Fall Break

So, my German students have been in school for about two months, and we just had a two-week-long fall break!  I found the timing quite unfortunate, since I still feel like I barely know my students and would have liked to have had some continuity with going to school, but such is life. 

That being said, as I previously mentioned, I used the time to do a little travelling.  The first week I just hit up some of the cities nearby, Paderborn, Bielefeld, and Oerlinghausen…Detmold is the prettiest of them all!  But Paderborn and Bielefeld have far better shopping options, as they’re bigger.

Then there was Zürich.  Upon landing at the airport we were greeted with a barrage of Swiss watch ads, which was mildly amusing.  Amusing stereotypes aside, though, this was one of the least fabulous trips I’ve taken within Europe.  It was ridiculously expensive, there weren’t that many “attractions” we wanted to see, and the ones we did see were a bit disappointing.  The zoo was small, the art museum was rather boring, and even the opera we saw was an oddly modern production that just confused us both (“us both” being me and Kate, another English Teaching Assistant who lives in Paderborn).

The trip did have one great part though: Luzern.  Or Lucerne, depending on how you wanna spell it.  It was an absolutely gorgeous city, set on a river that opened up into a lake, just like Zürich.  While I wouldn’t recommend planning a trip to Switzerland to anyone, I would totally tell people travelling around Europe to stop in Luzern for an afternoon or a day.

Disappointments aside, the trip was an interesting chance to compare Switzerland and Germany.  First, the language, while still “German,” is really Swiss German, and pretty damn incomprehensible to me – Kate was doing a great job understanding it, though.  I think that Swiss German fits the bill for what a lot of Americans imagine as stereotypical, ugly German.  It’s guttural, filled with a lot of harsh back-of-the-throat sounds, and had what I found to be a very strange cadence.  Coming back to Germany and the very standard German of my region was a relief! 

Some other differences I noticed:

In Zürich, although not Luzern, there was free wireless internet in almost every café and restaurant we were in!  Germany is disappointingly not-wired (my old dorm in Tübingen didn’t even have wireless), so it was a nice change to be able to pop onto Facebook or check emails during the day. 

The Swiss cross the street when the pedestrian light is red!  Germans DO NOT do this.  If you do, the old ladies and people with children will glare at you, and you’ll likely get fined if a cop sees you.  I was absolutely loving how the Swiss just crossed the street whenever and wherever they wanted to.

There are Starbucks everywhere. Truly on every street corner. 

You don’t have to pay to use the bathrooms in department stores like you do in Germany!  So greatly appreciated.

The Swiss don’t appear to separate their trash in airports and train stations.  Again, very un-German (here, we separate trash from paper from glass from plastics, and can bring beer or other bottles back to grocery stores and receive deposit money.)

They had “Butterbrezeln” in Switzerland!!…We had them in Tübingen as well, but when I tried to order one up here in Detmold, I just got a funny look.  Someone later told me that’s a very Southern thing (someday soon I will try to devote a post to Northern v. Southern Germany – I miss the south!).

Surprisingly, the beer in Switzerland – and I mean Swiss-brewed beer – was absolutely delicious!!  Not something I expected coming from Germany, but true.   

Tuesday, it was back to school – during my first two hours with the 10^th graders, I was allowed to take half the group alone and work on some literary summaries and analyses!  It was pretty challenging, the kids don’t want to seem to speak with me that much.  I’ll keep working on it.  

American Politics and British English

My attempts to lead lessons last week met with mixed success.  My Thursday morning started with leading a listening exercise with the 6^th graders…they comprehended quite a bit, but the exercise I designed didn’t allow them to speak with each other very much.  My week then dissolved into a disaster with the 8^th graders on Friday.  I wanted to explain to them the idea of the electoral college and therefore the idea of swing states, since I’m from one, but the lesson went from bad to worse…the video I found about the electoral college played half-way and then crashed the computer, and when I attempted to use the whiteboard to explain the process, I was met with blank looks and absolutely no one would answer my questions.  The lesson dissolved into the teacher trying to explain the process in German to them, and they still didn’t understand. 

