Today marks six months since I left Seattle on my yearlong adventure.
In that time, I've attended a Greek wedding in Athens, finished a six week German language course in Marburg, celebrated the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest in Munich, feasted with fellow Americans during Thanksgiving in Leipzig, visited countless Christmas markets with family in Berlin (and Munich), and spent way too much money on a week-long trek through Ireland.
Not bad. In case you're wondering though, I've also managed good progress on my Fulbright progress. Although today may have represented a tiny setback.
I was supposed to wake up at 6:15 AM this morning, so I could be at a school in northwest Berlin by 7:45 AM to pick up a letter of permission for my project and to introduce myself briefly to the students at the school. Since I've had to wake up early all week, I've been going to bed at insanely early hours (at least for me).
Yesterday, I crawled into bed at the absurd time of 9:30 PM. You'd think going to bed early would do me some good, but I've had some of the worse nights of sleep this week that I've ever had. I keep waking up every few hours and feel quite restless. At 5:30 AM, I found myself suddenly awake again and checked my alarm clock (my cell phone basically) and thought I'd sleep for another 45 minutes.
I didn't wake up till 7:06 AM and apparently didn't even hear the alarm.
Since I was supposed to have been on the U-Bahn by 6:45 AM to make it to the school by 7:45 AM, I was already way behind. Not only that, I was supposed to catch a train at 9:05 AM from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Cottbus, one hour and 40 minutes away from Berlin, to speak to a classroom of 8th graders through the Embassy's Meet US program.
A few minutes later, I asked called the school I was supposed to be at and left a message for the teacher in a groggier voice than I had hoped for. I sent him an email too. Poor guy...I feel awful. He was probably standing in the lobby waiting for me, and even worse, he had told the kids I was coming. According to his note, they were very excited for my visit, so I let down a ton of people today, even though I tried to be responsible by not watching a few more episodes of The Wire and staying up till the wee hours of the morning.
After missing one school visit, I didn't want to miss another, so I hit the road and made it in plenty of time for my train to Cottbus. Brandon met me on the train two stops later from Südkreuz, since he lives right next to that station. Glad he found me on the train, since he had bought me my ticket. I would've been down at least 40€ if they'd have checked me before we got to our final destination.
At the Cottbus Hauptbahnhof, we met up with another Fulbrighter, who's teaching English in Cottbus. He had impeccable German, just like Brandon. So I was the odd one out, struggling to form coherent sentences without pausing to recall vocab words. A teacher from the school picked us up (along with our Meet US Program Coordinator/Director from the Embassy) and drove us to the school.
We had known ahead of time that the visit would be split into three classrooms of 8th graders, 26 students each. What I did not know was that I walked into the classroom with the rowdiest kids of the bunch. I might've gotten one sentence out before pockets of kids started whispering to each other.
I paused, waiting for them to quiet down before beginning again. They made it through maybe another sentence and a half before I had to quiet them down again. I've dealt with rowdy classrooms/audiences before when I've given scholarship presentations, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar to me.
The problem is that I was supposed to describe the typical American school day, which to me is kind of like asking "describe what time people go to religious services each week." The answer would be: it depends 'cause it varies depending on a range of factors. In any case, I had an hour to talk to the students about the topic and answer their question. In about 10 minutes, I had already finished introducing myself and talking about the topic. That might've been the easy part.
For the next 40-45 minutes, I asked them if they had questions. They had no problem chitchatting with each other while I was talking, but getting them to ask questions was like pulling teeth. I tried a number of strategies to get them involved, even talking really slowly in English and mixing in some German (although I'd say my accent isn't terrible, it's still not great...they asked me to say "a long sentence in German" and then proceeded to get some good laughs in).
I asked them questions, trying to help them see how the differences in their school day are just like the differences in the American school day. I tried pairing people up and chatting with each other, so they could answer some of my questions. Of course, noise does not equal productive discussion. At one point, they asked if I've ever met anyone famous, and then proceeded to chatter away among themselves before I could even answer the question. In an attempt to get their attention, I found the picture of me and Oprah in my wallet (I thought I'd taken it out already, but apparently it's still there) and showed them. The surprise and attention span was short-lived however, and after the Oprah picture, it was back to their own little worlds.
At the end of the period though, there were a few rare moments where it seemed I had everyone's attention—that was only when I answered a question about President Obama. They asked if I liked him. My answer was a bit long-winded, but it got into how I never liked politics before President Obama, how I never considered public service before hearing about the Obama campaign, and how I never thought I'd be interested in education, policy, and my work as a Fulbright Scholar if it hadn't been for President Obama. Their attentiveness caught me so off guard I kind of lost my train of thought.
