Breakthroughs

This past week was the week of breakthroughs with my students – turns out all we needed to do was talk about Christmas! 

My 10^th graders finally spoke freely and voluntarily when I expressed confusion about when Santa comes – Germans open presents on the night of the 24^th, in my mind leaving no time for Santa to visit! (Turns out he comes during dinner.)  My 8^th graders \ seemed to enjoy a lesson with me for the very first time today when we listened to the song “Fairy Tale of New York” – an Irish/British Christmas song staple, and filled with lots of nice words like “slut” that they clearly enjoyed learning about.  I think I managed to shock them a little, in the good way, by saying we were doing Christmas music and then playing something so unexpected.  And, my other 8^th graders and I had a great class based around a transcript of a Facebook message.  It was a conversation between me and some British assistants about the differences in our Christmas traditions, so the kids simultaneously got to learn some culture and practice dealing with slang-filled, casual English…shout out to all the Brits/Irish people in Lippe who gave me awesome content for this week!

Their teacher was also really enthusiastic about the lesson I’d put together, as I’d structured it according to a framework he’d introduced me to earlier in the week (it basically involves getting students interested in a topic, offering an activity for them to work on, and having them present their findings and leaving them with something to “take home,” ideally self-produced knowledge or analysis).  That’s the other reason this week has been great – this teacher has started very seriously teaching me how to teach.  He said I’m clearly already comfortable enough with the kids and being in front of a classroom that we can move onto “step 2” in the process, ie, me learning more about pedagogy!  Especially cool is the fact that I’m learning the German terms for school- and teaching-related concepts. 

While a lot of things about my year here are going extraordinarily well, school is by far and away the best part – even with the frustrations that I’ve encountered, being there puts me in such a good mood it’s worth getting up before six every morning!