmetischen Mittel?“, fragt die Computerstimme von Area9. Nachdem die Schüler die Aufgabe gelöst haben, schätzen sie ihr Ergebnis selbst ein, erklärt Mathe-Lehrerin Sabine Baumbach:

„Das Neue daran, sage ich als Schüler: Ich bin mir sicher oder ich hab keine Ahnung. Ich sag jetzt mal: ich habe keine Ahnung. Und dann wird das Ganze ausgewertet und ich kann mir die Lösung anzeigen lassen. Und dann können wir im Auswertungstool sehen, wie viele Schüler in welchem Bereich sind.“

Die Schülerinnen und Schüler können also anklicken, wie sicher sie sich sind, dass ihr Ergebnis auch stimmt. Im Hintergrund des Programms läuft ein Algorithmus, der speziell auf das Lernen einer 10. Klasse abgestimmt wurde. Laut der Entwicklerfirma passt das Programm das Niveau der Aufgaben für jede Schülerin und jeden Schüler individuell an, in Echtzeit. Es merkt sich den Lernweg, erkennt selbstständig, wann der Schüler einen Lernbereich verstanden hat, und generiert danach die nächsten Aufgaben. So soll in Zukunft, mittels Künstlicher Intelligenz, eine Eins-zu-Eins-Betreuung möglich sein – ohne dass Lehrkräfte wie Sabine Baumbach noch eingreifen müssen. Über das Auswertungstool erfahren sie, wo die Schüler mit ihrem Wissen genau stehen.

Seit mehreren Wochen ist das neue Programm mit zwei unterschiedlichen Modulen im Test.

„Wir haben zwei Module bekommen: einmal ‚das globale Dorf‘, das ist ein Gesamtüberblick über Geografie und Mathematik. Und ein Tool nur zur Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung. Und dann ist für die Lehrkraft das Neue, dass man nicht nur sieht: Okay, 20 Schüler haben das richtig beantwortet. Sondern 20 Schüler haben das richtig beantwortet und sind sich auch sicher, dass sie es richtig beantwortet haben.“

Die KI-Module sollen zwei Dinge schaffen: Erstens der Lehrerin schnell einen Überblick über den Leistungsstand ihrer Klasse verschaffen. Zudem bekommen die Schüler nach und nach Aufgaben, die genau ihrem Leistungsniveau entsprechen. Leander, 16 Jahre, testet mit.

„Ich habe das globale Dorf im Anfängermodus gemacht. Und da wird sehr viel erklärt, von Grundinhalten bis zu den Inhalten der Fragen. Und dann hab ich das Mathe-Modul in Experte gemacht und da wird man direkt in die Fragen geworfen. An sich finde ich die Inhalte gut erklärt. Aber wenn man Fragen hat, dann fehlt halt dieser direkte Ansprechpartner, der einem das noch einmal erklärt. Weil das kann halt diese Künstliche Intelligenz nicht.“

Doch genau dahin soll es in Zukunft gehen. Noch steckt die ursprünglich in Dänemark entwickelte Software allerdings in den Kinderschuhen, zumindest in Deutschland. Der jetzige Testlauf in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Sachsen soll erst einmal klären, in welchem Umfang künstliche Intelligenz den Unterricht bereichern und Lehrer aktiv unterstützen kann. Und ob das nur in naturwissenschaftlichen Fächern funktioniert oder auch in geisteswissenschaftlichen.

Die Testphase läuft noch bis Ende dieses Monats in sechs sächsischen Schulen, dann erfolgt laut Herbert Wolff, Staatssekretär im sächsischen Kultusministerium, die Auswertung mit einer Empfehlung an die Kultusminister aller Bundesländer.

„Hintergrund war: Man wollte sowohl in Zeiten des Präsenzunterrichts wie auch in Zeiten, in denen man nur auf Distanz unterrichten kann, die Sicherstellung des Unterrichts insgesamt gewährleisten und den Schülern Anregungen und Hilfestellungen geben. Die Kultusminister der Länder haben gesagt: Wir wollen zunächst einmal eine Markterforschung machen. Wir wollen natürlich den Lehrer entlasten, wir wollen ihnen Hilfestellungen geben, wo Schwächen eines Schülers sind oder wo Stärken sind. Es soll ihn aber niemals ersetzen.“

Mathe-Lehrerin Sabine Baumbach freut beides.

Anmerkung: Die Sprachrichtigkeit betreffende Fehler im Originaltext wurden berichtigt.

Klausurteil A

Hamilton Nolan

Down With the British Monarchy

A recent interview you may have heard about revealed that the British monarchy is a toxic den

of backbiting and racism. And who would doubt it? There is nothing easier to believe than that

an institution created to be the physical embodiment of classism is awash in inhumanity.

Where the public response to this humdrum revelation has gone astray is in the widespread

5 conviction that we should make the monarchy better. Not at all. You cannot turn a bottle of

poison into a refreshing drink, no matter how much sugar you pour into it.

A just and proper response to what we have learned would be for the entire United Kingdom

to come together, join hands in a great circle around the institution of the monarchy and

burn it to the ground, while singing “Sweet Caroline”, to maintain a positive spirit. Then

10 the members of the royal family can sweep up the ashes and deposit them neatly in the bin,

a ceremonial beginning to a new life of working for a living.

The existence of a monarchy is an admission that a government can’t, or doesn’t care to, solve

people’s problems. Instead, it offers spectacle. It has always been easier to elevate one family

to a fairy-tale life of luxury than to do the dreary work of elevating every single family to a

15 decent standard of living. The common people fund the lifestyle of a tiny, exalted and

thoroughly unworthy elite, rather than the other way around. Any nation that still has a

monarchy in 2021 is proving itself to have a mortifying lack of revolutionary gumption.

America is guilty of many crimes against humanity, but this is one thing we got right. Our

presidents may be national embarrassments, but at least Americans are not required to scrape

20 and bow before some utterly random rich wastrel whose claim to legitimacy is being the

child of the child of the child of someone who was, centuries ago, the nation’s biggest gangster.

Yes, we have our own hypnotic capitalist addiction to celebrity, but monarchy is something

altogether more twisted […].

What is a monarchy if not the highest veneration of inequality? Based not on moral worth

25 but on accidents of heredity, a small group of people are lavished with millions of dollars

skimmed from the public till and are worshiped as sentimental nationalist gods, in exchange

only for performing the duty of “being pleasant in public,” which they do with mixed success.

More than 60 million citizens, many of them living in poverty, are instructed to celebrate

rather than to loathe this tableau of excess. They are told to be happy that someone has a

30 dream life, even if it is not them […].

And that plan appears to be working: More than four in five British adults have a positive

view of the queen. The appeal of fancy hats is hard to overcome.

