Back to School, Back to School

I’ve been shadowing different grade levels this week, it’s kinda funny and makes me feel like a little kid again!  The students start every new class by standing up and greeting their teachers in a slightly-adorable, slightly-funny sing-song voice: “Good mooooooorning, Mrs. Charter” or “Guten Moooooorgen, Herr Jürgens auf der Haar.” 

First, to the scheduling: classes are 45 minutes long, but they also have a lot of “Doppelstunden,” where they have two 45 min periods right next to each other with a five minute break in between.  Also, lunch isn’t til 1:05, but they have two larger breaks before that.  So, the 9^th graders I shadowed Monday had this class schedule:

7:45-8:30 Math

8:35-9:20 Math

9:20-9:40 Break

9:40-10:25 French

10:30-11:15 French

11:15-11:30 Break

11:30-12:15 Physics

12:20-13:05 Physics

13:15-14:00 Lunch

14:05-14:50 Gym/sport

14:55-15:40 Gym/sport

So, it can be a really long day for them!  Or, some days they’re done by 1:05 and can go home. 

Second, some random things I’ve noticed: The kids tell me they have lockers, but they don’t use them – they just carry their bookbags and coats all over to each class.   They also don’t have a “homeroom” time, although they have a main teacher who is responsible for their class…I wonder how things like state attendance records work. 

As for the rest of the week: Tuesday I went to Bielefeld to enroll at a German university (more on that later, maybe, it was a disaster), Wednesday I shadowed a 13^th grade class, Thursday I shadowed 7^th graders, and Friday I got to go to all of Susanne’s English classes with her.  It was awesome! I was super impressed with the 9^th graders knowledge of English, and the 13^th grade class I visited spent the entire class period asking me questions and telling me about stuff in Germany, all in English.  I think the speed at which I speak was throwing them off sometimes, but I think they’ll get into the swing of it soon! 

By far the strangest school-related thing that I’ve experienced here so far is what happens when a teacher can’t be in class.  There are no substitute teachers!  Rather, the main teachers leaves an assignment for the students to work on independently.  It seems like the younger grades have some other teacher sitting in the room with them to keep things under control, but the older kids just fill out their own attendance sheets and then can go do anything!  It strikes me as soooooo strange, yet when I think of how much crap we sometimes gave substitute teachers, I wonder if it isn’t just as an effective way to deal with the regular teacher not being there. 

Finally, on an unrelated-to-school note, here are some population comparisons of various cities here and in the states, to help you (and me!) have some idea of where I am.  Source is, of course, Wikipedia, and numbers are rounded.

Detmold, where I live: 73,000

Blomberg, where I teach: 16,000

Bielefeld, where I’m trying to enroll at university: 325,000

Paderborn, the other university town nearby: 150,000

Bochum, where we went on the class trip: 380,000

Tübingen, where I spent a semester: 90,000

Stuttgart, capital of the state that Tübingen is in: 600,000/2.7 million in the region

Göttingen, where I spent a summer: 120,000

Berlin, Germany’s capital: 3.5 million

Cleveland: 400,000/2 million in the region

St. Louis: 320,000/2.8 million in the region

Washington DC: 600,000/8.1 million in the region

So, I seem to keep moving to smaller and smaller German towns…Detmold only has two platforms at the train station!!    

Class trip to Bochum

…was amazing.  And exhausting.  The class I went with, a group of 9^th graders, was literally the nicest group of kids I’ve ever met.  They were not only really well behaved, they were also totally welcoming of me.  I’m super excited to see them again next week!  Susanne is going to have me spend a few days next week just going to a bunch of different classes with different grade levels, so I can get a feel for the German Gymnasium system, and it sounds like Monday I’ll be following their class around. 

The class also seemed quite engaged with the various activities they encountered, more so than I remember my high-school classes being on field trips.  We had a few tours at various places, and the kids were all really excited to talk, answer questions, and even ask their own questions.  On the other side, they seemed far more chatter-y than a group of American students would have been (or, a group of US students that talkative would have been reprimanded by their teachers I think).  However, I think I’ve heard that that’s quite normal of German students, although I wonder how I’ll feel teaching with all that background noise going on. 

