Things I Learned This Month | October 2017

“I’m so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers.” Thus Anne Shirley, my literary kindred spirit. I’ve had this line in mind all month, but now I’ll tuck it away for 11 months, at which point I’ll pull it out again, along with all my favorite sweaters. (The sweaters are NOT being tucked away – they have months more of good use ahead of them.)

I do love October.

Now that the month is nearly over so many references and cozy October things are coming to mind. The Great Pumpkin Waltz; bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils; the satisfying, impossible-to-replicate sound and aroma of shuffling through fallen leaves on a snappy, sunny day.

It’s been a full month. I settled into my routine at school, found a church, joined an a capella choir, and FINALLY found an apartment. I went home one weekend, and I spent this past weekend with my parents visiting Charlie in Hamburg. (We stayed on a farm 30 minutes outside the city. All photos in this blog post are from our trip.)

As usual, before the new month comes, I want to follow Emily Freeman’s lead and share some things I learned this month.

1. Hamburg has more bridges than both Venice and Amsterdam. There’s good reason that this port city is called “the Venice of the north.” 

2. Northern Germany feels like Holland, and I love it. Thatched roofs, flat land, dikes, lots of water, brick houses, and broad expanses of sky. This past weekend in Hamburg I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Germany, not Holland. 

3. Germans wear the wedding ring on the right ring finger. I thought this might be the case, but I wasn’t sure, so I decided to continue to wear my opal ring on my right ring finger, just like I always have. I’ve had several people (including a male student who “likes to take walks at sunset”) ask if I’m married. Nope. Not engaged or dating either. But I don’t intend to swap my ring to my left hand. Because that will just make things complicated.

4. German students have some really funny perceptions of America.

5. Language barrier + new environment = several inadvertent faux pax. I don’t tend to think of having much of a language barrier with Germans. I did live in Germany for 9 years as a child and studied the language for 3 years in college. But I can still be totally oblivious. For example, it took me 3 weeks of using a computer room at work before someone finally told me that that particular room is only for the faculty chairs and I really shouldn’t be in there. I honestly don’t know if that would have been obvious if German were my native language, or if it’s something I couldn’t have known without being told. But several things like that have made me aware that it’s so easy to be clueless in a new environment. And because most of my life is now being conducted in a second language, I’m extra likely to miss the obvious. So I do my best to ask lots of questions, be eager to learn, and to take it gracefully when people tell me I’m out of line.

6. “The good old days” weren’t as nice as we like to think of them. I’m reading Alexander Hamilton’s biography, and it’s providing fascinating insight into the early days of our nation. I’m accustomed to hear people bemoan the mudslinging and ad hominem attacks that have become American politics, the lack of objectivity in the media, the tendency to vilify the “other” - whether its another political party or people from another country or whatever. I’ve bemoaned those tendencies myself. But if there’s anything I’ve learned from Hamilton, it’s that however shameful these tendencies are, they are as old as the hills and not peculiarly modern problems. 

7. Angelica Schuyler was already married when she met Hamilton. This is one time when I am all for artistic license: What would “Hamilton” be without “Satisfied”?

8. Mascarpone cheese tastes just like clotted cream. Guys. This stuff is amazing. On figs. On scones. On stewed plums. On a spoon. Go buy some.

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Poetry Corner: The Children's Hour

Last night, I got back to my (temporary) apartment at that elusive time when the day is done but it's not quite night. And the opening line from The Children's Hour came to me: "Between the dark and the daylight / When the night is beginning to lower..." This poem is one of the poems that I inadvertently memorized during my childhood because my mom read it aloud to us so often. Here it is. 

"The Children's Hour"
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
   When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
   That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
   The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
   And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
   Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
   And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
   Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
   To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
   A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
   They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
   O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
   They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
   Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
   In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
   Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
   Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
   And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
   In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
   Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
   And moulder in dust away!

stealing cabs and driving to mailboxes: the first two weeks of teaching

“What exactly are you doing for your Fulbright?”

That’s a question I’ve gotten a lot since I accepted the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) position in April. I’ve mostly fended it off, because I didn’t really have a good idea myself of what this was going to look like. But now, having just wrapped up my second week of classes, I feel like I can answer that question.

I’m the ETA at a Fachoberschule for health and social services. The German school system is pretty complicated, and rather different than the American school system, so I’m not going to try to explain the system as a whole. I’m teaching 12^th and 13^th grade, and my students range from 17-23 years old. They are being prepped to go into health and social services, though many won’t go that route. Some will go to university, some won’t. Many have no idea what they want to do with their lives. (Who can blame them?)

As the ETA, I’m helping out the English faculty as the native speaker in the classrooms. I’m teaching 10 different classes – once a week for each class – and I help run the English Club. (I also have Fridays off, which is glorious.) In some classes, the teachers have given me free rein to teach however and whatever I want. In others, I’m given specific themes to deal with. The 12^th grade is in a module on social problems right now, so I’ve been assigned, among other things, lessons on immigration, gun law, murder rates in Chicago, and the death penalty.

It’s sometimes a little overwhelming, considering that I have no training as a teacher and am no expert on most of the subjects I’m supposed to expound upon. But the challenge is exciting. I’ve always loved learning, and in my last two years of college I began to get an inkling that I might also really love teaching. So far, I do. My mentor teachers are extremely welcoming and supportive, which helps a lot, but what really makes me enjoy it so much and keeps me on my toes is the students.

The students are fascinating. It would be difficult to imagine a more diverse group. Only about half are of German heritage. The others, while mostly born and/or raised in Munich, come from a wide variety of backgrounds. I have students whose parents are from Italy, Turkey, Slovakia, Ukraine, Chechnya, Croatia, Poland, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Eretria, Togo, Kosovo, Serbia, Denmark, and Greece. (I’m probably forgetting something.) There are Christians, Muslims, Jews, and non-religious kids. One of my students has Serbian parents, was born in Munich, lived in Mississippi for years, and moved back to Munich three years ago. Her Southern drawl was extremely disconcerting the first time I heard it.

Most of them speak excellent English, since they’ve been taking English since 3^rd grade, so rather than teaching the nuts and bolts of the language I get to help them think about diverse topics and facilitate group discussions. Sometimes they’re reluctant to talk, but if I can get them started then the discussions are fascinating, since they have such a wide range of backgrounds and opinions. Here’s a representative handful of quotes, culled from discussions on immigration, DACA, and what it means to be American:

 “America should take more refugees from Syria because they’re responsible for the situation in Syria.” (Ok....how exactly are we responsible for that one?)

“Trump’s wall is a good idea.”

“Anyone who wants to live in America should be able to do so, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone.”

“If America doesn’t want illegal immigrants, they should fix Mexico’s problems.”

“Trump is right to look out for Americans first.”

“Governments should look out for everyone, not just their own citizens.”

“Feeling American is what makes you American, regardless of what the government says.”

Thus declare my students.

The stereotypes are amusing, too. There’s the usual: fast food, everything supersized, football, cowboy boots, guns, BBQ, patriotism (so many stereotypes seem to come from Texas). The most random conception of Americans?

“Americans are lazy: they drive to their mailboxes instead of walking down the driveway.”

“Americans steal other people’s cabs.”

At my confused prodding, the student explained that when someone in America hails a cab someone else usually hops in first, riding merrily off while the luckless first comer has to try again.

What do you know? I'm learning things about Americans I never knew...

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