Mittlere Reife (2012)

After initial clashes with her older colleague, the experienced teacher Karin Scholz, the young trainee teacher Mechtild Bremer is ordered by Principal Seifert to supervise five previously unsuccessful students during after-school detention at school. In the ethics lessons held there, and thanks to Bremer’s liberal attitude toward her students, talents they never knew they had begin to emerge. At first, the students cannot stand one another, since each seems to have a completely different manner and a distinct character. But Bremer’s novel teaching methods gradually help her “charges” open up: The son of an ethnic German resettler, who until then had been associated with the red-light district, turns out to be a decent fellow who helps the women working there with correspondence to the relevant authorities. Tim, the principal’s hyperactive son, seems to be a computer genius, while Isabel, the blonde student who had been called “stupid,” is gifted across the board. Even a student labeled an anarchist turns out to be a highly talented artist.