As for the exhausting part: one, I’m a horrible traveler, and 4 days of going non-stop in tourist-y mode really did me in.  We saw some really interesting stuff – the Bergbau (mining) Museum, Starlight-Express (a musical on rollerblades), the Duisburg harbor, the largest inland harbor in Europe, etc – and some less fascinating stuff.  Two: I think the most exhausting part was just speaking German the whole time – I forgot how much energy it takes to go through the day when you have to focus so hard on what everyone is saying, even when they’re saying simple and pretty much inconsequential stuff.  I’m very much looking forward to my German improving to the point where I can get through the day without desperately wanting a nap!

A “side-effect” of the trip was that we spent a lot of time driving around to get to these various places, and of course time on the Autobahn getting from Blomberg to the Ruhrgebiet and back again.  That, in conjunction with being driven around by some of the teachers from the schools, has led to the following series of observations about car transport in Germany:

1.     The buttons for radio and whatnot inside of cars are all in English – even in German-made cars like Porsche and VW.

2.     I’ve mentioned this before, but there is no yellow centerline on German roads.  I have NO IDEA how these people stay on the right side of things.  I find that and the signage all very confusing and not-intuitive, but they keep telling me “it’s just what you’re used to.”

3.     There lights turn from red to yellow to green like ours, but then briefly back to yellow before going green again.  Kinda cool, although the first time it happened and we started to move I thought we were about to run a red light and die in a horrible accident or something.

4.     I’ve seen three pick-up trucks here so far.  Those and the sight of cornfields on the way from Blomberg to Detmold give me the most homesickness.  Weird, no?

5.     Freeways.  Holy smokes.  Now I love freeways in the U.S. – I love how intuitive everything is, how you can just follow the signs north or west or east or south and pretty much end up where you need to be.  German freeways are NOT like that (in my opinion).  First off: while our freeway system makes lovely sense, with interstate numbers increasing as you move from west to east, and from south to north, the German system does not do anything similarly sensible.  Nor is there that distinction between 2-digit interstates and 3-digit local freeways – although this may be due to the extremely small size of Germany, I suppose??  But, most mind-boggling, is the fact that freeway signs do not tell you if you’re going N/S/E/W!!!! The exit signs will show the splits in a “go left gets you to Bochum, go right gets you to Essen” sense but not in a “this is north” and “this is south” sense.  It was driving me crazy all week! I had no idea where I was going…However, German freeways, just like those in the US, are even numbered when they run E-W and odd numbered when they run N-S.  Or so I’m told, I still have to check on that one.

Saturday I finally figured out who the other English Teaching Assistants in Detmold are – there are two girls from Great Britain and one guy from Ireland.  It’s amazing to me how many foreign language assistants Germany brings in each year!

My final note for the day is that Germans walk so damn fast, everywhere, that I genuinely get cramps when walking around with them.  Awkward, no?  The pace is so weirdly quick I think I’d prefer to jog to keep up with them.  

Gymnasium

I finally finally finally visited my school!  So awesome, and so interesting.  Here’s what happened/my disorganized thoughts:

1.     I forgot to wear earrings on my first day of school, whoops!

2.     All of the teachers were incredibly welcoming.  Some live in Detmold also, and it sounds like there are lots of options for carpooling out to Blomberg together, which would be way better than sitting on a bus for 35 minutes in silence every morning. 

3.     The kids speak really impressive English, at least in the classes I observed.  We told them I don’t speak any German so that they will speak English with/around me!

4.     Dress code is pretty casual, even the headmaster wears jeans. 

5.     Teachers only have to be at the Gymnasium when they have class – there is no like “be in the building from 7:30 to 3” rule or anything.  They also don’t have individual offices or even department offices.  Instead, there is a massive room with tons of tables/bulletin boards/coffee machine/copiers where all the teachers can gather, leave their bags, hang out between classes, etc.  Sandra, the woman who took me around with her all day, said she would much prefer if they had like a 7-to-3 schedules, but the lack of offices makes it pretty impossible to do any work at the school, so the teachers end up doing all their preparation and grading at home.

6.     Almost every English teacher I met already has an idea of what classes they want me in.  I think I’ll be pretty busy!  Which is a good thing…since Blomberg is a bit far away, once I’m out there, I want to be in a lot of classes.

