A piece of golden chalk
Three years after moving to Germany with no German, I won the department's Golden Chalk for the best tutorial: one tutor a year, and that year it was mine, for Real Analysis 1.
Three years ago I moved to Germany without any German. In July 2025, a lecture hall full of physics students at TUM gave me a piece of golden chalk for teaching a tutorial in it.
The award is the Goldene Kreide, and the student council gives it out once a year at Tag der Physik, off the back of the course-evaluation surveys students fill in at the end of term. There is a chalk for the best lecture, one for the best exercise sessions, and one for the best tutorial: a single tutor, across the whole department, each year. That year the tutorial one was mine, for Real Analysis 1.
Which still catches me off guard, because of where it started.
The part that sounded like a joke
When I got here I was translating restaurant menus on my phone. The idea that I would one day stand at a board in front of a room of German first-years and walk them through an epsilon-delta proof, in German, was less a goal than a joke I did not quite believe.
So I did the slow, unglamorous version of getting there. I learned the language the long way, and then I learned to teach in it, which is a harder and separate thing, because teaching is mostly listening, and you cannot really listen in a language you are still assembling in your head.
What actually won it
Not fluent German. I still miss genders and reach for the wrong word in front of everyone. What won it was showing up every week having actually prepared, drawing the same idea three different ways until it landed for the person who was stuck, and running the exam prep as if the room was allowed to be confused. The write-up from the student council mentioned humour and support in that exam prep, and that is the line I am proudest of, because it means people felt safe enough to ask the question they were afraid was stupid.
Tag der Physik 2025 was in the Rudolf-Mößbauer lecture hall on 18 July, and it was good company: the other chalks that evening went to Robert König, Raimund Strauß, and Matthias Pfeifer. The department wrote up the whole ceremony if you want the full list.
If you are teaching, or working, or just living in a language you are still learning: it is slow at the start, and it stays slow long enough that you will want to stop. Then one day it is quietly yours, and a room full of people you were once nervous in front of hands you a piece of chalk. Keep going.
Cheers.