The stars of this insipid show will change with time. New princes and princesses will be

born, opulent weddings will be had, different coddled butts will get their turn to sit on the

35 cushioned throne. These machinations, each of them designed to occupy the public’s attention

for a while, are just the scrambling of termites atop the enormous nest that is the monarchy

itself. It feeds on the vigor of the working people and regurgitates it into a giant home for

itself.

Abolishing the monarchy shouldn’t be too tricky. First you take away their homes. Then

40 you take away their wealth. Then you take away their titles. All of those things properly

belong to the public, and those squatters have held them for far too long.

The good news for the royal family is that the economy seems to be on the rebound. It shouldn’t

be too hard for them to find jobs, even considering their lack of practical experience. They

could get honorable jobs at a Tesco market. What a wonderful opportunity for them to earn

45 an honest living, for the first time in their lives. As our social betters often tell the rest of us,

hard work is good for self-esteem. I expect that they will soon be happier than ever.

Annotations:

1 … interview you may have heard about… – reference to an interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan in which she criticised the way she was treated by members of the royal family

3 classism – here: discrimination on the basis of social class

9 Sweet Caroline – popular American song

17 gumption – courage and strength of mind

20 wastrel – person who does nothing positive with their life, making no use of their abilities or opportunities offered to them

29 tableau – here: scene, display

34 coddled – treated with too much care and attention

44 Tesco – multinational British supermarket chain

Grafische Darstellungen (Diagramme)

In 2021, the British market research firm Ipsos MORI surveyed a representative group of adults between the ages of 18 and 75 across Great Britain.

The Royal Family makes me think the UK is...?

Which of the following, if any, do you associate more with the United Kingdom because of the Royal Family? Please pick all that apply where the Royal Family makes a difference to your views.

The Royal Family makes me think the United Kingdom is.....

The future of the British Monarchy

On balance, do you think it would be better or worse for Britain in the future if the Monarchy was abolished, or do you think it would make no difference?

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

1. Outline how the British monarchy is viewed according to Hamilton Nolan's article and the Ipsos MORI poll. (Comprehension) [12 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

Hamilton Nolan

Down With the British Monarchy

A recent interview you may have heard about revealed that the British monarchy is a toxic den

of backbiting and racism. And who would doubt it? There is nothing easier to believe than that

an institution created to be the physical embodiment of classism is awash in inhumanity.

Where the public response to this humdrum revelation has gone astray is in the widespread

5 conviction that we should make the monarchy better. Not at all. You cannot turn a bottle of

poison into a refreshing drink, no matter how much sugar you pour into it.

A just and proper response to what we have learned would be for the entire United Kingdom

to come together, join hands in a great circle around the institution of the monarchy and

burn it to the ground, while singing “Sweet Caroline”, to maintain a positive spirit. Then

10 the members of the royal family can sweep up the ashes and deposit them neatly in the bin,

a ceremonial beginning to a new life of working for a living.

The existence of a monarchy is an admission that a government can’t, or doesn’t care to, solve

people’s problems. Instead, it offers spectacle. It has always been easier to elevate one family

to a fairy-tale life of luxury than to do the dreary work of elevating every single family to a

15 decent standard of living. The common people fund the lifestyle of a tiny, exalted and

thoroughly unworthy elite, rather than the other way around. Any nation that still has a

monarchy in 2021 is proving itself to have a mortifying lack of revolutionary gumption.

America is guilty of many crimes against humanity, but this is one thing we got right. Our

presidents may be national embarrassments, but at least Americans are not required to scrape

20 and bow before some utterly random rich wastrel whose claim to legitimacy is being the

child of the child of the child of someone who was, centuries ago, the nation’s biggest gangster.

Yes, we have our own hypnotic capitalist addiction to celebrity, but monarchy is something

altogether more twisted […].

What is a monarchy if not the highest veneration of inequality? Based not on moral worth

25 but on accidents of heredity, a small group of people are lavished with millions of dollars

skimmed from the public till and are worshiped as sentimental nationalist gods, in exchange

only for performing the duty of “being pleasant in public,” which they do with mixed success.

More than 60 million citizens, many of them living in poverty, are instructed to celebrate

rather than to loathe this tableau of excess. They are told to be happy that someone has a

30 dream life, even if it is not them […].

And that plan appears to be working: More than four in five British adults have a positive

view of the queen. The appeal of fancy hats is hard to overcome.

The stars of this insipid show will change with time. New princes and princesses will be

born, opulent weddings will be had, different coddled butts will get their turn to sit on the

35 cushioned throne. These machinations, each of them designed to occupy the public’s attention

for a while, are just the scrambling of termites atop the enormous nest that is the monarchy

itself. It feeds on the vigor of the working people and regurgitates it into a giant home for

itself.

Abolishing the monarchy shouldn’t be too tricky. First you take away their homes. Then

40 you take away their wealth. Then you take away their titles. All of those things properly

belong to the public, and those squatters have held them for far too long.

The good news for the royal family is that the economy seems to be on the rebound. It shouldn’t

be too hard for them to find jobs, even considering their lack of practical experience. They

could get honorable jobs at a Tesco market. What a wonderful opportunity for them to earn

45 an honest living, for the first time in their lives. As our social betters often tell the rest of us,

hard work is good for self-esteem. I expect that they will soon be happier than ever.

Annotations:

1 … interview you may have heard about… – reference to an interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan in which she criticised the way she was treated by members of the royal family

3 classism – here: discrimination on the basis of social class

9 Sweet Caroline – popular American song

17 gumption – courage and strength of mind

20 wastrel – person who does nothing positive with their life, making no use of their abilities or opportunities offered to them

29 tableau – here: scene, display

34 coddled – treated with too much care and attention

44 Tesco – multinational British supermarket chain

Grafische Darstellungen (Diagramme)

In 2021, the British market research firm Ipsos MORI surveyed a representative group of adults between the ages of 18 and 75 across Great Britain.

The Royal Family makes me think the UK is...?

Which of the following, if any, do you associate more with the United Kingdom because of the Royal Family? Please pick all that apply where the Royal Family makes a difference to your views.

The Royal Family makes me think the United Kingdom is.....

The future of the British Monarchy

On balance, do you think it would be better or worse for Britain in the future if the Monarchy was abolished, or do you think it would make no difference?

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

2. Analyse the way in which Hamilton Nolan conveys his opinions about the British monarchy in his article, paying particular attention to communicative strategies and the use of language. (Analysis) [16 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

Hamilton Nolan

Down With the British Monarchy

A recent interview you may have heard about revealed that the British monarchy is a toxic den

of backbiting and racism. And who would doubt it? There is nothing easier to believe than that

an institution created to be the physical embodiment of classism is awash in inhumanity.

