ready, set...
I don't have pictures of Haus Altenberg because it's raining today.
Orientation is officially over. It wasn't so bad, as orientations go. Tomorrow morning we get back on the buses at 7:30 am to go back to Cologne, and from there I'll get on a train to Berlin. I'll be meeting my new German flatmate by 4:00 or so. I don't go to my school until Monday, when I'll meet my mentor teacher, and hopefully some students and other teachers. But I won't have to start teaching right away. They give you a while to acclimate yourself, see what's going on at the school.
My school is mostly non-native Germans, so lots of Turks and Palestinians and Arabs and maybe some Italians and Spaniards. This year Fulbright introduced 20 new TA grants (one of which is mine), the purpose of which is to send native English speakers to schools with largely immigrant student populations--or, as the Germans like to say to be polite, students with immigrant backgrounds. Non-native German students are hugely under-represented in overseas exchange programs, they said, so they're bringing overseas to the students instead.
Last night they took me and the other 19 "diversity" grantees to a dinner at a hotel a couple minutes' walk from Haus Altenberg. It was super good food! but also really interesting to hear about their vision for the program. Got me interested in my research project again, which is good, since it's been months since I wrote the project proposal and was all fired up about my subject.
And actually, although the mock class sessions we've been doing here were incredibly unrealistic (because we Americans are pretty bad at pretending to be German kids in 8th grade), they got me excited to meet my real students. I'd been looking forward to the actual teaching part the least, because teaching isn't one of my passions. But from everything they've said here, it sounds like we TAs can tailor our teaching jobs to our particular capabilities. I'm planning on mostly being around to assist with teacher-planned material, and then every so often do a little presentation or activity on something I might know more about. The people running the orientation are actually kind of pampering us--they keep telling us not to let the schools make us work too hard, and to make sure and get out traveling, and see lots and lots of Germany. We're only required to work at the school 12 hours a week.
Now that I know I'm leaving this American isolation chamber within the next 24 hours, it feels like I'm really getting going on this whole adventure. I can't wait to move in to my Berlin apartment and see the city again, and then get into my project and getting to know the students at my school...and then, of course, traveling. We have a two-week school break already in October.
All right. Lots of text and no pictures makes for bored readers. More later...from Berlin!
Orientation is officially over. It wasn't so bad, as orientations go. Tomorrow morning we get back on the buses at 7:30 am to go back to Cologne, and from there I'll get on a train to Berlin. I'll be meeting my new German flatmate by 4:00 or so. I don't go to my school until Monday, when I'll meet my mentor teacher, and hopefully some students and other teachers. But I won't have to start teaching right away. They give you a while to acclimate yourself, see what's going on at the school.
My school is mostly non-native Germans, so lots of Turks and Palestinians and Arabs and maybe some Italians and Spaniards. This year Fulbright introduced 20 new TA grants (one of which is mine), the purpose of which is to send native English speakers to schools with largely immigrant student populations--or, as the Germans like to say to be polite, students with immigrant backgrounds. Non-native German students are hugely under-represented in overseas exchange programs, they said, so they're bringing overseas to the students instead.
Last night they took me and the other 19 "diversity" grantees to a dinner at a hotel a couple minutes' walk from Haus Altenberg. It was super good food! but also really interesting to hear about their vision for the program. Got me interested in my research project again, which is good, since it's been months since I wrote the project proposal and was all fired up about my subject.
And actually, although the mock class sessions we've been doing here were incredibly unrealistic (because we Americans are pretty bad at pretending to be German kids in 8th grade), they got me excited to meet my real students. I'd been looking forward to the actual teaching part the least, because teaching isn't one of my passions. But from everything they've said here, it sounds like we TAs can tailor our teaching jobs to our particular capabilities. I'm planning on mostly being around to assist with teacher-planned material, and then every so often do a little presentation or activity on something I might know more about. The people running the orientation are actually kind of pampering us--they keep telling us not to let the schools make us work too hard, and to make sure and get out traveling, and see lots and lots of Germany. We're only required to work at the school 12 hours a week.
Now that I know I'm leaving this American isolation chamber within the next 24 hours, it feels like I'm really getting going on this whole adventure. I can't wait to move in to my Berlin apartment and see the city again, and then get into my project and getting to know the students at my school...and then, of course, traveling. We have a two-week school break already in October.
All right. Lots of text and no pictures makes for bored readers. More later...from Berlin!
