STEIN PROUDLY PRESENTS: MORITZ SCHERTLER

stein proudly presents: Moritz Schertler

December | 2024

It is with great pleasure that we present to you today another member of the Steiner school family: Moritz Schertler – teacher of English, French, and German, as well as director of the Steiner theater group. After several years at the German School in Nigeria, he has now been bringing for several years his enthusiasm, diverse experience, and his great dedication daily to Schloss Stein and has quickly become an indispensable part of our community.

After completing your studies, you went to Africa. What motivated you to do so, and how did your time there affect your personal and professional development?

After university, a fundamental change of scenery was planned. Together with my wife, we went to Africa for this purpose. The official German international school in Nigeria was our destination, and what was originally planned as two years turned into six in total. The pandemic and the associated travel restrictions, which in an emergency could have had an immediate impact, or more directly, posed a danger to our twins, who were one year old at the time, ultimately became our call of fate to return to Europe. After a bridge year at Max-Rill Gymnasium Schloss Reichersbeuern and parental leave, I finally applied to Stein.

What are the biggest differences between schools in Germany and Nigeria?

To be honest, one would sometimes wish for greater differences. The setting is, of course, enticingly exotic. The German curriculum, however, is the familiar one. An exciting difference from Germany is certainly the unpredictable nature of African conditions. As a German school, we were naturally the primary school for German diplomatic families, as well as many international embassies and some Nigerian families with international backgrounds. This high degree of internationality was, so to speak, the basic ingredient of our school community in Nigeria. The second, and certainly, to stay with the metaphor, the spiciest ingredient was the flexibility and creativity, the imperative to shape a moment and not rigidly follow an annual plan. This naturally existed, but the practical implementation always followed the current circumstances, whose repertoire consisted of fuel supply shortages resulting from political tensions, local flooding or heat waves that turned a sports festival into a challenge even in the morning, the annual breeding period of the green mamba, and so on. For me, it was an exciting time that also put into perspective many minor complaints in our German school routine.

How did you manage to revive the theater tradition at Schloss Stein, and what experiences did you have while working with the first Steiner theater ensemble?

When I came to Stein, there was no longer any theater there. Only in personal conversations did I learn of the rich history of successful theater projects and self-evident references, such as the German director Percy Adlon, who, along with other notable names, would be mentioned as those responsible for Steiner theater success in the past. At Mr. Ziegler’s personal request, I took on the matter and assembled a group of interested students last year with whom the theater tradition at Schloss Stein was to be revived. In theory, I was well aware of the positive effects of theater on living and working together with our students. Also that in many a quiet contemporary, a talent for the stage might be hidden. But to see how much this came to life in working with the newly formed first Steiner theater ensemble was very impressive and an important experience for me as well. Planning and assessing the right material, the dry spell of learning lines, the second major task of bringing a learned text to life scenically, and all this in concert with what felt like a hundred other matters surrounding a theater production, were great challenges that, I may perhaps say, were very successfully exhausted at the 2024 summer festival in the performance of Antigone in the adaptation by Slavoj Žižek; and created enthusiasm, both among students and myself, to continue this in the coming year. We are currently already reading the new roles. But no more will be revealed about that yet.

Where is your favorite place in Stein?

Actually, for me it only exists insofar as Stein as a whole has become one of my favorite places in the entire world, alongside a few others. Of course, less as a vacation destination, but I notice this, for example, in the fact that I don’t speak of driving to work in the morning, but rather to Stein. This may now be a subtle reading, superficially considered, of the same thing, but for me I recognize in such things a certain attraction. Perhaps analogous to how others feel they either have a job or a vocation.

What is your favorite meal at Schloss Stein?

Where should I begin? Temptations lurk around every corner in Stein. The beef ragout with spätzle and cranberries definitely ranks at the top for me.

Sebastian Ziegler on Moritz Schertler:
»From the very beginning with Moritz Schertler, at Stein since September 2022, one could sense that he was joining Stein with an interesting background. Both his international and his boarding school experience are evident in his actions. From teachers, we always hope for, in addition to high professional competence, this ability to look beyond the obvious, that is, also at the child and adolescent in their personality and their academic and extracurricular activities. All of this is only experienced when, like Mr. Schertler, one also takes responsibility for exciting extracurricular activities such as the theater group, which is so important to us at Stein. His assessments of the children are always accurate and empathetic. He has quickly become integrated into the core of the Steiner team «