Everyday here, I find myself surprised by how I am continually met with new surprises. Though my routine is somewhat regular, I always seem to encounter new situations , but I think that just speaks to the depth of international experience and the importance of spending a longer amount of time in one place.

This morning’s first surprise arrived a few bus stops from my own on the way to my host school. A horde of kindergartners entered the bus from the back door, and people began to move away quickly in order to clear a space where they could sit close together toward the back of the bus. I did not anticipate this and did not move out of the way quickly enough, so before I had even fully processed what was happening (bear with me; this was in the morning), I was surrounded by about 20 tiny people with some even sitting on the platform below me leaning against my legs. Students, especially children this young, do not really ride public transit very often in my experience, so this was a totally unexpected but ultimately adorable start to my day.

The day’s next surprise was waiting just around the corner as Libby and I walked to our host school from our bus stop in Bergedorf. The 12th grade students had warned us in class yesterday that celebrations related to their final week of class would begin the next day, but I had not appreciated the full extent of these festivities. The students dress up based on self-chosen themes each day (similar to Spirit Week in the U.S.), and today’s theme was “white trash." The picture below is of some of our students from class yesterday; note especially the student wearing d00k basketball shorts and a Confederate flag (why did he have this lying around??). Many of the girls dressed up like they were pregnant or carried around baby dolls. The Abitur students were drinking beer and smoking outside of school, and the teachers said they could not really do anything about this because they were technically outside of school property. One of our students from class yesterday walked over and offered us a beer (in front of Konrad. at 9:30 in the morning.), which we politely declined. Once the lessons had started, the Abitur students ran through the hallways yelling and throwing candy and spraying water guns into the classrooms as they passed by. It was all pretty fun, and none of the teachers seemed to be too bothered by it.

The first class Libby and I attended was an 8th grade English class. Since I taught 8th graders in my student teaching placement in the U.S., I was happy to return to a classroom with this age again! We began class by introducing ourselves, and each student asked us a question. The questions ranged from “Why are you in Germany?" and “Why do you want to be a teacher?" to “What’s your favorite color?" and “Can you say [some German word that means something related to dragons]?" Ms. K, the teacher, then had students locate Chapel Hill, NC, Chicago, IL (Libby’s hometown), and Greensboro, NC (close enough to my hometown) on their map of the United States. For the rest of class, students worked on the topic of gerunds and infinitives and cases in which it is appropriate to use one or the other or either interchangeably. This class and the next class we observed did a great job integrating the study of the English language and the study of a culture into one lesson, so now I think this more integrated approach in foreign language classrooms is better as long as culture is incorporated in an authentic way.

Ms. K also showed us the rubric that our host school uses for its students in most subjects. The upper categories evaluate students based on behavioral/personality/character-related goals, and the bottom section relates to academic goals. Art and P.E. are the only subjects that use a different rubric. Ms. K explained the different categories to us, and they sounded fairly comprehensive to me. I love this idea of having a consistent and holistic rubric because it helps students to think metacognitively about the important objectives toward which they should be working. The rubric really seems to be an accessible set of relevant standards across academic subjects.

The worksheet pictured below is a form that students fill out for any other students who are absent. I’m not sure if this is a logistical solution to the complication that teachers do not see each class everyday or if it is meant to teach students to be more responsible and intentionally help and support one another, but I really love this idea regardless of the rationale behind it. The form details what a student missed in each class, including (I think) a summary of the topics covered, any worksheets, and any homework.

Libby and I had about a 2-hour break today, so we walked over to Bergedorf to eat lunch. We decided on this German place in the mall, and the woman behind the counter (now one of my favorite people in this country) who said she knew a little English helped explain what the different foods were. For the meats, she would say what type of meat it was and then gesture on her body where the meat comes from on the animal. The whole experience was perfect, made even better by Mezzo Mix. My meal of schnitzel, potatoes, and a pancake with a sweet applesauce and brown sugar is pictured below.

For our second class of the day, Libby and I attended an English class with older students. Prior to our break, the instructor of this class had asked us to grade an Abitur student’s “comment" (short essay) on the topic of crime and punishment. We didn’t know the student and hadn’t read the article on which the comment was based, but we did our best by making some grammatical, vocabulary, and phrasing suggestions. In class, this same instructor gave a vocabulary quiz with words and phrases taken from an article about South Africa. In this case again, we had not read the relevant article, but the teacher asked us to define the words on one of the quizzes and give it back to her (with our names on it). She then used our definitions as the key for the quiz and consulted us on whether students’ answers could be counted for full credit. It was awesome to be trusted this much, but it was a really odd experience to jump into without preparation.

At the end of our school day, Libby and I stopped to look at a memorial (pictured below) in the school’s main hallway. A teacher passing by explained that it commemorates students from Hansa Gymnasium who died in World War II. She said that there are several memorials like that one throughout the school, including ones honoring soldiers from World War I. The teacher said that the memorial is not something they are particularly proud of and acted like she disapproved of our taking a picture of it. This was interesting because, this weekend, we are visiting the KZ-Gedenksätte Neuengamme, which is a Holocaust museum, and my host parents have already commented that this is a very unpleasant experience. They don’t seem to think it should be a part of the program and suggested that it is not somewhere I should try to go until my second or third visit to Germany. While it seems as though many we have met want to move past that dark part of history, the U.S. (and specifically the U.S. educational curriculum) has a fascination with the Holocaust. Concerning the memorial at Hansa, I think a comparison can be made to the Silent Sam statue honoring fallen UNC students from the Civil War located at the North entrance to UNC’s campus in the upper quad. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the statue with arguments that it makes African-American students feel uncomfortable (to put it mildly) on campus. I personally think that the statue exists more in the capacity as a piece of history than in a commemorative capacity, so it should be relocated to a historical context such as museum instead of the commemorative context where it now stands. I think most Americans would criticize honoring fallen Nazi soldiers, and similar criticisms can be extended to honoring fallen Confederate soldiers because of the Confederacy’s persistent efforts to preserve the institution of slavery. Perhaps a similar solution of relocating WWII memorials to historical contexts would appeal to teachers like the one to whom we spoke today.

After school, Libby and I headed back to Bergedorf to meet Hannah and Ashley, who are placed at Gymnasium Bornbrook, for ice cream (I opted for a Haselnuss-flavored cone this time). The picture below is of the river we walk by on our way to the Bergedorf mall. It was fun to swap teacher stories and talk about some of our experiences so far as we are attempting to navigate the transition of living in Germany for the next couple of weeks.