In any case, some of them really seemed to enjoy the period. They were engaged, asking questions, and a few kids even asked if they could take a picture with me. Funny. The other guys, even though they had more attentive classes (relatively speaking), did not get photo requests (though we all did get Facebook requests). I asked them to send me the pictures, so hopefully they'll email them over soon.
All in all, I enjoyed the opportunity to speak to the students. It's always difficult managing a group of kids that age. The teacher remarked at the end that she was really sorry I had to deal with their behavior and expressed her disappointment to the students themselves. Two of the girls actually came up and apologized too.
When I was at the school this afternoon, I hadn't yet heard President Obama's State of the Union address, so I hadn't heard his call to "young [people]...contemplating their career choice" to become teachers. With all due respect, I'm not cut out to be a teacher. I don't have the patience to repeatedly get the students' attention just to learn a simple concept.
On the train home today, I had a lot of time to just think, and I thought that it's truly a shame that kids aren't learning more in schools today. Now, I don't mean to say that in broad sweeping terms since there are most definitely schools that are achieving highly. But, in general, I'd like to see our education standards raised even more.
Brandon and I discussed some of his classmates' educational experiences in China, and I personally don't think turning toward increased drills and rote memorization is the best way to go. Rather, I think we need to have greater expectations for kids to learn and understand the material in the classroom. Even more importantly, the material we use needs to be constantly updated and important (unlike the 20 year old books in some of the poorer schools of Berlin...or even in the United States). Perhaps because I'm a liberal arts kind of guy, but I am a big proponent of educating students in the classics. However, beyond the classics, we also ought to educate our children in the advanced technologies of the 21st century. For those who oppose teaching the classics, I say we can find intersections where all these pieces of knowledge can be brought together. Even some of the top CEOs in the U.S. might agree with me on that one.
However, the challenges to bringing about such an educational experience go beyond just any single classroom. It also means providing students with support in the home and in their community. The role that parents, families, and friends play in a student's development cannot be excluded from the discussion of education. I realize my blog post is becoming a long brain dump, so I'll stop (since I also have no pictures to distract you with today), but I wonder if there will be a day when excelling in school makes you the norm, not the exception. I wonder if there will be a day when every kid in a classroom cares deeply about his or her education and what they're learning in school.
I may not want to become a teacher, but I do hope the work I'm doing during this Fulbright year help me find ways to help figure out this challenge. We'll see how the next six months play out.
Hopefully, I'll have pictures for the next post.
Sam
In that time, I've attended a Greek wedding in Athens, finished a six week German language course in Marburg, celebrated the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest in Munich, feasted with fellow Americans during Thanksgiving in Leipzig, visited countless Christmas markets with family in Berlin (and Munich), and spent way too much money on a week-long trek through Ireland.
Not bad. In case you're wondering though, I've also managed good progress on my Fulbright progress. Although today may have represented a tiny setback.
I was supposed to wake up at 6:15 AM this morning, so I could be at a school in northwest Berlin by 7:45 AM to pick up a letter of permission for my project and to introduce myself briefly to the students at the school. Since I've had to wake up early all week, I've been going to bed at insanely early hours (at least for me).
Yesterday, I crawled into bed at the absurd time of 9:30 PM. You'd think going to bed early would do me some good, but I've had some of the worse nights of sleep this week that I've ever had. I keep waking up every few hours and feel quite restless. At 5:30 AM, I found myself suddenly awake again and checked my alarm clock (my cell phone basically) and thought I'd sleep for another 45 minutes.
I didn't wake up till 7:06 AM and apparently didn't even hear the alarm.
Since I was supposed to have been on the U-Bahn by 6:45 AM to make it to the school by 7:45 AM, I was already way behind. Not only that, I was supposed to catch a train at 9:05 AM from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Cottbus, one hour and 40 minutes away from Berlin, to speak to a classroom of 8th graders through the Embassy's Meet US program.
A few minutes later, I asked called the school I was supposed to be at and left a message for the teacher in a groggier voice than I had hoped for. I sent him an email too. Poor guy...I feel awful. He was probably standing in the lobby waiting for me, and even worse, he had told the kids I was coming. According to his note, they were very excited for my visit, so I let down a ton of people today, even though I tried to be responsible by not watching a few more episodes of The Wire and staying up till the wee hours of the morning.
After missing one school visit, I didn't want to miss another, so I hit the road and made it in plenty of time for my train to Cottbus. Brandon met me on the train two stops later from Südkreuz, since he lives right next to that station. Glad he found me on the train, since he had bought me my ticket. I would've been down at least 40€ if they'd have checked me before we got to our final destination.
At the Cottbus Hauptbahnhof, we met up with another Fulbrighter, who's teaching English in Cottbus. He had impeccable German, just like Brandon. So I was the odd one out, struggling to form coherent sentences without pausing to recall vocab words. A teacher from the school picked us up (along with our Meet US Program Coordinator/Director from the Embassy) and drove us to the school.
