Friday afternoon in a home for mentally handicapped adults. Ingrid Siebert, teacher in a school for the handicapped, faces the challenge of teaching these six adults once a week. These pupils are more handicapped than any human being she has ever encountered in her professional years and they demand every bit of strength this modest and reserved woman can give. With her help they try to learn reading and writing. Progress is painfully slow. But they are enthusiastic.

Sometimes her pupils arrive at the lesson especially tired from a day's work in the workshop for the handicapped. Now and then their physical handicaps trouble them more than other times. Furthermore, situations which happened right before the beginning of the lesson might have spoiled their mood. The experienced pedagogue then needs to gather all her skills to integrate them into the lesson without overstretching them.

Ingrid Siebert: "They are not expected to ever write sentences. But they are supposed to have fun here, develop a better awareness all around. They are supposed to gain self-confidence and feel that they are taken seriously. That's my job: to make sure everyone has a feeling of achievement, that they go home happily. And then I am happy."

Hans-Dieter Grabe was born in Dresden in 1937. From 1955 to 1959 he studied directing at the the film school in Potsdam-Babelsberg. From 1960 to 1962 he worked as a freelancer for television (Bayerischer Rundfunk/Bavarian Radio). He contributed to the ,Tagesschau/News' and regional broadcasting, subsequently working as an author and director of socio-political magazines and of 53 long documentaries.

1968: Die Trümmerfrauen von Berlin. 1970: Nur leichte Kämpfe im Raum Da Nang. 1972: Mendel Schainfelds zweite Reise nach Deutschland; Ludwig Gehm - ein deutscher Widerstandskämpfer; Bernauer Straße 1 bis 50. 1985: Hiroshima, Nagasaki - Atombombenopfer sagen aus. 1994: Er nannte sich Hohenstein (Forum 1995). 1996: FRAU SIEBERT UND IHRE SCHÜLER.