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Texas is our state of choice, the Dallas/Fort Worth area is our residence of choice. We are bi-lingual and bi-cultural.

 

Gabriele Barwig   Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning, PATH International, Denver, CO M. Ed., National Louis University, Chicago, IL B. S. Liberal Arts, Sociology & Psychology, Regents College, New York, USA Certified Translator of English/German, Darmstadt, Germany

I am holding a Masters's Degree in Education from National-Louis University in Heidelberg, Germany (former name: National Teacher's College), and a Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Arts with majors in Sociology and Psychology from Excelsior College, New York (former name: Regents College). I am certified as Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning by PATH (Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship) International, Denver, CO. I am a member of the American Association of Teachers of German. By the Texas State Board for Educator Certification I am certified to teach German language, Psychology and Sociology. I am authorized by the German Government as a "Certified Translator of the German and English Language", and I hold a Certificate of Proficiency in English from the University of Cambridge, Great Britain. From 2022 on I am teaching part time German language remotely at Proximity Learning and at Lingoda. From 2021 on I am providing Equine Assisted Therapy on my farm for our Veterans, helping with PTSD, trust, self-esteem, interpersonal communication and anxiety. From 1999-2020 I taught Psychology and German language at Keller High School in Keller, Texas.

I am a native German speaker and in addition to the language knowledge, I bring with me to the classroom the knowledge of the German culture that I was born and raised into, and that the German language is embedded in. It is not easy to convey to my students, that in contrast to American thinking, there are differing cultural concepts in this world, and that the European culture and European thinking differs far more from the American culture and American thinking than my students had come to learn:

• At Keller High School, I was the sponsor of the German Club, where I exposed my students to the customs of this foreign country and this foreign culture.

• Once a year, I took my best German students on a trip to the town of Fredericksburg, Texas, which was founded by Germans, and we visited the town museum, which harbors traces and artefacts of the German influence and the German attitude towards farming and community living.

• In my Summer break I took a small group of my students on an individual trip to my homeland Germany and visit the German Black Forest town of Loffenau that I spent my childhood in. My goal is to provide the students as much of human contact and exposure to the foreign culture and foreign thinking as possible. Instead of staying in hotels we are staying in youth hostels, which allow for peer contact with German nationals the same age as my students. In our travel through the major German cities of Frankfurt, Fritzlar, Kassel, Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin, Heidelberg, and in the exposure to the German cultural heritage as at Deutsche Maerchenstrasse, Kassel Wilhelmshoehe, Castle Hohenzollern, I hope to convey to my students a sense of German culture and German thought.

Before teaching High School, I worked as a free-lance Translator for the languages German and English and in Adult Education:

• From 1991-1999 I taught classes in German language, as well as Functional Academic Skills in English language and Remedial Mathematics, at the U.S. Army Education Center in Darmstadt, Germany.
• From 1990-1994 I taught basic and advanced German language courses at Big Bend Community College in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
• From 1987-1994 I taught classes in English language at the German Volkshochschule in Darmstadt, Germany.

 

Wolfgang Barwig   IRS Enrolled Agent, admitted to practice before the Internal Revenue Service B. S. Liberal Arts with majors in Psychology and Sociology, Excelsior College, Albany, NY   Certified Computing Professional (CCP), ICCP, Des Plaines, IL

Since 2009 I am admitted to practice before the Internal Revenue Service as an Enrolled Agent (EA), recognized as a professional engaged in the preparation of Individual and Business Income Taxes. As an Enrolled Agent (EA), I am authorized by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Professional Responsibility, to represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service in all 50 states. I am bound by the IRS Code of Ethics in Circular 230 (USC Title 31 Section 10: Practice Before The Internal Revenue Service), and by the continuing education standards of the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Enrolled agents specialize in taxation and report their hours of continuing professional education directly to the IRS. 60,000 Enrolled agents in the United States advise, represent and prepare tax returns for individuals, partnerships, corporations, estates, trusts, and non-profits. Enrolled agents are the only taxpayer representatives who receive their right to practice directly from the U.S. government - whereas certified public accountants and attorneys are licensed by states and their licenses are only state specific.

I first learned about accounting and income taxes in Germany in 1971-1973, as a part-time accounting apprentice to a Certified Public Accountant (see story at the bottom of this page). From 2007 on I prepared individual income taxes for a Jackson Hewitt franchisee, reviewed individual income taxes for a Liberty Tax franchisee, prepared individual income taxes for Certified Public Accountant companies. As an Enrolled Agent I use my expertise also to provide high-quality tax assistance at no cost to low- and moderate-income clients.

I grew up in destroyed post World War II Germany, at a time when "the shadow of the Nazi regime" could still be felt. In my late twenties I started to read a lot. I discovered that the constitution of Hessia, the German state I was living in, was modeled after the American constitution - it looked good on paper but it did not reflect reality! I concluded that none of the prerequisites: morality, ethics and values necessary for a functioning democracy were ever installed in Germany:

 