7.     The German school system is still very confusing to me.  Sandra tried to explain on Thursday night how the older students end up choosing different subjects to focus on, and take different exams based on which classes they’re in more, and on top of regular school exams have to choose subjects for their Abitur (it’s the test you take at the end of Gymnasium that gets you into Uni…maybe…?), and the Abitur has both written and oral components.  So, Sandra has a 13^th grade English class that meets only Thursdays and Fridays, because that group didn’t choose English as one of their final-year focus classes.  Confusing, no?

8.     Students miss class sometimes to take exams for other classes.  For example, a student walked into the 13^th grade class in the middle of the hour, he had just come from a physics exam.  I feel like that never happens in the States, although maybe that was just Mayfield?  Either way, the system in Blomberg is structured such that it’s expected that students sometimes miss a class for another class’s exam. 

After school, Sandra let me spend the whole day hanging out with her and her kids (she has two adorable, super-ginger boys, 2 and 4 years old) and even took me grocery shopping!  Such a necessity… We were able to also talk a bit more about teaching in Germany, she feels that the profession has really lost respect recently, which made me sad to hear.  I’d always thought Germany had a much better handle on their education system than the States, but I feel like I might be discovering this year that things are just as difficult here as they are at home. For example, she told me that the state governments are continuously “updating” curriculums with no further support for implementation, forcing teachers to completely revamp their systems every few years, and on top of that, making each school purchase the books/pamphlets describing the new curriculums.  More on this topic to follow as I learn more…

Saturday was spent sleeping, jogging, continuing to attempt to unpack my life, and playing poker with some of Seba’s friends (I lost everything in the end, luckily they don’t play for money.)  It was simultaneously great to hang out with people speaking German and soooo annoying at how stuttering/unclear mine still is.  Ohhhhh well it will get there. 

Tomorrow, Monday, I get to go on a school trip with the 9^th graders to the Ruhrgebiet!  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhr)  Check it out.  According to that wiki page, it’s the 5^th largest urban area in Europe! 

Orientation

Monday morning I left Detmold for Köln/Cologne and orientation, still luggage-less – although I received a text from my roommate about an hour after leaving Detmold saying that it had, in fact, arrived that morning.  Once in Köln, I joined the massive group of Americans taking over the main hall of the train station, we boarded a bus, and about half-an-hour later arrived at an old monastery in the town of Odenthal.  It was super-cute, but we spend most of our time in meetings and in “simulated teaching” sessions, where we all had to practice giving a lesson.  Because our “students” were actually our fellow ETAs (English teaching assistants) and therefore native speakers, it was hard to tell what problems would actually arise, but the practice definitely gave me a healthy taste of the difficulties of preparing a lesson plan and effectively teaching my language as a foreign one.

During the last evening of the program, I also started to understand how beneficial it is that we (American ETAs) are not only associated with the PAD (Pädagogischer Austauschdienst/Educational Exchange Service), but also with the Fulbright Kommission.  The PAD organizes exchanges for many foreign-language assistants from all over, placing people from Great Britain, Australia, Spain, etc, in German schools.  We American ETAs are (of course) the only ones associated with Fulbright.  The benefits of that association are financial – ie, lots of travel reimbursement – and social/professional – the networking opportunities, with Germans and other Americans.  Slash we are invited to the yearly Fulbright meeting in Berlin, which we were told is great lectures followed by great partying (roughly). 

The whole week we spoke in English most of the time – I’m guessing the people from the PAD wanted to make sure we didn’t miss any of the important info they were giving us about visas and insurance and that sort of thing, and we were of course practicing giving English-language lessons.  However, from the little German that was spoken, I realized that some of the other ETAs speak absolutely brilliant German, and I’m feeling very inspired-slash-challenged to get my German up to snuff.  I may even be so brave as to dive into my old grammar book from WashU…on a more negative note, I also realized that the usual deterioration of my English that happens when I go to Germany simply can’t happen this year.  I’ve always previously looked with satisfaction upon those ever increasing moments where I can’t remember the English word for something, or German phrases just pop more quickly out of my mouth.  Now, however, I’ll really have to focus of keeping my German and English separate, and learn how to switch quickly and accurately between the two, so that my students can actually learn something from me!  Good life skill I guess. 

