Fun times at school

A quick update on March before I leave for Berlin:

School school school. It was a really busy few weeks at school, perhaps the busiest since I’ve been here.  Last week, my 9^th graders spent a class period asking me about American high schools and their first question was “are the school busses really yellow?” – definitely an amusing couple of hours!  I’ve also had a few afternoons where I’ve subbed in for sick teachers with the upper-level kids.  It makes for long days, and my 13^th graders weren’t pleased with the work I gave them (practice exams), but the kids are always respectful and it’s cool to be able to organize class periods, even when I’m working off of a teacher’s idea. 

I’ve also helped correct some term papers recently, and got to create my 8^th graders vocabulary test for this week.  Both experiences have, once again, shown me just how much time goes into teaching outside of the classroom – correcting just one, ten-page paper in non-native and thus slightly confusing English took me well over an hour, and I wasn’t even grading, but rather just looking for mistakes and helping with overall clarity. 

Busy-ness aside, the less stressful moments with my 5^th and 6^th graders have been wonderful as usual.  This week one of my 6^th grade classes was having so much fun working on writing their own texts that they asked their teacher if they could have “another hour of English!!!” instead of switching over to history.  We were astounded and of course let them keep going. One task asked them to write me an email about things to do in Blomberg; I learned that we have TWO ice cream shops in the city and that the restaurant in the castle is supposed to be quite excellent :)

On a “school-systems-differences” aside, we were able to push the hour of history back and do another hour of English with the 6^th grade because Gymnasium teachers in Germany always have two subjects – thus, as their English teacher is also their history teacher she can rearrange the hours a bit when she wants to.  Teachers often have subjects that you’d expect to go together – English and German, or a language and history, or math and a science or bio and chem – but there are also combinations like English and biology.

Tomorrow, it’s off to Berlin, then Prague and Bamberg before heading back to Detmold for Easter.  In true German/European fashion, I’m looking forward to some more vacation time!

Some wonderful things about February

Recent news in Germany is that this is the darkest winter they’ve had in decades – one report I saw said in 43 years, another threw out the number 62.  Either way, it’s been ridiculous! Everyone I know, roommates, teachers, and other teaching assitants, is absolutely fed up with this winter and the blues that have come with it…but despite the fact that I’ve been on-off sick and freezing and therefore spending a lot of time in bed with a magazine or movie, February was a pretty great month.  Here’s why:

I went to a hockey game! As it was less physical than a North American game, had a final score of 6-1, and obviously wasn’t played by teams I had any allegiance to, it wasn’t the most exciting game I’ve ever seen, but the fans were super-enthusiastic and, let’s face it, hockey is always awesome. 

The 13^th graders who I’m helping to prep for their final oral exams are getting noticeably more comfortable with speaking and it’s really fun to see them making progress. 

I’ve been doing a decent bit of pronunciation-practice with my kids, and it’s quite satisfying to eliminate things like “willage” and “Ca-li-for-ni-a” from their English!

I now have a tandem partner through Bielefeld University; we met up Wednesday when he invited me to a French-cooking-session at his apartment .  Not only was it a great time and a chance to meet a lot of new people, but we also made some delicious Flammkuchen!  (tarte flambée in French, a thin pizza-like dish)

I’ve gotten to know even more teachers at my school; certainly makes the day more social and enjoyable.

I’ve found a new “gym-buddy” which has given me good incentive to keep going, even as I dread the prospect of waiting outside in the freezing cold at the bus stop. 

Finally, February got some points for being a short month – we’re all super-broke and were happy to have been paid again after only 28 days!

And, March should be equally wonderful – the sun is evening shining today!  At school we’ll finish up with the 13^th graders, I’m headed to Berlin in mid-March for a big Fulbright meeting, we’ll have Spring Break immediately after that, and, most importantly, my dearly-beloved mother is coming to visit!