Where the public response to this humdrum revelation has gone astray is in the widespread

5 conviction that we should make the monarchy better. Not at all. You cannot turn a bottle of

poison into a refreshing drink, no matter how much sugar you pour into it.

A just and proper response to what we have learned would be for the entire United Kingdom

to come together, join hands in a great circle around the institution of the monarchy and

burn it to the ground, while singing “Sweet Caroline”, to maintain a positive spirit. Then

10 the members of the royal family can sweep up the ashes and deposit them neatly in the bin,

a ceremonial beginning to a new life of working for a living.

The existence of a monarchy is an admission that a government can’t, or doesn’t care to, solve

people’s problems. Instead, it offers spectacle. It has always been easier to elevate one family

to a fairy-tale life of luxury than to do the dreary work of elevating every single family to a

15 decent standard of living. The common people fund the lifestyle of a tiny, exalted and

thoroughly unworthy elite, rather than the other way around. Any nation that still has a

monarchy in 2021 is proving itself to have a mortifying lack of revolutionary gumption.

America is guilty of many crimes against humanity, but this is one thing we got right. Our

presidents may be national embarrassments, but at least Americans are not required to scrape

20 and bow before some utterly random rich wastrel whose claim to legitimacy is being the

child of the child of the child of someone who was, centuries ago, the nation’s biggest gangster.

Yes, we have our own hypnotic capitalist addiction to celebrity, but monarchy is something

altogether more twisted […].

What is a monarchy if not the highest veneration of inequality? Based not on moral worth

25 but on accidents of heredity, a small group of people are lavished with millions of dollars

skimmed from the public till and are worshiped as sentimental nationalist gods, in exchange

only for performing the duty of “being pleasant in public,” which they do with mixed success.

More than 60 million citizens, many of them living in poverty, are instructed to celebrate

rather than to loathe this tableau of excess. They are told to be happy that someone has a

30 dream life, even if it is not them […].

And that plan appears to be working: More than four in five British adults have a positive

view of the queen. The appeal of fancy hats is hard to overcome.

The stars of this insipid show will change with time. New princes and princesses will be

born, opulent weddings will be had, different coddled butts will get their turn to sit on the

35 cushioned throne. These machinations, each of them designed to occupy the public’s attention

for a while, are just the scrambling of termites atop the enormous nest that is the monarchy

itself. It feeds on the vigor of the working people and regurgitates it into a giant home for

itself.

Abolishing the monarchy shouldn’t be too tricky. First you take away their homes. Then

40 you take away their wealth. Then you take away their titles. All of those things properly

belong to the public, and those squatters have held them for far too long.

The good news for the royal family is that the economy seems to be on the rebound. It shouldn’t

be too hard for them to find jobs, even considering their lack of practical experience. They

could get honorable jobs at a Tesco market. What a wonderful opportunity for them to earn

45 an honest living, for the first time in their lives. As our social betters often tell the rest of us,

hard work is good for self-esteem. I expect that they will soon be happier than ever.

Annotations:

1 … interview you may have heard about… – reference to an interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan in which she criticised the way she was treated by members of the royal family

3 classism – here: discrimination on the basis of social class

9 Sweet Caroline – popular American song

17 gumption – courage and strength of mind

20 wastrel – person who does nothing positive with their life, making no use of their abilities or opportunities offered to them

29 tableau – here: scene, display

34 coddled – treated with too much care and attention

44 Tesco – multinational British supermarket chain

Grafische Darstellungen (Diagramme)

In 2021, the British market research firm Ipsos MORI surveyed a representative group of adults between the ages of 18 and 75 across Great Britain.

The Royal Family makes me think the UK is...?

Which of the following, if any, do you associate more with the United Kingdom because of the Royal Family? Please pick all that apply where the Royal Family makes a difference to your views.

The Royal Family makes me think the United Kingdom is.....

The future of the British Monarchy

On balance, do you think it would be better or worse for Britain in the future if the Monarchy was abolished, or do you think it would make no difference?

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

Select one of the tasks below:

3.1 Assess how relevant the monarchy and the royal family are to national identity in Britain today, a multicultural society. Draw on the text, the poll and what you have covered in class. (Evaluation: comment) [14 Punkte]

3.2

During her speech at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Queen Elizabeth II called on world leaders to leave “this conference as a community of nations with a determination, a desire, and a plan, to address the impact of climate change; and to recognise that the time for words has now moved to the time for action.”

As a participant in the international online project Shaping The World Of Tomorrow, you write an article in which you comment on the Queen’s statement.

(Evaluation: re-creation of text) [14 Punkte]

Klausurteil B: Sprachmittlung isoliert

You belong to the youth organisation of a German political party and have been invited to attend an international conference in London on The Future of Democracy. During a panel discussion, you are to present how young Germans view political engagement and political parties, as well as the ways of improving the situation that Johannes Kulms describes. Write the script for your speech.

Klausurteil A

Hamilton Nolan

Down With the British Monarchy

A recent interview you may have heard about revealed that the British monarchy is a toxic den

of backbiting and racism. And who would doubt it? There is nothing easier to believe than that

an institution created to be the physical embodiment of classism is awash in inhumanity.

Where the public response to this humdrum revelation has gone astray is in the widespread

5 conviction that we should make the monarchy better. Not at all. You cannot turn a bottle of

poison into a refreshing drink, no matter how much sugar you pour into it.

A just and proper response to what we have learned would be for the entire United Kingdom

to come together, join hands in a great circle around the institution of the monarchy and

burn it to the ground, while singing “Sweet Caroline”, to maintain a positive spirit. Then

10 the members of the royal family can sweep up the ashes and deposit them neatly in the bin,

a ceremonial beginning to a new life of working for a living.

The existence of a monarchy is an admission that a government can’t, or doesn’t care to, solve

people’s problems. Instead, it offers spectacle. It has always been easier to elevate one family

to a fairy-tale life of luxury than to do the dreary work of elevating every single family to a

15 decent standard of living. The common people fund the lifestyle of a tiny, exalted and

thoroughly unworthy elite, rather than the other way around. Any nation that still has a

monarchy in 2021 is proving itself to have a mortifying lack of revolutionary gumption.

America is guilty of many crimes against humanity, but this is one thing we got right. Our

presidents may be national embarrassments, but at least Americans are not required to scrape

20 and bow before some utterly random rich wastrel whose claim to legitimacy is being the

child of the child of the child of someone who was, centuries ago, the nation’s biggest gangster.

Yes, we have our own hypnotic capitalist addiction to celebrity, but monarchy is something

altogether more twisted […].

What is a monarchy if not the highest veneration of inequality? Based not on moral worth

25 but on accidents of heredity, a small group of people are lavished with millions of dollars

skimmed from the public till and are worshiped as sentimental nationalist gods, in exchange

only for performing the duty of “being pleasant in public,” which they do with mixed success.

