“Homologie” — the comedy eduGAYtion programme

AllInc’s Corinna and Philip from the DE2 team send this post about “Germany’s first and only HOMOLOGY teacher” 😉 — danke Corinna und Philip!

Last May 12th, in his successful role as the likeable substitute teacher “Malte Anders“, the cabaret artist and theatre teacher Timo Schweitzer gave the 8th grade students at the All Inc! member school Gymnasium Kirchheim (near Munich) a humorous insight into the topic of homosexuality and the normality of being different. With a lot of humor and personal stories, he conveyed background knowledge about sexual diversity, tolerance, discrimination and bullying to the young people in his 90-minute comedy show and reached the students on an equal footing. He then answered the questions of his audience very openly and offered space for discussions.

Despite Germany’s relatively modern and liberal stance, and social advances in the fight against homophobia, to insult someone for being “gay” or a “faggot” is still part of everyday school life. That is why it is particularly important for the school community to reiterate its commitment to tolerance and openness, also with the help of external partners. Authentic, serious, open and yet with a lot of humor, Malte Anders took on the questions and comments of his audience and demonstrated on stage how to deal with hate and rejection.

The program drew on the lives of young people and got to the bottom of old prejudices. The multimedia, interactive show showed from different perspectives how important mutual respect is. The successful mix of knowledge transfer and convincing comedy left hardly any topic untouched.

For preparation and follow-up, the teachers also received comprehensive teaching material that addresses other areas of sexual and gender diversity. In this way, the topic can be dealt with comprehensively in the classroom.

Homologie sets an important example against homophobia, bullying and discrimination against queer people, which is why the show at Gymnasium Kirchheim was sponsored by the Erasmus+ project “All Inc! Building LGBT+ friendly schools across Europe”, in which the school has been involved for the past three years.

We are pleased that so many students and teachers responded enthusiastically and that there was a further exchange about these values, which are particularly important at the German project member school as well as at many others!