We had known ahead of time that the visit would be split into three classrooms of 8th graders, 26 students each. What I did not know was that I walked into the classroom with the rowdiest kids of the bunch. I might've gotten one sentence out before pockets of kids started whispering to each other.
I paused, waiting for them to quiet down before beginning again. They made it through maybe another sentence and a half before I had to quiet them down again. I've dealt with rowdy classrooms/audiences before when I've given scholarship presentations, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar to me.
The problem is that I was supposed to describe the typical American school day, which to me is kind of like asking "describe what time people go to religious services each week." The answer would be: it depends 'cause it varies depending on a range of factors. In any case, I had an hour to talk to the students about the topic and answer their question. In about 10 minutes, I had already finished introducing myself and talking about the topic. That might've been the easy part.
For the next 40-45 minutes, I asked them if they had questions. They had no problem chitchatting with each other while I was talking, but getting them to ask questions was like pulling teeth. I tried a number of strategies to get them involved, even talking really slowly in English and mixing in some German (although I'd say my accent isn't terrible, it's still not great...they asked me to say "a long sentence in German" and then proceeded to get some good laughs in).
I asked them questions, trying to help them see how the differences in their school day are just like the differences in the American school day. I tried pairing people up and chatting with each other, so they could answer some of my questions. Of course, noise does not equal productive discussion. At one point, they asked if I've ever met anyone famous, and then proceeded to chatter away among themselves before I could even answer the question. In an attempt to get their attention, I found the picture of me and Oprah in my wallet (I thought I'd taken it out already, but apparently it's still there) and showed them. The surprise and attention span was short-lived however, and after the Oprah picture, it was back to their own little worlds.
At the end of the period though, there were a few rare moments where it seemed I had everyone's attention—that was only when I answered a question about President Obama. They asked if I liked him. My answer was a bit long-winded, but it got into how I never liked politics before President Obama, how I never considered public service before hearing about the Obama campaign, and how I never thought I'd be interested in education, policy, and my work as a Fulbright Scholar if it hadn't been for President Obama. Their attentiveness caught me so off guard I kind of lost my train of thought.
In any case, some of them really seemed to enjoy the period. They were engaged, asking questions, and a few kids even asked if they could take a picture with me. Funny. The other guys, even though they had more attentive classes (relatively speaking), did not get photo requests (though we all did get Facebook requests). I asked them to send me the pictures, so hopefully they'll email them over soon.
All in all, I enjoyed the opportunity to speak to the students. It's always difficult managing a group of kids that age. The teacher remarked at the end that she was really sorry I had to deal with their behavior and expressed her disappointment to the students themselves. Two of the girls actually came up and apologized too.
When I was at the school this afternoon, I hadn't yet heard President Obama's State of the Union address, so I hadn't heard his call to "young [people]...contemplating their career choice" to become teachers. With all due respect, I'm not cut out to be a teacher. I don't have the patience to repeatedly get the students' attention just to learn a simple concept.
On the train home today, I had a lot of time to just think, and I thought that it's truly a shame that kids aren't learning more in schools today. Now, I don't mean to say that in broad sweeping terms since there are most definitely schools that are achieving highly. But, in general, I'd like to see our education standards raised even more.
Brandon and I discussed some of his classmates' educational experiences in China, and I personally don't think turning toward increased drills and rote memorization is the best way to go. Rather, I think we need to have greater expectations for kids to learn and understand the material in the classroom. Even more importantly, the material we use needs to be constantly updated and important (unlike the 20 year old books in some of the poorer schools of Berlin...or even in the United States). Perhaps because I'm a liberal arts kind of guy, but I am a big proponent of educating students in the classics. However, beyond the classics, we also ought to educate our children in the advanced technologies of the 21st century. For those who oppose teaching the classics, I say we can find intersections where all these pieces of knowledge can be brought together. Even some of the top CEOs in the U.S. might agree with me on that one.
However, the challenges to bringing about such an educational experience go beyond just any single classroom. It also means providing students with support in the home and in their community. The role that parents, families, and friends play in a student's development cannot be excluded from the discussion of education. I realize my blog post is becoming a long brain dump, so I'll stop (since I also have no pictures to distract you with today), but I wonder if there will be a day when excelling in school makes you the norm, not the exception. I wonder if there will be a day when every kid in a classroom cares deeply about his or her education and what they're learning in school.
I may not want to become a teacher, but I do hope the work I'm doing during this Fulbright year help me find ways to help figure out this challenge. We'll see how the next six months play out.
Hopefully, I'll have pictures for the next post.
Sam
1 comment:
That would be an awesome world wouldn't it. I completely agree with you and your wish of one day seeing kids in school care about their education and that success is the norm. Maybe someday, but the path we are on now.... that someday may be a while, sadly.
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