More than 60 million citizens, many of them living in poverty, are instructed to celebrate

rather than to loathe this tableau of excess. They are told to be happy that someone has a

30 dream life, even if it is not them […].

And that plan appears to be working: More than four in five British adults have a positive

view of the queen. The appeal of fancy hats is hard to overcome.

The stars of this insipid show will change with time. New princes and princesses will be

born, opulent weddings will be had, different coddled butts will get their turn to sit on the

35 cushioned throne. These machinations, each of them designed to occupy the public’s attention

for a while, are just the scrambling of termites atop the enormous nest that is the monarchy

itself. It feeds on the vigor of the working people and regurgitates it into a giant home for

itself.

Abolishing the monarchy shouldn’t be too tricky. First you take away their homes. Then

40 you take away their wealth. Then you take away their titles. All of those things properly

belong to the public, and those squatters have held them for far too long.

The good news for the royal family is that the economy seems to be on the rebound. It shouldn’t

be too hard for them to find jobs, even considering their lack of practical experience. They

could get honorable jobs at a Tesco market. What a wonderful opportunity for them to earn

45 an honest living, for the first time in their lives. As our social betters often tell the rest of us,

hard work is good for self-esteem. I expect that they will soon be happier than ever.

Annotations:

1 … interview you may have heard about… – reference to an interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan in which she criticised the way she was treated by members of the royal family

3 classism – here: discrimination on the basis of social class

9 Sweet Caroline – popular American song

17 gumption – courage and strength of mind

20 wastrel – person who does nothing positive with their life, making no use of their abilities or opportunities offered to them

29 tableau – here: scene, display

34 coddled – treated with too much care and attention

44 Tesco – multinational British supermarket chain

Grafische Darstellungen (Diagramme)

In 2021, the British market research firm Ipsos MORI surveyed a representative group of adults between the ages of 18 and 75 across Great Britain.

The Royal Family makes me think the UK is...?

Which of the following, if any, do you associate more with the United Kingdom because of the Royal Family? Please pick all that apply where the Royal Family makes a difference to your views.

The Royal Family makes me think the United Kingdom is.....

The future of the British Monarchy

On balance, do you think it would be better or worse for Britain in the future if the Monarchy was abolished, or do you think it would make no difference?

Der Nachwuchs misstraut den Parteien

Die Jugend ist politisiert. Das zeigt auch der Erfolg von Fridays for Future. Dennoch müssen Parteien sich weiter Nachwuchssorgen machen. Die Skepsis der Jungen der etablierten Politik gegenüber bleibt – auch in der Pandemie gab es Enttäuschungen.

In Kiel werden Kinder und Jugendliche von der Politik gehört. Finden zumindest Emma Louisa Döhler und Yasin Söbütay. Die beiden Teenager sind Mitglieder des Jungen Rates. Das Gremium ist die Interessenvertretung der Kinder und Jugendlichen in der Stadt und hat 17 Mitglieder. Einmal im Monat ist Sitzung, sagt die 19-jährige Ratsvorsitzende Emma. […] Der 18-jährige Yasin ist zufrieden: „Also, Kiel hat sich sehr gut gewendet, wir haben viele Projekte, die wir auch weiter unterstützen. Wir arbeiten auch viel mit der Stadt zusammen.“

Beide Jugendlichen haben gelernt: Neben guten Ideen braucht es viel Zeit und Geduld, um politische Entscheidungen zu treffen. Der Junge Rat bietet ihnen auf Kiel Stadtebene einen Ort dafür.

Ganz anders sieht es aus beim Blick auf die Landes- und Bundesebene. Hier hat gerade die Corona-Pandemie den beiden Jugendlichen zuletzt das Gefühl gegeben, machtlos und ungehört zu bleiben. […]

Immerhin: Als Vorsitzende des Jungen Rates wurde Emma Louisa Döhler zu einer Anhörung im Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landtag eingeladen. Doch weder sie noch ihr Junger-Rats-Kollege Yasin fühlen sich derzeit einer speziellen Partei verbunden, geschweige denn sind dort Mitglied. Auch um sie werden die Politikerinnen und Politiker in den Parlamenten also buhlen müssen.

Innerhalb der letzten drei Jahrzehnte hat sich sowohl bei der SPD wie auch der CDU die Mitgliederzahl halbiert. Derzeit bewegen sich beide Parteien nahe der Marke von 400.000 Mitgliedern. Wie aber lassen sich junge Menschen heute noch für Politik und Parteien begeistern? […]

Mathias Albert ist Professor für Politikwissenschaft an der Universität Bielefeld. Er sagt: Der Mitgliederschwund sei bei den großen Volksparteien womöglich etwas gebremst. „Aber er ist weiterhin da.“

Ein Patentrezept zur Sicherung des politischen Nachwuchses gebe es nicht. Albert skizziert stattdessen kleinere Schritte, die aus seiner Sicht den Parteien helfen könnten: jüngeres Führungspersonal. Oder die Absenkung des Wahlalters auf 16 Jahre.

Auch thematisch rät der Bielefelder Politikwissenschaftler zur Nachsteuerung: „Das ist auf der einen Seite natürlich die Frage Klimawandel. Das ist und bleibt ein,Top on the list‘ der Zukunftsängste. Aber da ist es ja jetzt auch eher so, dass wir keinen Mangel haben an Parteien, die versuchen, sich darüber zu profilieren.“

Doch die Corona-Krise habe auch sehr große Rückstände im deutschen Bildungs- und Schulsystem offen gelegt genauso wie bei der Digitalisierung.

Als Wissenschaftler ist Albert schon lange an der Shell-Jugendstudie beteiligt, die als eine der wichtigsten Untersuchungen gilt zu der Frage, wie Menschen zwischen 12 und 25 Jahren ticken. Die letzte Shell-Studie wurde im Herbst 2019 vorgestellt.

Sie bestätigte das zuvor schon gewachsene Interesse der Jugendlichen an Politik. Drei Viertel der Befragten gaben an, mit der Demokratie zufrieden zu sein. Anderseits befanden zwei Drittel, dass sich die Politik zu wenig um die Interessen der Jugendlichen kümmere.

Die wirtschaftlichen Ängste seien in der Corona-Pandemie bei jungen Menschen gestiegen, sagt Albert. Wie stark sich das Gefühl der politischen Ohnmacht und des nicht beachtet Seins bei der jungen Generation halten werden, kann er noch nicht sagen.

„Was nicht zu erwarten steht, ist, dass sich an dieser grundsätzlichen Parteienverdrossenheit etwas ändert. Die den Parteien zugeschriebenen Problemlösungskompetenzen sind einfach gering. Und was die sogenannte Politikerverdrossenheit angeht, da wird man sehen“, sagt der Politologe.

