Today was the first day at school for which Libby and I scheduled our own classes to attend. We had scheduled ourselves back to back Sport (gym) classes and then Konrad's Theory of Knowledge (TOK) with the 11th graders see had seen a few times before, and we thought this would be a not too strenuous and pretty fun day. How silly of me; it was Monday after all.

We showed up at school 5 or 10 minutes before it began at 7:50, and went to the Lehrerzimmer (teachers' lounge), hoping we would find Mr. B, the teacher for the Sport classes we were attending. We didn't see him so we asked a student where the gym was, and we walked over to it. We tried opening every door, and they were all locked. Then we tried knocking on every door, and no one answered. We returned to the Lehrerzimmer and asked any teachers who were there how to get into the gym, and no one really knew. Then we went to find Mr. G, and he asked us first why we were late (so we explained our troubles), and then he gave us a weird-shaped key and told us it would open the gym. We tried to use this key on every door, and it didn't work. (It turns out that this key only works for the other gym and the back door of the school.) After all of this, we decided it was best to just work on our schedule for next week and try to make it to the next Sport class.

We ran into Mr. B during the 20 minute break between classes, and he said he would take us to the gym with him when class started. Aside from the fact that the gym was freezing, observing this Sport class was great! It was with the 8th grade class we really like, and Mr. B worked really well with them. He was introducing the sport of volleyball, so he would explain a little with everyone sitting in a circle, have them practice, and then explain a little more. Mr. B told us that students would be graded on participation and also tested on certain skills like setting and bumping. Students are supposed to have Sport three times per week in Germany, but they only have it two times per week here (and they have one full "Field Day" type day). One student got in trouble, so I even got to play a little volleyball since Mr. B asked if one of us could be his partner.

At one point while we were in Sport class, I referred to myself as a GLL (German language learner) in kind of an offhand way. This sounded odd, which led me to reflect a bit more on the language-learning aspects of schooling that we have observed. Seeing how bilingual education works at Hansa Gymnasium has been really beneficial, especially since we have been able to observe techniques for teaching English – a relevant subject for us as Americans! However, I realized that I haven’t really seen any students being taught how to speak the dominant or primary language, German. This is probably because students who still need to learn German would not attend a gymnasium, but I am just speculating. I am wondering how different the English-teaching and German-teaching techniques would be in Germany though, since the former is being taught as a supplementary language, and the latter would be taught as a primary language. I also wonder if GLLs would be treated similarly to how ELLs are treated and if teachers run into similar difficulties when helping these populations.

After Sport class, we went back to Konrad's Theory of Knowledge class. Two groups were giving presentations on their TOK topics of choice. The first group presented on the idea of whether we could also possibly be brains in a vat and not experiencing the real world (they opened their presentation with a clip from The Matrix). The second group presented on the topic of following authority, and they talked about the Milgram experiment (and four other theories) and the fact that they did the assignment that Konrad told them to do. The groups fielded questions after their presentations, but this had no bearing on their grade. After class, Konrad said they still had a long way to go in developing structure and forming their own views on theories. I think it would be great if the U.S. offered philosophy or a class like this in high school because argument development is a key skill for a variety of fields.

Once we left school, Libby and I went into Hamburg and got some pizza and Spezi (coke + Fanta, even better than Mezzo Mix). We shopped a little and walked around near the Rathaus. It was pretty cold, but it was nice to be able to spend some more time in the city!