Journeyman carpenters on the way to the Bavarian Abitur – Bavaria

The production of Christmas presents was in full swing at the Marquartstein high school in the weeks leading up to the holidays. This time – we can now reveal it, the presents have long since been unwrapped – parents, grandparents and friends found a bottle opener under the tree, disguised as a miniature wooden plane. Built by the high school carpenter apprentices in the school’s own workshop, which is located directly on the banks of the Tiroler Achen. “I find the planer really bearish,” says Seppi Grießenböck, 14, when visiting the workshop. At Christmas 2021 there was a star-shaped bowl with inlays under the tree. Working with wood is great fun for him, says Grießenböck. So big that he was already seriously considering studying wood technology in the ninth grade.

The students in the carpentry shop take their work very seriously: the workplaces at the workbenches are meticulously tidy, boys and girls work with great concentration on this afternoon. It’s time for chatter, then it’s back to busy silence. It smells of wood and machine oil. Master carpenter Miche Huber takes great care in handling the machines and intervenes if something doesn’t feel right. Seppi Grießenböck has already finished his homework and is roaming around looking for new tasks. At the end of their apprenticeship, the students have to know all types of wood connection, this time it was a stool with a so-called dovetail connection. The wood is put together like puzzle pieces, the shape of the connection is reminiscent of a dovetail. Huber handed out the plans, Grießenböck had eight hours for it.

Grießenböck is one of a total of 15 carpenter apprentices who are doing their apprenticeship parallel to regular school lessons in Marquartstein on their way to their Abitur. This pilot project is unique in Bavaria, there is something similar nationwide as a “dual high school” at two handful schools in Baden-Württemberg. The pioneer there was the Catholic girls’ school Kloster Wald near Sigmaringen, where schoolgirls have also been able to become tailors since the 1950s. In the meantime, carpentry and wood carving are also on offer. Other grammar schools in the Ländle came to the initiative of an entrepreneur for training.

In the Chiemgau, seven girls and eight boys are currently being apprenticed to Master Huber. The five-year course begins in the eighth grade, and Huber can only accept three students per year. The demand is far greater, and the application process with a letter of application and trial work is demanding. Only students with good grades and organizational skills who are trusted by the teachers to take on the ongoing additional workload are admitted. The school has priority. If you don’t pass the Abitur, you won’t get a journeyman’s certificate.

Miranda Maier works on a swallow stool.

(Photo: Anna Günther)

The young people work two afternoons a week in the carpentry workshop, plus two hours of theory and three machine courses and a surface course during the course of the apprenticeship. The students also learn how to operate machines conventionally and with the computer, as well as how to create production drawings with the help of a PC. At the end, the high school students take their journeyman’s examination together with all the carpenter apprentices in the Traunstein guild. There are no extras. This is very important to Huber.

The project at the Marquartsteiner Gymnasium has been running for 18 years and has grown out of the tradition of the school, which was founded in 1928 by reformist Hermann Harless. According to Master Huber, young high school carpenters have long been established in the region, but they have apparently been forgotten in Munich: The specialist departments may still know, but the Ministry of Education and the Chamber of Crafts are at a loss when it comes to initial inquiries. The state grammar school in Marquartstein has been setting an example for years, as the state government obliged all secondary schools in Bavaria to do last summer: With the newly introduced “Day of Crafts”, all students – including those at the grammar school – are to come into contact with craft professions from now on. Successful lobbying by the chambers? An attempt by politicians to counteract the shortage of skilled workers?

In any case, there is one thing that headmaster Christian Czempinski does not want to do: proselytize. The carpentry apprenticeship is going well at his high school, he says, it fits in with the approach of holistic education and is good for the students as a balance. “That’s one of the highlights they always mention.” Czempinski refuses to be a blueprint for all other high schools or to compete with middle schools. Rather, politics and society should ask themselves what exactly the task of grammar schools should be. And then define them clearly so that the schools can do their work in peace. Without being constantly confronted with new ideas. “But that fits into this time, school has to fix everything.”

Education in Bavaria: master carpenter Miche Huber.

Master carpenter Miche Huber.

(Photo: Anna Günther)

The work in carpentry, pottery, gardening and electrical workshop is an integral part of the fifth grade timetable at the Gymnasium and an optional subject for the higher grades. Through the initiative of the former headmaster Hans Schwab, the extended Marquartsteiner concept for the actually three-year carpentry apprenticeship was created in 2004 with Master Huber and the Chamber of Crafts. It wasn’t easy at first, says Huber. In the handicraft businesses in the area, many people thought, “Now the students from the high school are coming.” In the meantime, however, his apprentices are welcome interns, who have to prove themselves outside of school for five weeks a year.

The tone in the workshop is very relaxed, students and master carpenters are on first name terms, teasing flies through the air. Huber walks through the hall, comments there, helps here, and sometimes admonishes. Suddenly he falters, turns around and growls: “They take advantage of it mercilessly when the boss isn’t looking.” The battle for radio is an endless topic, he says and sighs. Instead of local music, eighties hits can be heard on his radio. Miranda Maier smiles at her workbench next door and oils her swallow stool in a deliberately focused manner. The student wins this round in the game “Who decides the music”. And Huber lets her do it with a grin.

“Now the girls from high school are coming”? Not correct!

Maier, 15, sounds very enthusiastic when she talks about her education. It’s great to build things out of wood. Balcony boxes for flowers, for example – “they are made of larch so that the wood lasts longer” – a table clock or a tray with inlays. The ninth grader says that she definitely wanted to attend this high school after primary school because of the carpentry. Her letter of application from the seventh grade even hangs on the workshop wall: Instead of writing on paper, Maier burned her words into a large tree disc with a still. So she definitely wants to be a carpenter? Maier waves it off. “No, I love biology, I want to be a marine biologist. Carpentry should remain fun and a hobby.” She would like to have her own workshop at home.

Very few high school graduates become carpenters, Master Huber agrees. It doesn’t seem to bother him too much. He calls his companions “my pride and joy”. He has trained 31 so far. Some students continue their studies in a subject-oriented manner, for example at the nearby technical university in Rosenheim, which has a faculty for wood technology and construction. Huber thinks everyone else benefits too. “We teach them how to work in a structured manner and how to plan properly.” And the students also make furniture for the grammar school: bedside tables for the associated boarding school, for example, or bookshelves for the fifth and sixth graders so that they don’t have to carry their books all the time. “It can also be a good thing,” says Huber, sounding quite satisfied, “that a student writes his Abitur at a table that he built himself.”

source site