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In Berlin, children too can go to college

“Why are there so many languages?”, “How can a heavy aircraft fly?”: to answer these questions and other’s posed by children in Germany, Humboldt University has set up a Kinder-Uni.

Once a week, children aged six to 13 are given classes by eight professors, from the Berlin university’s departments of philosophy, physics, anthropology, language and agriculture. The 45-minute lessons are free and open to children and adults who accompany them, although they must watch proceedings on television in a nearby room. Philosophy expert Volker Gerhard is first to face the young, and at times demanding, audience in the 800-seat Audimax amphitheatre. His subject: “Why do people want to know things?”

No sooner has he begun than the calm atmosphere degenerates into a murmur, then a rising clamour and he leaves “because you can’t doing anything with that sort of noise”. A few minutes later, Gerhard tries again. Above the din of screams and even tears, he tries to explain “that if we didn’t have knowledge, there wouldn’t be schools (laughter), no universities, no movies and no television (groans).” “It’s a beginning. It was hard for the children but despite the difficulties it can only get better,” the professor later said. —AFP

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