Decades after 1945 there is still no sign of deep soul-searching in Germany, no searching for the cause of the Holocaust and for a solution so that it could not happen again. Instead, in utter irony the scientific analysis of the still remaining non-processed Holocaust is turned into a criminal offense in Germany and by now most Germans arrived at the belief that their grandparents had not been involved in the Holcaust or had opposed the racist policies of Nazism. Dating back to the harsh Prussian parenting techniques, the Nazi ideal of the emotionally unavailable mother (Johanna Haarer) was not reversed after 1945, and as a consequence, German children until today continue to be subjected to emotional abuse and raised to become avoidant/dismissing attached adults (Bowlby, Main, Ainsworth) with low self-esteem. Research over multiple generations shows that without intervention, parental childhood attachment experiences keep being transmitted to their children (in German: transgenerationale Weitergabe von elterlichen Bindungsmustern). The German mind was not changed in the transition from Nazi Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany: The touted "Re-Education" of Germans after the end of World War II did not succeed, neither was the "Anti-Semitism" eradicated in Germany. The touted "De-Nazification" pitted Germans against each other and created a climate of mistrust between German citizens. Ethics and values necessary for a functioning democracy were never installed in any German institution and the caste-like, rigid, hierarchical German social class system still exists today. The German judicial system was not thoroughly cleansed of its authoritarian core and of the taint of the Nazi time. After the precedent set in the 1930s when German citizenship could legally be stripped from a group of 550.000 Germans, and German judges were no longer deciding cases on the base of law, but searched their soul for: "whatever is good for the Nation", the feeling of security and of the reliance on lawful judiciary process in Germany is still wanting.

I regret not being able to wait more than half a century for the anticipated changes to finally materialize in Germany. Since I wanted to experience in my lifetime a REAL democracy, and wanted my descendants to grow up and be educated in a REAL democracy, I moved from Germany to the United States in 1999 and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2011.

Only a person raised and educated in the American values, American ethics and with a full understanding of the workings of the American government and a readiness to participate in and contribute to the American democratic system can be a member of the American society. Therefore, I spent three years before my move from Germany to the Unites States to educate myself about the American language, the value system, the Anglo culture and the difference between the collectivistic society I come from and the individualistic society I was about to enter.

Now Iam living amongst the descendants of the authors of the post World War II constitution of Hessia. Now I am finally able to find its concepts in reality.

Now I am a retired Certified Computing Professional (CCP) with 25 years of experience with computers and software. I hold ICCP proficiency certificates for Business Information Systems and for the programming languages BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL, and C++.

In the 1970s and 1980s the German National Research Center for Information Technology cooperated with multiple German state departments of education. As a member of a team of six computer scientists, I participated in this cooperation, developing INTEGA, an automated software system for creating timetables and for administrative tools for large integrated schools in Germany. During meetings with school administrators and members of the state education departments all over Germany I fine tuned the requirements and the implementation and testing of the INTEGA software on various computer systems. INTEGA: Stundenplanprogramm für Schulen mit differenzierter Unterrichtsstruktur DV hilft die Schule verwalten My book series about INTEGA: Stundenplanprogramm für Schulen mit differenzierter Unterrichtsstruktur, Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung, Sankt Augustin, Germany

 

From 1973 to 1998 I worked as a computer scientist at the Deutsches Rechenzentrum, now: German National Research Center for Information Technology, in Darmstadt, Germany. My professional emphasis was on portability of software, on compatibility between computer systems, and I continue to view and support the "World Wide Web" concept as a set of open, global, independent, portable specifications that were never intended to be abused and perverted by certain software and hardware manufacturers. From 1973 to 1985, besides using FORTRAN for the system INTEGA, I was acting systems programmer for Telefunken TR440. In 1973, in my spare time I designed and implemented system utilities in TR440 Assembler for the ZRS (Zentrale Registrierstelle für Studienbewerber). In 1974, in my spare time I designed and implemented a computerized accounting and costing system in COBOL on a mainframe computer IBM/370 DOS/VS for a German Fortune 500 company. In 1980 the system was migrated to Siemens (now Fujitsu) BS2000 and some interactive DCAM-COBOL applications added. The system INTEGA, an automated software system for creating timetables, was written in FORTRAN and some Assembler routines. From 1976 to 1985 I was porting the system INTEGA to IBM/OS using TSO/ISPF/JCL and to Siemens BS2000. In 1980 I was acting systems programmer for Siemens BS2000. In 1982 I was acting systems programmer for IBM/VM. In 1983 I was acting systems programmer for IBM S/1 RPS. In 1995, in my spare time I developed a networked point-of-sale terminal system on personal computers for a German startup company and maintained it until 2001. From 1997-1998 I was acting webmaster using Perl, promoting internet access to German high schools (Schulen ans Netz). Link: Schulen_ans_Netz

 

It started with eminent domain and a broken arm: I first learned about accounting and income taxes in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971-1973, as a part-time accounting apprentice to a German Steuerberater (Certified Public Accountant), my dear friend Diplom-Volkswirt Hildegard Schultheis. She was 70 and I was 20. As for her retirement, she had inherited some real estate and had added/invested in some real estate over her lifetime totaling about a quarter million. But the local German government decided to claim eminent domain on her properties and re-zoned it for an industrial park. She went through the courts but did not have a chance. Two years before we met, the local government sent her a final check over $2,500, which she proudly refused to cash. Therefore ... at the age of 68 she had to start working again. When we met she was recovering from a broken arm. She did not have any income because without being able to type she was unable to perform her job! After learning that, I promptly offered her my help: I told her, I may not know anything about accounting but I was good at Math, had a number sense, had two healthy hands and was eager to do all the "leg work" for her. I would be her hands, and leave her working with her brain only. Then, in the process, while adding columns after columns of numbers, I began asking her questions, and piece by piece she gave me high quality answers and some background information - but only just as much as I could handle. Over three years on the weekends, I learned German bookkeeping, ..., up to doing a German "Gewinn- und Verlustrechnung" (Profit and Loss Statement) and then a "Bilanz" (Balance Sheet).