Klausurteil A

George Monbiot

Coronavirus shows us it’s time to rethink everything. Let’s start with education

Imagine mentioning William Shakespeare to a university graduate and discovering they had

never heard of him. You would be incredulous. But it’s common and acceptable not to know

what an arthropod is, or a vertebrate, or to be unable to explain the difference between an

insect and spider. No one is embarrassed when a “well-educated” person cannot provide even

5 a rough explanation of the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle or the water cycle, or of how

soils form.

All this is knowledge as basic as being aware that Shakespeare was a playwright. Yet ignorance

of such earthy matters sometimes seems to be worn as a badge of sophistication. I love

Shakespeare, and I believe the world would be a poorer and a sadder place without him. But

10 we would survive. The issues about which most people live in ignorance are, by contrast,

matters of life and death.

I don’t blame anyone for not knowing. This is a collective failure: a crashing lapse in education,

that is designed for a world in which we no longer live. The way we are taught misleads us

about who we are and where we stand. In mainstream economics, for example, humankind is

15 at the centre of the universe, and the constraints of the natural world are either invisible or

marginal to the models.

In an age in which we urgently need to cooperate, we are educated for individual success in

competition with others. Governments tell us that the purpose of education is to get ahead

of other people or, collectively, of other nations. The success of universities is measured partly

20 by the starting salaries of their graduates. But nobody wins the human race. What we are

encouraged to see as economic success ultimately means planetary ruin.

Large numbers of people now reject this approach to learning – and to life. A survey reported

this week suggests that six out of 10 people in the UK want the government to prioritise

health and wellbeing ahead of growth when we emerge from the pandemic. This is one of

25 the most hopeful results I have seen in years.

I believe that education should work outwards from our principal challenges and aims. This

doesn’t mean we should forget Shakespeare, or the other wonders of art and culture, but that

the matters crucial to our continued survival are given the weight they deserve. During the

lockdown, I’ve been doing something I’ve long dreamed about: experimenting with an

30 ecological education.

I can’t claim to have found it easy, or to have got it all right. As millions of parents have

discovered, there’s a reason why people undergo years of specialist education and training

before qualifying as teachers. Persuading children to see you as a parent one moment and a

teacher the next is especially challenging. But, working with an eight- and a nine-year-old

35 (my youngest daughter and her best friend), I’ve begun to discover that my dream is not

entirely ridiculous.

I’m not talking about teaching ecology as an isolated subject, but about something more

fundamental: placing ecology and Earth systems at the heart of learning, just as they are at

the heart of life. So we’ve been experimenting with project-based learning, centred on the

40 living world. We started by constructing a giant painting, composed of 15 A4 panels. Each

panel introduces a different habitat, from mountaintops to the deepest ocean, the forest canopy

to the soil, on to which we stick pictures of the relevant wildlife.

The painting becomes a platform for exploring the processes and relationships in every

ecosystem, and across the Earth system as a whole. These, in turn, are keys that open other

45 doors. For example, rainforest ecology leads to photosynthesis, that leads to organic chemistry,

atoms and molecules, to the carbon cycle, fossil fuels, energy and power. Sea otters take us

to food webs, keystone species and trophic cascades.

We’ve done some fieldwork in soil ecology, an extraordinary and neglected subject, upon

which all human life depends. You can study it at home or in the park. It introduces basic

50 scientific principles and experimental design, which then – as we compare and record the

results from different samples – leads us into various aspects of maths and writing.

We’re now making a model landscape, to demonstrate the water cycle, river dynamics,

stratigraphy, erosion, soil formation and temperature gradients. To the greatest extent possible,

I’m letting the children guide this journey. But because of the circular nature of Earth systems,

55 it doesn’t matter where you begin: eventually you go all the way round. As on many previous

occasions, I’m struck by children’s natural affinity with the living world. The stories it has

to tell are inherently fascinating.

There’s nothing radical about the things we’re learning: it’s a matter of emphasis more than

content – of centralising what is most important. Now, perhaps, we have an opportunity to

60 rethink the entire basis of education. As local authorities in Scotland point out, outdoor learning

could be the best means of getting children back to school, as it permits physical distancing.

It lends itself to re-engagement with the living world. But, despite years of research

demonstrating its many benefits, the funding for outdoor education and adventure learning

has been cut to almost nothing.

65 This is the time for a Great Reset. Let’s use it to change the way we see ourselves and our

place on Earth. The conservationist Aldo Leopold once wrote that “one of the penalties of

an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage

inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.” But if everyone has an ecological education,

we will not live alone, and it will not be a world of wounds.

Annotations

3 arthropod – Gliederfüßler

3 vertebrate – Wirbeltier

47 food web – the graphical representation of the interconnection of food chains in an ecological community

47 keystone species – species with a high impact on the structure and function of a particular ecosystem relative to its population

47 trophic cascade – changes in the food chain and, as a result, in the ecosystem through addition or removal of top predators

53 stratigraphy – branch of science concerned with the study of rock layers

65 Great Reset – name of the meeting of the World Economic Forum in June 2020 with the theme of rebuilding society and economy in a sustainable way following the COVID-19 pandemic

66 Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) – American philosopher and scientist who was influential in the development of modern environmentalism

1. Outline the views that George Monbiot expresses about education. (Comprehension) [12 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

George Monbiot

Coronavirus shows us it’s time to rethink everything. Let’s start with education

Imagine mentioning William Shakespeare to a university graduate and discovering they had

never heard of him. You would be incredulous. But it’s common and acceptable not to know

what an arthropod is, or a vertebrate, or to be unable to explain the difference between an

insect and spider. No one is embarrassed when a “well-educated” person cannot provide even

5 a rough explanation of the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle or the water cycle, or of how

soils form.

All this is knowledge as basic as being aware that Shakespeare was a playwright. Yet ignorance

of such earthy matters sometimes seems to be worn as a badge of sophistication. I love

Shakespeare, and I believe the world would be a poorer and a sadder place without him. But

10 we would survive. The issues about which most people live in ignorance are, by contrast,

matters of life and death.

I don’t blame anyone for not knowing. This is a collective failure: a crashing lapse in education,

that is designed for a world in which we no longer live. The way we are taught misleads us

about who we are and where we stand. In mainstream economics, for example, humankind is

15 at the centre of the universe, and the constraints of the natural world are either invisible or

marginal to the models.

In an age in which we urgently need to cooperate, we are educated for individual success in

competition with others. Governments tell us that the purpose of education is to get ahead

of other people or, collectively, of other nations. The success of universities is measured partly

20 by the starting salaries of their graduates. But nobody wins the human race. What we are

encouraged to see as economic success ultimately means planetary ruin.

