Anton - the Professor Never to Be: - About the failure of a genius - by Armin OpherdenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This humourful novel tells the story of Anton’s development between his birth and his being a young father and husband. It shows how and why he fails to make full use of his enormous mental capacity.
The central theme that the novel discussed was the educational system in Germany. And this drew my attention more closely since one of my interests is on education.
It was really a worthwhile read and I had fun comparing and contrasting Anton’s experiences as a student in Germany and my experiences as a student here in Philippines. =)
I learned about the German custom of giving a carefully decorated cardboard cone filled with sweets on the occasion of a child’s first day of school. We do not have that kind of tradition in the Philippines! I think that if there were, then every child would surely look forward to his/her first day at school. =) I can still remember my cousin during her first day at school. She did not want to be left alone with the other children inside the classroom. Every time my aunt (her mother) says goodbye, tears would start to pour down from my cousin’s eyes and then finally, she would wail loudly and would strongly grasp around one of her mother’s thighs! It would take a long time before she could finally let go.
And when I was in elementary (a level of education that starts when a child reaches the age of 6 or 7 and which lasts for six or seven years, depending on the school), I also experienced sitting on uncomfortable desks for hours. And since there were at least sixty pupils in a small classroom, we sat almost elbow-to-elbow with each other. The noise was almost unmanageable especially when there was no teacher around. The class president usually assigns the class secretary to write the names of noisy classmates in the blackboard. But I never really complained. I knew I was still lucky because in other parts of the country, mostly in the very-hard-to-reach rural areas, the existence of a decent classroom with desks is a rarity, if not impossibility.