Aside from that, orientation was a really great chance to just meet everyone else and establish some contacts – I spent a lot of time with the other Americans who are teaching in cities near me, as well as with some Baden-Württemberg-placed people, who 1) will be great contacts when we want to head down to Stuttgart’s beer festivals (read: calmer yet still legit and awesome versions of Oktoberfest) and 2) made me really, really miss gorgeous B-W (Tübingen, where I studied junior year, was just south of Stuttgart). 

It’s also absolutely freezing in Germany.  I knew it was going to be quite rainy but I didn’t know it would be this cold!!  I think it was nearly sleet-snowing on Wednesday…

Tomorrow (Friday) I FINALLY get to go to my school!!! Susanne is out of town at a conference, so another teacher, Sandra, is going to take me around; we met tonight already for drinks and I was really happy to hear even more about the school from her.  Wish me luck!

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: This site is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State, the Institute of International Education or the Fulbright Program.

Tomorrow officially starts my time as an English Teaching Assistant here in Germany, hence the inclusion of the disclaimer.  I'll travel back to Köln tomorrow and then board a bus to a teeny-tiny town called Altenberg, where we'll spend three days learning everything possible about what we're supposed to be doing (teaching) as well as dealing with all the dreadful logistics stuff (banks, etc).  Next Friday I'll finallllllllly go to my school and meet some other teachers, observe some classes, and hopefully get an even better sense of how my upcoming year will look.

Until then, a few thoughts: I forgot to write yesterday that Ikea doesn't accept credit/debit cards (ex, VISA), which totally surprised me - H&M, for example, does.  Ikea will only take an EC-Karte,which as far as I can tell is really just the German equivalent of a debit card in that it pulls from a checking account.  I'll have one soon!  I imagine it will make me feel super-German and very legit.

Second thought: In the past, I've extolled Germany's lack of customer service as we understand it in the states - your waiters don't hover, you have to pack your own bags at the grocery store, etc etc.  At the present moment, however, I'm fully in favor of the U.S.'s emphasis on "the customer is always right," after dealing with a zillion (well, only like 7) baggage representatives.  After finally getting to the number that I thought would put me in touch with the German shipping company that is going to deliver my luggage, I found out it was just some other person from the Köln airport.  Forging ahead, I attempted to demand in the best Bob-Conkey-demeanor that I could muster up that they get in touch with the company and get me expedited shipping, pre 8:30 am arrival, for tomorrow (my train doesn't leave til 10am).  The woman had a fit and told me it was absolutely impossible to do that now, so I asked for her supervisor, at which point she asked me "Why do you need to talk to her? There is nothing she can do" to which I answered "I just do.  Please get her."  THEN I hear her tell another woman, in German, that I was trying to change the delivery address.  At this point I entered near-rage-blackout stage and told the woman, also in German (I'd been speaking English before with the other one) that I did not, in fact, want to change my address, then DEMANDED she make the expedited shipping happen and then...my piece of shit prepaid German cellphone ran out of credit and the call hung up.

Being an American in Germany.  Rough stuff.  

Final thought: I hit up church this morning - this one in Detmold has far better acoustics than Tübingen's did, I was amazed at how much I understood! - and we only had one reading before the Gospel.  What's up with that? I think I need to do a little research before bed.

IKEA!

Today I went to IKEA! Susanne continued her tradition of being extremely helpful and thoughtful and brought me along on her shopping trip with her daughters.  I was totally overwhelmed by the size but happily found everything I wanted - pillows, sheets, a comforter, a desk lamp, hangers, a bath mat, and a trashcan - and somehow only dropped 160 Euro.  Great success.

A not great success is the fact that I have no clothes to put on those new hangers.  We got back from shopping at about 3 and there were no suitcases anywhere in sight. So I called Delta again and talked to the most unpleasantly rude person I've ever had to deal with on the phone - and I used to work at our alum calling center bothering people and asking them for money!  The man essentially bitched right back at me about how I'm somehow supposed to automatically know that "industry regulations" mean that Air France, as the last carrier I flew, is now responsible for my luggage.  He then proceeded to offer to find for me the number for the airport I flew into, and became even more agitated when I called him out on the fact that according to what he had just said, I needed to talk to Air France, not the Köln airport...

Vowing never to fly Delta again (joke...my return flight is already set to be booked through them I think) I called an Air France number, where the man was very apologetic (and delightfully French-accented) and checked my phone number and said he would look into it and call me back as soon as he could.  When he hadn't three hours later I called again and discovered they still didn't know anything, although they at least seemed to care.

