This week, I'm back at the same school I visited last week as I continue working on getting official permission from the Senate office. Today, I was asked to answer questions the students (7th and 8th graders) had about the Declaration of Independence (die Unabhängigkeitserklärung) and about American life in general.
I'm going to take a page from my friend Tim's blog (he's a Teach for America Corps member in Houston, TX) and share some enjoyable quotes from class. These are my rough translations:
TEACHER: Who became the first president of the United States after the end of the War of Independence?
MOST OF THE STUDENTS: George Washington!
ONE STUDENT IN THE BACK: Günther!
TEACHER: I want you to write your own Declaration of Independence. What rights would you want to include?
STUDENT: Döners!
The teacher in this class is actually a Teach First Deutschland Corps member. This is basically the German equivalent of Teach for America (TFA). He's in his second year, and I admire him for his teaching abilities. It's not easy controlling a classroom full of energetic middle school students. I was lucky that all I had to do was answer questions in German. He did all the disciplining, etc.
However, one conversation in particular was rather interesting—and challenging, really. Part of the lesson plan asked the students to identify the groups of people who came to America in the 1600 and 1700s. One group they noted was African Americans who were brought over as slaves.
The challenge here though is that the idea of political correctness isn't quite the same as in the US. To some here, Americans may in fact be too sensitive to political correctness. In any event, as the students were trying to come up with the word for this particular group (the answer they were supposed to come up with was Sklaven, which means 'slaves'), they started shouting out answers off the top of their heads. What came out was a barrage of pretty non-PC terms (whether you speak German or English, you would be able to understand what they said). Of course, the teacher did not accept any of them, and I thought it would probably be important to share with them that it's not okay to use those words.
After a brief chat with the teacher, he asked me to share with the class how these words are perceived in America. As a quick aside, I should mention that the percentage of the German population with African descent is roughly 0.58% (can't find the source at the moment, but I'll look for it), so the kids mainly see Germans of African descent on TV or famous African Americans in the news. I shared with them my thoughts and observations in the States and said, more or less, that they should not use those words.
During our Q&A period, I then got asked what the "afro" in afroamerikaner means. That's the German word for African-American, and the student thought it had something to do with "afros" as in hair style. After the class, the teacher and I chatted about the class, and he noted that many of the students just aren't aware of what is "okay" and "not okay" to say, whether in German or English. The fact is many of them just say whatever comes to mind, and whatever they've learned from wherever they've learned it.
Tomorrow, I go back again to another classroom, and the topic this time is human rights. Should be interesting. :) Things are getting quite busy now, and I'm finding myself pressed for time much more now, especially when many of the things I have to do are in German. Writing, speaking, or reading in German takes much more energy and time than English, of course, so I have to really focus. And sometimes, I'm not good at focusing. :)
Until next time,
Sam
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