Libby and I wanted to spend at least one day shadowing a class at our host school to get a better understanding of a school day in Germany from a student’s perspective. Today was that day for us!

The class we decided to shadow was the group of 11th graders we first saw in TOK class on our first day at our host school. Most of their classes are in English, and they are pretty comfortable with us at this point, so we thought this would be a good match. We began with English with Mr. S. They spent much of the class discussing different genres and subgenera that exist and different works that fall into or involve each category. Mr. S was developing a handout with this information on it using the computer and SmartBoard as a projector. Later in the class, the students broke into groups to discuss different short stories they had read. An interesting observation for us was that in the Lehrerzimmer, Mr. S had seemed a little standoffish and unfriendly, but he totally transformed when he was in the classroom. He was engaging and energetic. He was still a little harsh at times, but I really enjoyed being in his classroom.

We stayed in our students’ classroom during their 20 minute break. Many students left the room, but some stayed, and a few spent the break changing their quote of the day on the back chalkboard of the room to an A$AP Rocky quote.

The next class we observed was history with Ms. S (a different Ms. S than the one from 7th grade English). The students spent most of class peer editing one another’s historical investigations, which was a writing assignment for them. Class concluded with a few student presentations on Nazi propaganda mostly examining images like posters and paintings. One student who had been criticized by Mr. S for not knowing his irregular verbs was not very respectful during Ms. S’s class. This might have just been related to the time of day or any number of factors, but, as a fly on the wall, it is interesting to consider how other teachers and classes could impact student behavior in our classes in such a big way.

Libby and I had to leave school to head to the university for our final seminar. We went a little early to try to visit the student store and walk around some, and I had to meet with the Uni film team about the promotional video for this program before our seminar started. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty bad, so walking around on campus wasn’t too fun.

We had our final seminar with Andreas, Anja, the buddies, Gerd, and Betsy, Dr. Scott, Dr. Palsha, and Björn Skyping in. These seminars have been one of my favorite parts of the program because they have brought together a roomful of people who really care about educating their students in the best way and have great insights about challenges, needs, important steps, and even solutions. Varied multicultural perspectives also add an invaluable layer to the benefit of these discussions as well. We returned to our four topics from before of tests/standardization/accountability, teachers, parent-teacher-student relationships, and the classroom as a social space and tried to represent the differences between the U.S. and Germany in picture form. You can find our results below. 😃 We also talked about inclusion and the difference between inclusion and integration and what true inclusion would look like. We concluded with a deep-reaching discussion trying to touch on the roots of the underlying differences between our two education systems, situated in two different cultures. The path of that discussion is recorded on the green chalkboard in the last of the images below.

To conclude our conversation, each of us shared an insight and a lingering open question we have from the program. It was awesome to be able to hear what everyone really took away from our experiences, so I’m really glad we did this wrap-up activity. I wish I had everyone’s responses (I think Anja took notes of them), but I only have mine (because I had to write them down to express them), so I’ll include them:

The insight I shared was that of a confirmed commonality between the U.S. and Germany. In both places, based on my experiences, education is a fundamental need that requires passion, differentiation, and careful consideration. Further, being educators is universally fulfilling because of the individual interactions we have with students.

The open question I still have is whether it is better to accept societal shortcomings or flaws upfront and institutionalize them (as I think Germany has done with the separation of the Gymnasium from the comprehensive school) or whether it is better to “pretend" (maybe it is not pretending) like our conceived ideals are achievable but in the process risk not confronting societal shortcomings or flaws head on (as I think the U.S. is prone to do by jumping into inclusion policies without proper support but expecting them to work because they are democratic in their basis).

I think we all left the seminar with a shared sense that we need to continue these thinking and deliberative practices and to take advantage of the benefits to which we have access through the potential of multicultural exchange.

After the seminar, we went out with the buddies to a Turkish restaurant called Arkadash and then to McDonald’s to have McFlurries. I think I’ll always have some bittersweet feelings associated with Mickey D’s now.