Large numbers of people now reject this approach to learning – and to life. A survey reported

this week suggests that six out of 10 people in the UK want the government to prioritise

health and wellbeing ahead of growth when we emerge from the pandemic. This is one of

25 the most hopeful results I have seen in years.

I believe that education should work outwards from our principal challenges and aims. This

doesn’t mean we should forget Shakespeare, or the other wonders of art and culture, but that

the matters crucial to our continued survival are given the weight they deserve. During the

lockdown, I’ve been doing something I’ve long dreamed about: experimenting with an

30 ecological education.

I can’t claim to have found it easy, or to have got it all right. As millions of parents have

discovered, there’s a reason why people undergo years of specialist education and training

before qualifying as teachers. Persuading children to see you as a parent one moment and a

teacher the next is especially challenging. But, working with an eight- and a nine-year-old

35 (my youngest daughter and her best friend), I’ve begun to discover that my dream is not

entirely ridiculous.

I’m not talking about teaching ecology as an isolated subject, but about something more

fundamental: placing ecology and Earth systems at the heart of learning, just as they are at

the heart of life. So we’ve been experimenting with project-based learning, centred on the

40 living world. We started by constructing a giant painting, composed of 15 A4 panels. Each

panel introduces a different habitat, from mountaintops to the deepest ocean, the forest canopy

to the soil, on to which we stick pictures of the relevant wildlife.

The painting becomes a platform for exploring the processes and relationships in every

ecosystem, and across the Earth system as a whole. These, in turn, are keys that open other

45 doors. For example, rainforest ecology leads to photosynthesis, that leads to organic chemistry,

atoms and molecules, to the carbon cycle, fossil fuels, energy and power. Sea otters take us

to food webs, keystone species and trophic cascades.

We’ve done some fieldwork in soil ecology, an extraordinary and neglected subject, upon

which all human life depends. You can study it at home or in the park. It introduces basic

50 scientific principles and experimental design, which then – as we compare and record the

results from different samples – leads us into various aspects of maths and writing.

We’re now making a model landscape, to demonstrate the water cycle, river dynamics,

stratigraphy, erosion, soil formation and temperature gradients. To the greatest extent possible,

I’m letting the children guide this journey. But because of the circular nature of Earth systems,

55 it doesn’t matter where you begin: eventually you go all the way round. As on many previous

occasions, I’m struck by children’s natural affinity with the living world. The stories it has

to tell are inherently fascinating.

There’s nothing radical about the things we’re learning: it’s a matter of emphasis more than

content – of centralising what is most important. Now, perhaps, we have an opportunity to

60 rethink the entire basis of education. As local authorities in Scotland point out, outdoor learning

could be the best means of getting children back to school, as it permits physical distancing.

It lends itself to re-engagement with the living world. But, despite years of research

demonstrating its many benefits, the funding for outdoor education and adventure learning

has been cut to almost nothing.

65 This is the time for a Great Reset. Let’s use it to change the way we see ourselves and our

place on Earth. The conservationist Aldo Leopold once wrote that “one of the penalties of

an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage

inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.” But if everyone has an ecological education,

we will not live alone, and it will not be a world of wounds.

Annotations

3 arthropod – Gliederfüßler

3 vertebrate – Wirbeltier

47 food web – the graphical representation of the interconnection of food chains in an ecological community

47 keystone species – species with a high impact on the structure and function of a particular ecosystem relative to its population

47 trophic cascade – changes in the food chain and, as a result, in the ecosystem through addition or removal of top predators

53 stratigraphy – branch of science concerned with the study of rock layers

65 Great Reset – name of the meeting of the World Economic Forum in June 2020 with the theme of rebuilding society and economy in a sustainable way following the COVID-19 pandemic

66 Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) – American philosopher and scientist who was influential in the development of modern environmentalism

2. Analyse the way in which Monbiot portrays his vision of an “ecological education” (l. 30), paying particular attention to his communicative strategies and his use of language. (Analysis) [16 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

George Monbiot

Coronavirus shows us it’s time to rethink everything. Let’s start with education

Imagine mentioning William Shakespeare to a university graduate and discovering they had

never heard of him. You would be incredulous. But it’s common and acceptable not to know

what an arthropod is, or a vertebrate, or to be unable to explain the difference between an

insect and spider. No one is embarrassed when a “well-educated” person cannot provide even

5 a rough explanation of the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle or the water cycle, or of how

soils form.

All this is knowledge as basic as being aware that Shakespeare was a playwright. Yet ignorance

of such earthy matters sometimes seems to be worn as a badge of sophistication. I love

Shakespeare, and I believe the world would be a poorer and a sadder place without him. But

10 we would survive. The issues about which most people live in ignorance are, by contrast,

matters of life and death.

I don’t blame anyone for not knowing. This is a collective failure: a crashing lapse in education,

that is designed for a world in which we no longer live. The way we are taught misleads us

about who we are and where we stand. In mainstream economics, for example, humankind is

15 at the centre of the universe, and the constraints of the natural world are either invisible or

marginal to the models.

In an age in which we urgently need to cooperate, we are educated for individual success in

competition with others. Governments tell us that the purpose of education is to get ahead

of other people or, collectively, of other nations. The success of universities is measured partly

20 by the starting salaries of their graduates. But nobody wins the human race. What we are

encouraged to see as economic success ultimately means planetary ruin.

Large numbers of people now reject this approach to learning – and to life. A survey reported

this week suggests that six out of 10 people in the UK want the government to prioritise

health and wellbeing ahead of growth when we emerge from the pandemic. This is one of

25 the most hopeful results I have seen in years.

I believe that education should work outwards from our principal challenges and aims. This

doesn’t mean we should forget Shakespeare, or the other wonders of art and culture, but that

the matters crucial to our continued survival are given the weight they deserve. During the

lockdown, I’ve been doing something I’ve long dreamed about: experimenting with an

30 ecological education.

I can’t claim to have found it easy, or to have got it all right. As millions of parents have

discovered, there’s a reason why people undergo years of specialist education and training

before qualifying as teachers. Persuading children to see you as a parent one moment and a

teacher the next is especially challenging. But, working with an eight- and a nine-year-old

35 (my youngest daughter and her best friend), I’ve begun to discover that my dream is not

entirely ridiculous.

I’m not talking about teaching ecology as an isolated subject, but about something more

fundamental: placing ecology and Earth systems at the heart of learning, just as they are at

the heart of life. So we’ve been experimenting with project-based learning, centred on the

40 living world. We started by constructing a giant painting, composed of 15 A4 panels. Each

panel introduces a different habitat, from mountaintops to the deepest ocean, the forest canopy

to the soil, on to which we stick pictures of the relevant wildlife.