So, although Susanne had invited me over for dinner again, which would have been fun, I cancelled on her and resigned myself to an hour of searching H&M to find some clothes for the orientation meeting I have next Monday-Thursday back in Köln.  Ironic, no?  And then proceeded to buy all sorts of shampoos and soaps and stuff that I rue using.  And then proceeded to launder the few clothes that I did bring with me that I've already used up.  Fresh jeans here I come!  Also, German laundry machines are disastrously small.  Mom, I promise not to let that become an excuse to wear dirty clothes all the time.

Cross your fingers for my luggage arriving at some point!  I'm moving past the fact that it's so delayed and inching towards a state of terror that it might be lost forever.

"Welcome at Cologne/Bonn Airport"

Actually, it might have said "Welcome in Cologne/Bonn airport."  Either way, I thought they needed a different preposition, and was mildly amused at how those crap translations happen in a country where they speak German as well as they do here.  But I guess that's why I'm here!

Background: Just graduated from WashU with my degree in German, going to spend a year in Germany assistant teaching English at a Gymnasium (German high-school equivalent, college prep), where my students will all know that you say "Welcome to," before I start a German PhD program at UNC/Duke next fall.

The adventure starts with horrible flights, lots of running through JFK, bursting into tears once I make it on the plane, rushing again through the Paris airport, arriving in Köln to discover my luggage is still in New York (still no idea where it is, the clean laundry is down to 2 shirts, 2 pairs of underwear, and 1 pair of socks eeeeeeek), calling the parents from the Köln airport to cry some more, getting on a train and barely being able to stay awake, being terrified I'm going to miss my connection and wake up in Berlin, blah blah blah but I finally make it to Detmold!  And within 24 hours I'm immediately plunged into that "Oh my goodness I love everything about Germany this is great I love everyone how amazing could this be" phase.  Susanne (my Betreuungslehrerin, the English teacher at my gymnasium who is like my intro/guide/overall extremely helpful person) picks me up, takes me to my apartment, we meet my roommate, my room is huge and clean, my roommate takes me on a little tour of the city, I go home to "rest" and discover netflix, hulu, and grooveshark don't work in this country (but fratmusic.com does, and has a country section), Susanne picks me up again for dinner at her house, loans me sheets and a towel, takes me back home, and I pass out.  Next morning she super-kindly takes me to appointments she's made with the Ausländeramt (office for getting documents for foreign ppl, they fingerprinted me!) and the bank, to open a German account so I can get paid (!!!), and everything is way easier than I expected.

Detmold is not as heinously picturesque and Tübingen was but is still pretty cutesy-German, and there is a Schloss (castle) in which an old Fürst (some sort of nobility, the translations for such words still elude me) still lives!  Anyways, I'm in that I-love-Germany-phase probably because I live a stone's throw from the Innenstadt/Füßgängerzone (inner city/pedestrian zone) and have not had to take a bus anywhere yet and have already had delicious Bratwurst for lunch and Susanne is taking me to Ikea tomorrow!  Desk lamp here I come.

Language-wise I'm also doing far better than ever before in Germany in terms of listening (duh) but I can't say anything that makes sense!  I'll go to say something and a horrible rush of German comes out, some declined/conjugated, some not, verbs everywhere (German is very strict about where you can put it's verbs), my accent all over the place, and I've probably said a lot of dumb anglicisms like "I'm cold" instead of "It's cold to me," the former of which means I'm like a cold/unfeeling person...but better than saying "I'm hot" which roughly translates as "I'm horny" (can you say awkward?).

I was able to chat a little with Susanne today about what the hell I'm actually doing here, it sounds like I will truly be an assistant teacher, which is totally appropriate, doing a lot of small-group work with the kids, and if I have ideas for lessons or whatnot I can work them out with the teachers.  So sounds not stressful but hopefully structured enough that I can actually learn a lot!

At the beginning of my attempt at blogging about Tübingen I posted my goals for my time in Germany; I believe they were "wear earrings every day" and "learn German."  I'm gonna stick with both of those, perhaps in a month or so I'll add something really exciting like "put on mascara every day"...and now I will sit in my apartment and hope fervently that my doorbell rings soon and some nice man is waiting outside with my luggage!