It is one of the Chancellor's best-kept secrets. “My high school diploma is in the safe at home and won’t come out,” answered the Sauerlander in the “Zeit” podcast “Everything said?” at the beginning of last year. jokingly when asked about his high school diploma. He also provides a reason for this: “I now have grandchildren who go to school and I want them to stay motivated.”
When asked, the 70-year-old grandfather of seven grandchildren reveals where his high school average is - namely at the bottom. When the number drops to 3.8, he says, “Assume it was in that range.” When asked incredulously, “3.8?”, he simply replies: “So, let’s leave it at that.”
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A 3.8 is pretty much the worst grade you can achieve in your Abitur without failing. And Merz's home country of North Rhine-Westphalia was already known back then for not having the toughest Abitur standards.
Merz simply “didn’t feel like” going to school
Today the Chancellor returns to the school where, after sitting once and changing schools due to indiscipline, he finally achieved his general university entrance qualification at the age of 19: to the Friedrich-Spee-Gymnasium in Rüthen in the Sauerland.
The school is turning 100 years old and the Chancellor is appearing in the “Former Stories” series to mark the occasion. The conversation with students takes place behind closed doors, so you can talk openly. And it is quite possible that he will then be asked again why he was such a bad student.
In the podcast he talks about how he had no discipline and “real motivation problems” back then - and a circle of friends “who actually demotivated me even more.” He simply “didn’t feel like” going to school.
Beaten with a “stick” by the teacher
The teachers didn't exactly contribute to motivation either - on the contrary. "We still had teachers who were participants in the World War. One of the teachers was constantly throwing his heavy bunch of keys around the class," says Merz about his elementary school days in the 1960s.
Back then there was still corporal punishment. He himself was hit “on the fingers and on the bottom with a stick”. That was in third grade. “I can remember the teacher at the time, actually a tough guy, but someone who also picked up a stick.” It was not until 1973 that corporal punishment was banned in almost all federal states; it only existed for a few years longer in Bavaria.
Merz founded his own foundation for education in 2005
Perhaps it was his own experiences as a student that led Merz to set up his own foundation for education and training together with his wife in 2005, after he had temporarily left politics - the Friedrich and Charlotte Merz Foundation. Its goal is to provide young people from socially disadvantaged families with help in school and training through special projects.
As Chancellor, he has now decided to become more personally involved in education policy. He sees it as “one of the most important, if not the most important, task of our society” that children and young people receive a good education, he said last week at the German School Prize award ceremony in Berlin.
Chancellor now wants to go to schools more again
Merz seems excited at the event. You can tell that this is about something that is personally important to him. He describes teachers - perhaps based on his own bad experiences - as “the most important professional group” in the country. "We entrust you with the most valuable thing we have. These are our children," he says as a father and grandfather. And he appreciates the enthusiasm of the students present, which he himself did not have. “I am happy when I see your bright, optimistic faces.”
After his speech, the moderator asked him whether all this positive impulses would make him want to go to school again. The Chancellor folds his arms and says: “To be honest, I rarely felt like doing that” - as a student. But as Chancellor he will now go to schools more again. What he saw at the school prize was “a great motivation” for him.
When he then handed over the prize to the Bertha von Suttner Comprehensive School in Mörfelden-Walldorf in Hesse and several of the school's teachers threw their arms around him, he even briefly cried.