The painting becomes a platform for exploring the processes and relationships in every

ecosystem, and across the Earth system as a whole. These, in turn, are keys that open other

45 doors. For example, rainforest ecology leads to photosynthesis, that leads to organic chemistry,

atoms and molecules, to the carbon cycle, fossil fuels, energy and power. Sea otters take us

to food webs, keystone species and trophic cascades.

We’ve done some fieldwork in soil ecology, an extraordinary and neglected subject, upon

which all human life depends. You can study it at home or in the park. It introduces basic

50 scientific principles and experimental design, which then – as we compare and record the

results from different samples – leads us into various aspects of maths and writing.

We’re now making a model landscape, to demonstrate the water cycle, river dynamics,

stratigraphy, erosion, soil formation and temperature gradients. To the greatest extent possible,

I’m letting the children guide this journey. But because of the circular nature of Earth systems,

55 it doesn’t matter where you begin: eventually you go all the way round. As on many previous

occasions, I’m struck by children’s natural affinity with the living world. The stories it has

to tell are inherently fascinating.

There’s nothing radical about the things we’re learning: it’s a matter of emphasis more than

content – of centralising what is most important. Now, perhaps, we have an opportunity to

60 rethink the entire basis of education. As local authorities in Scotland point out, outdoor learning

could be the best means of getting children back to school, as it permits physical distancing.

It lends itself to re-engagement with the living world. But, despite years of research

demonstrating its many benefits, the funding for outdoor education and adventure learning

has been cut to almost nothing.

65 This is the time for a Great Reset. Let’s use it to change the way we see ourselves and our

place on Earth. The conservationist Aldo Leopold once wrote that “one of the penalties of

an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage

inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.” But if everyone has an ecological education,

we will not live alone, and it will not be a world of wounds.

Annotations

3 arthropod – Gliederfüßler

3 vertebrate – Wirbeltier

47 food web – the graphical representation of the interconnection of food chains in an ecological community

47 keystone species – species with a high impact on the structure and function of a particular ecosystem relative to its population

47 trophic cascade – changes in the food chain and, as a result, in the ecosystem through addition or removal of top predators

53 stratigraphy – branch of science concerned with the study of rock layers

65 Great Reset – name of the meeting of the World Economic Forum in June 2020 with the theme of rebuilding society and economy in a sustainable way following the COVID-19 pandemic

66 Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) – American philosopher and scientist who was influential in the development of modern environmentalism

3.1 Discuss the claim made by George Monbiot that “[i]n an age in which we urgently need to cooperate, we are educated for individual success in competition with others” (ll. 17 – 18). Draw on your personal experience and on what you have covered in class about studying and working in a globalised world. (Evaluation: comment) [14 Punkte]

3.2 You are taking part in the international youth conference Time for Change and are asked to give a debate statement in which you assess how the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the global problems of our lifestyle and the necessity of change. Write the script for your statement. Take ecological, economic and political aspects of globalisation into account. (Evaluation: re-creation of text) [14 Punkte]

Dein Text wurde eingereicht. Vergleiche deinen Redebeitrag mit den inhaltlichen Kriterien der offiziellen Lösungsvorgaben.

Klausurteil B: Sprachmittlung isoliert

During your stay as an exchange student in the USA, you take part in the project Education For A More Sustainable Future at your high school.

Using Jeannette Cwienk's text, write an article for the project's website in which you outline how German schools approach environmental and climate education and which problems are linked to it. (Mediation) [18 Punkte]

Klausurteil A

George Monbiot

Coronavirus shows us it’s time to rethink everything. Let’s start with education

Imagine mentioning William Shakespeare to a university graduate and discovering they had

never heard of him. You would be incredulous. But it’s common and acceptable not to know

what an arthropod is, or a vertebrate, or to be unable to explain the difference between an

insect and spider. No one is embarrassed when a “well-educated” person cannot provide even

5 a rough explanation of the greenhouse effect, the carbon cycle or the water cycle, or of how

soils form.

All this is knowledge as basic as being aware that Shakespeare was a playwright. Yet ignorance

of such earthy matters sometimes seems to be worn as a badge of sophistication. I love

Shakespeare, and I believe the world would be a poorer and a sadder place without him. But

10 we would survive. The issues about which most people live in ignorance are, by contrast,

matters of life and death.

I don’t blame anyone for not knowing. This is a collective failure: a crashing lapse in education,

that is designed for a world in which we no longer live. The way we are taught misleads us

about who we are and where we stand. In mainstream economics, for example, humankind is

15 at the centre of the universe, and the constraints of the natural world are either invisible or

marginal to the models.

In an age in which we urgently need to cooperate, we are educated for individual success in

competition with others. Governments tell us that the purpose of education is to get ahead

of other people or, collectively, of other nations. The success of universities is measured partly

20 by the starting salaries of their graduates. But nobody wins the human race. What we are

encouraged to see as economic success ultimately means planetary ruin.

Large numbers of people now reject this approach to learning – and to life. A survey reported

this week suggests that six out of 10 people in the UK want the government to prioritise

health and wellbeing ahead of growth when we emerge from the pandemic. This is one of

25 the most hopeful results I have seen in years.

I believe that education should work outwards from our principal challenges and aims. This

doesn’t mean we should forget Shakespeare, or the other wonders of art and culture, but that

the matters crucial to our continued survival are given the weight they deserve. During the

lockdown, I’ve been doing something I’ve long dreamed about: experimenting with an

30 ecological education.

I can’t claim to have found it easy, or to have got it all right. As millions of parents have

discovered, there’s a reason why people undergo years of specialist education and training

before qualifying as teachers. Persuading children to see you as a parent one moment and a

teacher the next is especially challenging. But, working with an eight- and a nine-year-old

35 (my youngest daughter and her best friend), I’ve begun to discover that my dream is not

entirely ridiculous.

I’m not talking about teaching ecology as an isolated subject, but about something more

fundamental: placing ecology and Earth systems at the heart of learning, just as they are at

the heart of life. So we’ve been experimenting with project-based learning, centred on the

40 living world. We started by constructing a giant painting, composed of 15 A4 panels. Each

panel introduces a different habitat, from mountaintops to the deepest ocean, the forest canopy

to the soil, on to which we stick pictures of the relevant wildlife.

The painting becomes a platform for exploring the processes and relationships in every

ecosystem, and across the Earth system as a whole. These, in turn, are keys that open other

45 doors. For example, rainforest ecology leads to photosynthesis, that leads to organic chemistry,

atoms and molecules, to the carbon cycle, fossil fuels, energy and power. Sea otters take us

to food webs, keystone species and trophic cascades.

