Critical Thinking & the German Development

Ina sharing her story was extremely impactful and informative regarding growing up in the DDR. I really appreciate her willingness to tell us her story in a genuine and vulnerable way which allowed me to learn from a real case that I learned in a classroom in high school.

I thought it was particularly interesting how her family business worked. Her family had a business in the basement of their house: a cheese factory. And differently than how it works now in which every factory has — somewhat — free will in terms of how much they want to produce and how much they want to charge for their product/service. When living in DDR and having a factory, the state would tell you how much you could produce and how much you could charge for your product. So I wonder how these factories worked after Germany became one unique region again, in the sense of how they organized their business plan and economics.

Additionally, as I am very interested in education and how it can shape a community, I was especially interested in her education experience during DDR. Especially the story where a teacher showed a map of the DDR and other socialist countries and the rest of the map was black. Then, she asked the professor what were the areas in black, so she had to see the principal and her parents too so she could explain her misbehavior. With this story I believe it is possible to see that the educational development in Germany probably did not happen as fast it could have been due to the educational policy in the DDR as the studenter had to learn how to censor their curiosity, as Ina said “they were educated to lie instead of being critical thinkers,” so I wonder how this system prevented the development of Germany at its full potential.