We returned to Ms. S's 7th grade class for our first class today. She outlined on the board what their upcoming exam would cover and then explained it. The class broke into three groups again, and Ms. S, Libby, and I led discussions on what we like to do on holidays. We talked about where we like to go and what we do or do not like to do there. Working in this classroom has really helped me work on my ability to stretch a discussion with a group of students. Afterward Ms. S brought the class back together and introduced the next topic of discussing different types of media. We broke back up into groups, and the teachers rotated to the next group to discuss a few examples of media provided in the textbook. The students listened to different types of media and had to make inferences about their contexts and purposes (e.g. for news, information, entertainment, etc.).

Next we went to 11th grade history (taught in English) with a different Ms. S. The students brainstormed arguments and then spent a while responding to the question of whether Mein Kampf should be banned in Germany. This was not really a debate since one side shared all of their reasons before the other side could share their reasons, and there was no opportunity for a rebuttal. Ms. S instructed the students to develop their arguments in more detail in writing for homework. Interestingly, one student, who decided to join the pro-banning side to play devil’s advocate, made the argument that perhaps Germans are inherently different and should have the text banned even though it is not banned in other countries. The idea of only allowing an annotated version with historical context and explanations provided was also suggested. (I later saw a copy of Mein Kampf without annotated commentary in a souvenir shop in Berlin.) After this discussion, the students broke up into small groups and began to work in stations. Each station was examining some kind of resistance to Nazis ranging from the existence of the Swing Kids to full-on Hitler assassination attempts. Through this stations activity, Ms. S was also pushing students to examine if these groups’ motivations were purely related to defending and promoting human rights or if there were other motivations in play. The students used laptop carts (with class sets of laptops) for some of these stations.

Between classes, Konrad took a moment to show us a display honoring three German men. These three men saved around 250,000 Chinese people in Nanking during WWII, and one of these men attended our gymnasium.

We then attended an 8th grade English class with Ms. H. This was the 8th grade class with which we were familiar already, and we were discussing the American and German political systems. We began with a great video explaining the basics of the American political system (this was actually produced by someone in NC!) accompanied by guided notes and other exercises involving highlight key vocabulary and checking for students’ understanding of who can actually vote. Later in class, we watched the BBC one minute news, and then students went back over each story. Ms. H selected a different student to be the recorder for each story, and students tried to recall and articulate as many details from each story as they could (I think they were taking notes). This seems like a great practice for teaching language learning at an intermediate level. Toward the end of class, the students began to explain the German political system to us a little. It surprised me to learn that Hillary Clinton would most likely belong to Germany’s most conservative official party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). It is also surprising that there is any party with “Christian" as an official part of the title, but this brings up the question of whether nominal or actual influence is more impactful / worse in comparison to the political situation in the U.S.

At a calmer time during this class, one of the (very gifted) students asked me what some stereotypes of German people were. I told him that a few stereotypes are that Germans are very orderly and efficient, and his response to that was that he had written all As on his exams so far, which was pretty funny. This students and another student (the one who had asked me if I thought that the U.S. was a terrorist organization) walked with Libby and me all the way back to our bus stop because they wanted to talk to us a little longer. We thought this was so sweet, and we are really going to miss our school here.

This evening, I accompanied my host dad and brother to THW to see what it was like. The members were incredibly friendly and even gave us a brief tour! THW’s equipment is very impressive (it can lift cars, pump water at an incredible weight, generate an impressive amount of electricity, etc.), and everything seemed well-organized. If there were to be a long-term disaster for which trained THW members would have to stay a while in a distant area, these members’ employers would simply have to give them time off from work. My host brother joined THW a few months ago, and after six months, he will receive a blue uniform instead of the gray one he has now! I have attached a few pictures from my THW visit below.