An Education

"I'll just wait until there is more control in the room." I couldn't help it, my mouth dropped open. What five-year-old kid has that much spunk already?!

As you already know, along with taking classes in Germany, I am also teaching English in an elementary school the the first and second classes. However, my English lessons are really only about a third of the time. During the other two-thirds, I assist in German. That's right. I help teach the little kiddies to add 1+1 or write the letter "P." However, at times, I am of little to no use in German, particularly during the moments when I need to reprimand bad behavior.

One day, one of the teachers I assist asked me to do something, and while I finished my own task, I missed the instructions she gave the rest of the class. When she left to go get a coffee, I was supposed to make sure that order stayed. Unfortunately, me yelling "Genug! Genug! Nein. Macht ihr das nicht!" and gesturing wildly doesn't really make me someone to listen to. One of the girls attempted to help out by telling me what the class was supposed to be doing. However, when I couldn't enforce it, she told me that she wouldn't be participating until someone better able to control the class was back in the room.

To be honest, moments like that make the experience more enjoyable. The kids just have so much personality. However, nothing is better when I can get them to understand something, explaining it in either German or English. Earlier this week, I taught my second class how to count to thirty. We began with merely learning how to say the numbers, and then I passed out bingo cards. For the first round, I called out the numbers. After that, I began asking students to volunteer. By the end of the class, nearly every student was on their feet begging to be the next caller.

Elementary school in Germany doesn't strike me as so different from school in America. Most of the subjects are the same and taught in a similar manner. What is different is the amount of responsibility the students have. Often times, as I ride the tram to my praktikum, the person sitting next to me will be a six-year-old, making his way to school completely solo. Students can leave the room as they please to use the restroom, and when it is break time, they hardly need a teacher to lead them around the halls of the school. The main difference I notice between children inside and outside school in German and the USA is that kids in Germany are not nearly babied as much.

As far as I have been able to observe, this continues into high school (called Gymnasium and a bit different in its set-up in Germany) and also into University. Most of my professors could care less if I show up to class. Furthermore, they don't want to talk to me after class if I do and have a question. I had to pretty much stalk one of my professors to get his email, since I had been unable to find it out the University website, the University schedule, or through AJY.

When I lived in Switzerland, one of my roommates was surprised how much I met with the professor with whom I was working. It just simply wasn't normal. She only met with her master's thesis advisor once while writing it. Back at Gettysburg, I harass my poor advisor sometimes bi-weekly. In efforts to be culturally sensitive, perhaps I should withhold judgment. However, I will say this. I like when my professors want to talk to me. I like when they seem actually interested in my opinion. And I like having people willing to support and help out with my endeavors.

Just Say Yes

While one is in Europe, cathedrals and castles slowly begin to lose their luster. Every time such a cultural monument is entered, the beauty and magnificence are shocking. One is taken aback by the splendor and decadence or the beautiful artistic simplicity. But this quickly passes and one is simply looking at another pretty wall. A few months back, a fellow philosophy student decided to grant me a great honor. If I so wished, I was allowed to place a book on a bookshelf that was once owned by Friedrich Nietzche. I nearly laughed out loud. You see in Europe everywhere you stand, eat, sleep, or defecate, someone important has done the same. Everyplace has a history. (This is not particular to Europe; it is just well documented here. Literally, there are signs on buildings saying, "So and so wrote this famous quote here!"). Perhaps I should be more impressed; however, I've come to find, like with most things in life, the people you meet along the way are the main reason to travel. Europe merely provides a lovely backdrop to eclectic personalities and conversations.

I joined couch surfing for this particular reason. Never particularly good at striking up conversations with strangers, I decided this would the best way for me to meet locals as I traveled. It has never felt unsafe, but to be honest, it has always been a wee bit strange. There was one time that a friend and I met a fellow couch surfer back in Basel. After telling us how he'd been hit by a car a couple weeks back and then had to save the life of the guy who hit him because he was having a heart attack, we started to doubt his veracity. Then after he told us he had made 10,000 CHF in one month by selling department store credit cards, we decided we had met up with a grade-A bullshiter. It was around twilight and we were sitting by the Rhine together listening to a concert a little distance off. I was telling him a little bit about my research when he jumped up and told me I simply had to see this cemetery. Thirty minutes later, my friend and I were standing in a medieval cemetery during a torrential downpour with this kid we had just met.

Only a couple weeks ago, I met a British man who was motorcycling across Europe and the Middle East. He had just come back from Turkey and Iraq, and my friend and I enjoyed the stories he shared with us over dinner. While hosteling, I've met a person studying English in Dublin and spending a weekend in Madrid for the Arnold Classic. In Morocco, there were several girls actually living in the Hostel. My friend and I would come down to the common room to find them mixing the solution for henna or simply drinking another pot of tea. There have been graduate students from Africa, peace corps volunteers, fellow students, upper-class Norwegians, and married couples vacationing. This is traveling for me. It is the conversations I have in broken English with a girl from South Korea complete with miming. It is saying yes because it is worthwhile to take a risk. It is asking someone you've just been talking to for five minutes to join you for dinner or coffee. It is making plans to visit in the future, although you know they'll probably fall through. But most of all, it is a camaraderie and openness that is rare in everyday life.