School update

To reassure you all that I do, in fact, still work here and go to school, rather than bumming around on trains and in new cities all day, an update:

I’ve mentioned already that I got a new fifth grade class back in February; what I haven’t yet said is how brilliant they are.  We play a vocabulary game at the beginning of each class, they translate full sentences flawlessly and quickly.  Their teacher fires questions about the use of various tenses at them, they respond unhesitatingly with the correct description of when to use the simple present v. the present progressive.  We write sentences on the board like “Hillary gave her brother chocolate chip cookies” and they can identify the direct and indirect objects.  Their  class has shown me the extremely results of a good, challenging teacher who expect a lot of his students, and the hard work they’ll put in in turn.  And of course, they’re absolutely adorable!

During the past few weeks I’ve also been working very intensely with my 11^th graders on their “Facharbeite,” long papers on a subject related to international exchange or cultural comparisons.  In short, I absolutely love it.  I’ve always known that I love writing and the writing process (and thank god, considering the grad-school plan I’ve got going), but I didn’t realize how absolutely exciting and rewarding it is to give kids feedback on their work, and have them come to me a week later with re-worked and really improved essays.  I suspect it won’t always be so rewarding – these are the kids at the top of their game in their grade level, really – but it’s exciting to discover yet another aspect of teaching and academics that I really really enjoy. 

Finally, this week marked the start of my last-new schedule, for the 4^th quarter.  It’s pretty perfect – I’ve got all of my favorite classes still, and was able to re-work in my awesome 9^th graders who I went on class trip with, as well as a new 8^th grade class – they’re wild but super enthusiastic. 

To close, I’ve just recognize that I describe the majority of my classes that way: “wild/crazy but enthusiastic.”  As mentioned, this very much has to do with the fact  that German students are, as a rule, far less quiet than American students.  In many of my classes, it’s completely normal for a teacher to talk over the sound of half his students chattering.  I don’t do this.  I’ve recently accepted that my American ways cannot be broken in this respect, I will spend a full two minutes standing at the front of the room waiting for them to quiet each other down, and I recently told a class that if they couldn’t get it together and be quiet when I was talking, I wasn’t going to come anymore to work with them.  I’ve got to say, this week was markedly better!