We’ve done some fieldwork in soil ecology, an extraordinary and neglected subject, upon

which all human life depends. You can study it at home or in the park. It introduces basic

50 scientific principles and experimental design, which then – as we compare and record the

results from different samples – leads us into various aspects of maths and writing.

We’re now making a model landscape, to demonstrate the water cycle, river dynamics,

stratigraphy, erosion, soil formation and temperature gradients. To the greatest extent possible,

I’m letting the children guide this journey. But because of the circular nature of Earth systems,

55 it doesn’t matter where you begin: eventually you go all the way round. As on many previous

occasions, I’m struck by children’s natural affinity with the living world. The stories it has

to tell are inherently fascinating.

There’s nothing radical about the things we’re learning: it’s a matter of emphasis more than

content – of centralising what is most important. Now, perhaps, we have an opportunity to

60 rethink the entire basis of education. As local authorities in Scotland point out, outdoor learning

could be the best means of getting children back to school, as it permits physical distancing.

It lends itself to re-engagement with the living world. But, despite years of research

demonstrating its many benefits, the funding for outdoor education and adventure learning

has been cut to almost nothing.

65 This is the time for a Great Reset. Let’s use it to change the way we see ourselves and our

place on Earth. The conservationist Aldo Leopold once wrote that “one of the penalties of

an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage

inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.” But if everyone has an ecological education,

we will not live alone, and it will not be a world of wounds.

Annotations

3 arthropod – Gliederfüßler

3 vertebrate – Wirbeltier

47 food web – the graphical representation of the interconnection of food chains in an ecological community

47 keystone species – species with a high impact on the structure and function of a particular ecosystem relative to its population

47 trophic cascade – changes in the food chain and, as a result, in the ecosystem through addition or removal of top predators

53 stratigraphy – branch of science concerned with the study of rock layers

65 Great Reset – name of the meeting of the World Economic Forum in June 2020 with the theme of rebuilding society and economy in a sustainable way following the COVID-19 pandemic

66 Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) – American philosopher and scientist who was influential in the development of modern environmentalism

Jeannette Cwienk: Zu wenig Klimaschutz im Unterricht?

Deutschland und alle weiteren Unterzeichnerstaaten der Nachhaltigkeitsagenda der Vereinten Nationen (UN) sind zur Förderung einer „Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung" (BNE) verpflichtet. Die BNE gehört zu den „17 Zielen", welche die Staaten im Rahmen der Agenda bis 2030 umsetzen müssen. Laut UN-Kulturorganisation UNESCO ist dafür unter anderem eine „Integration von BNE" in die schulischen Lehrpläne erforderlich.

Dass dabei das Thema Klimawandel nicht außen vor bleiben kann, ist für Gerhard de Haan, Professor für Zukunfts- und Bildungsforschung, selbstverständlich. „Der Klimawandel ist ein epochales Thema, weil es uns zentral betrifft und die Welt verändert, deswegen ist es enorm wichtig, dass es auf die schulische Agenda gesetzt wird", sagt der Leiter des Instituts Futur der Freien Universität Berlin. De Haan berät die „Nationale Plattform BNE", das oberste Lenkungsgremium für die Umsetzung der UN-Ziele im Bereich der nachhaltigen Bildung in Deutschland.

In einigen Fächern, wie etwa in Erdkunde, findet man den Klimawandel laut de Haan teils in den neueren Bildungsplänen verankert. Einheitliche Standards, wie intensiv der Wandel und andere Nachhaltigkeitsthemen im Unterricht vermittelt werden, gebe es aber nicht. [...] „Wenn man junge Menschen fragt, ob sie dem Komplex von Nachhaltigkeit im schulischen Kontext begegnet sind, dann sagen nur wenige ja – aber mehr als ein Drittel sagt, er sollte zentrales Thema innerhalb der Schule sein", berichtet de Haan. Und: „Die meisten Schüler geben an, ihre Informationen darüber aus den Medien zu haben." [...]

In Deutschland liegt die Hoheit über die Bildungspolitik bei den einzelnen Bundesländern. Jedes der 16 Länder entscheidet selbst, welche Schwerpunkte wie und wo in den Bildungsplänen gesetzt werden – auch was die Ziele der von der UN geforderten Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung angeht.

„Es gibt große Unterschiede, wie die einzelnen Bundesländer an diese Themen herangehen", erzählt Erika Takano-Forck. Als stellvertretende Vorsitzende des Bundeselternrats ist sie Mitglied der „Nationalen Plattform BNE", dort im Fachforum Schule engagiert. Als positives Beispiel nennt Takano-Forck Baden-Württemberg. Hier sei die Nachhaltigkeitsbildung zu einer der vier Säulen des Schulsystems ernannt worden. Und Nordrhein-Westfalen habe sogar eine eigene BNE-Landesstrategie verabschiedet.

Tatsächlich, auf Anfrage schickt das NRW-Bildungsministerium eine sehr detaillierte Liste, die zeigt, wie der Klimawandel in den verschiedenen Fächern, den verschiedenen Jahrgangsstufen und an den verschiedenen Schulformen laut Lehrplänen behandelt werden soll. Eine „vertiefte" Auseinandersetzung finde „vor allem in den Unterrichtsfächern Erdkunde, Physik und Chemie statt", heißt es aus dem Ministerium.

Ein Blick in die Unterrichtsinhalte des Fachs Erdkunde an einer Wittener Gesamtschule zeigt: Hier sind die Themen Klimaschutz und Nachhaltigkeit deutlich stärker verankert als in der Biologie. Explizit genannt wird der Klimawandel als Lehrinhalt der neunten Klasse. In Klasse elf bildet er einen Schwerpunkt. Doch das heißt nicht, dass alle Schüler in der elften Klasse dem Thema begegnen – denn in Nordrhein-Westfalen ist Erdkunde kein Pflichtfach in der Oberstufe.

Auch die Fächer Chemie und Physik könnten Oberstufenschüler unter bestimmten Bedingungen abwählen, kritisiert Danielle Schulte am Hülse. Sie lehrt Kunst, Geschichte und Politik an einem Düsseldorfer Gymnasium und engagiert sich bei den „Teachers for Future". „Wenn man die Schüler fragt, dann sagen sie zwar so etwas wie,In Erdkunde ging es um die schmelzenden Polkappen' oder sie erinnern sich, dass auch in Physik über die Erderwärmung gesprochen wurde. Aber die vielfältigen Zusammenhänge des Klimawandels werden ihnen in der Schule nicht vermittelt", sagt Schulte am Hülse. Eine Forderung der „Teachers for Future" laute deswegen, dass Klimawandel und Nachhaltigkeitsthemen im Sinne der BNE-Ziele fächerübergreifend behandelt werden müssen, erklärt die Kunstlehrerin.