Wasted lesson aside, I’m mostly upset because I feel like it was a really horrible introduction to me/my teaching for the kids…after something like that I think they’re going to be really hesitant to engage and be conversational with me.  Had that happened in the 9^th grade class I went on the class-trip with, I feel like it wouldn’t have many negative repercussions; they’re comfortable enough with me that we could easily have a positive, communication-filled lesson the next day.  So that’s my biggest fear right now, but only time will tell.  Happily, my week ended on a really positive note, with the other 8^th grade class engaging a ton with me.  We did some listening exercises where they had to take notes on what I was telling them about my family, myself, and Cleveland, and the next day one of their assignments was to plan a fun day for me in the region – they were all super excited to share their ideas, which mostly included eating and shopping.  It was pretty cute.  Less cute was the fact that a bunch of the girls think I look like Kristin Stewart (I’ve definitely gotten that before in Germany, not sure why) but I guess there are worse American celebrities to look like. 

My interesting German-schools-are-so-different observation of the day is that there are no school buses.  Kids ride the public busses, with tickets paid for by the school system (or at least I’m pretty sure that’s accurate…) and the public buses are scheduled around class times.  So, in the morning my bus arrives half-an-hour before the first class starts, and I can catch a bus back to Detmold after the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, or final period.  It’s awesome and adorable how these kids just take themselves around the city, and I’ve never noticed a kid freaking out over a lost bus pass.  Quite responsible of them, no? 

Aside from not knowing the students well enough (oh, and not knowing how to teach), British English is my other big problem here.  I’ve gone to correct what people have said, only to learn that what they’re saying is totally appropriate for British English!  For example, instead of saying “review” for a test, they say “revise.”  Which just sounds super funny to me!  Turns out I’m going to be learning German and English this year…

For the next two weeks, though, I’ll be on fall break – crazy, since I totally feel like I just got here.  I’ve been decently touristy the past few days, and I’m headed to Zurich next week for 4 days, but I’ll write more on that later.  

Schedule for the quarter

I finally have a fixed schedule for the coming quarter!  I will be working 12 hours a week (that is the max they’re supposed to give us…not sure what they think we’re supposed do with the many many other hours in a week), with 7 different classes, and 5 teachers.  So far, I’m thinking it’s going to be quite manageable, although I only started this schedule Tuesday.  I have both Mondays and Wednesdays free, although some Monday afternoons I might go in to spend extra time with one of the classes. 

Tuesday, though I was with a group of 10^th graders for the first two periods; they definitely will need some prodding to be more communicative!  Then, I spent the next hour in a 6^th grade class, they were adorable and very eager about reading aloud and talking.  The teacher in that class asked me if I want to lead a lesson Thursday, and I said yes pretty quickly without really thinking about it…now I’m terrified!  I’ve got a little plan laid out in my notebook, but have no idea how the students will react to the listening exercise, ie, whether they will actually be able to understand any of it.  But I’m hoping they do and we have a successful first lesson!  If not, we’ll be moving onto describing pictures and maybe I’ll be able to get them to talk about their own vacation experiences.   Tomorrow, I’ll also be reviewing the 9^th graders blogs with them, going over common grammar and vocabulary mistakes…I’m hoping that goes well too and they actually learn something! (I’m ridiculously nervous if you can’t tell.  I came here to learn about teaching but it seems so scary right now!)

Updates on that tomorrow, onto more fun social topics…let’s start with smoking.  As you may know, smoking is far more prevalent here in Europe than in the States.  Many of my friends in Tübingen smoked and everyoneeeeee I’ve met from the Music School here smokes as well.  However, many of the teachers at school have told me that it’s really going “out of style” and young people are smoking less, although that’s not what I’m seeing.  It’s definitely an interesting difference between here and the States, especially because they’re frequently smoking in bars, although I’m told this has technically been made illegal. 

Today, Oct 3, is the Day of German Unity, so no one had school!  So yesterday I went down to Paderborn, where another American Teaching Assistant lives, and we had dinner with an old host family of hers.  They were incredible welcoming, fed us an absolutely delicious dinner, and just spent the whole evening hanging out with us and chatting.  It is so incredibly nice to hang out with German families – it’s something I never did in Tübingen, and it’s great to see their homes, how they interact, what they cook, etc.  Then, we went down into the city to a bar, and even in the dark, I could tell that the city was really pretty.  I’m super-excited to go back and do some more exploring, especially since it’s a very very Catholic town and there are what appear to be beautiful churches eeeeeeeverywhere.  

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.