26.11.2007 Scoring High on TOEFL ITP

This group of senior students at our Goerdeler Gymnasium has good reasons to smile: they achieved mostly high scores on their TOEFL ITP test...it is one thing to receive in-house teacher feedback about where one stands and it is quite another adventure to submit oneself to the rigid testing conditions of the official TOEFL ITP test..... congratulations to all of them - they mastered the different sections well - and placed themselves quite high in relation to the other worldwide test takers.

No wonder Dr. Wortmann - on the very left - is all smiles. I am posing on the very right as the test supervisor and Mr. Ikenmeyer in the middle is pleased as well...providing the test to our students was his idea and his initiative....where will these seniors apply their skills after graduation? Some hinted they may want to investigate studying in the USA - beginning with a "free and easy" summer session in June 2008......yes: GO FOR IT! It will enrich your lives and provide you with challenging opportunities....

25.11.2007 A new camera and many wrinkles

Somehow my blog writing ideas seem to depend on having a photo available - no photo - not much enthusiasm...now that I purchased the Olympus SP 560 UZ as a replacement for my lost Olympus SP 350 ( I recently left it at the train station in LeMans when boarding the Paris bound TGV ) - I feel "qualified" to continue this adventure....so far I haven't found the central theme yet - no wonder my morning face has all these wrinkles...so please bear with me......

11.11.2007 Good news: the 3 kids are back in PB

This morning I got up very early in order to monitor the return flights of our three youngsters from St. Louis via Chicago,Frankfurt and then onwards to Paderborn. All were on time so I rushed to the airport to meet the parents.There were smiles of relief when the small plane touched down safely while battling strong head winds at 8:33 a.m.

It took almost 25 long additional minutes before the luggage appeared on the belt inside the arrival hall and yet there was one final hurdle to be mastered: German Customs.Interesting objects had been purchased in the US and now German VAT had to be paid.Once those dues had been collected the door swung open and the last member of our gleaming TRIO stepped out and into the loving arms of the parents amidst friendly cheers from the rest of us.All families were now reunited again and what had been started some 90 days ago in August found its glorious ending on this wet November morning.

From what I overheard everyone sounded positive and thankful as we discussed the arrival of their USA host partners by the end of May/early June in 2008.

When we left the building we knew we would be together again shortly during DAFK's special Thanksgiving Dinner on November 22.

I hereby wish to extend once more my/our sincere gratitude to all of you who support and actively help us in carrying these exchanges forward.Let us continue with our efforts so that an ever increasing number of families and their students will be able to enjoy the benefits of these wonderful 90 Days Homestay arrangements between our sister - cities.

6.11.2007 coming home - reichlich beschenkt

Today is Tuesday and in just five short days our three Paderborn exchange students will be back - touchdown!

All three of them will have great stories to tell and probably all of them - and especially Nils - would have liked to extend their stay.

What a smashing success for all of us who were involved in this program.We feel motivated to soon start a new recruiting phase for the 2008 exchange.

Although they are not quite here yet it is a good time to start thanking them,their parents and especially their host parents in Belleville,including our busy bee friends and teachers at BSC for their loving care and attention.

The photo shows Jan Schulze receiving a high quality quilt from Mayor Eckert during a ceremony in the Belleville City Council chamber.

29.10.2007 Structures and their consequences part 2

I found this revealing school schedule lesson plan at http://www.germany.info/ and there is a close link to my last blog photo - incidentally it shows the mail slots in a typical teachers lounge....do you see the similarities? The present school system breeds fragmention and "encourages" separation not deliberately but it "splits" and "divides" nevertheless and it does so in a 45 minutes rythm.

I have two DVDs in my shelf that show film clips of those few schools which have successfully overcome the negative consequences that are inherent in the box-like structure.The more far reaching one is called: Treibhäuser der Zukunft - or Incubators of the Future. It can be ordered at: http://www.archiv-der-zukunft.de/ . The other one stays closer to the existing framework of the present school policies of our State North-Rhine Westphalia and it has the defensive title of: It can be done ( ....inspite of the system's flaws ) - the italics are mine. It can be obtained free of charge at: http://www.selbststaendige-schule.de/ It has just been released and it provides very accurate background information about various types of schools and subjects. Both films make the learners, the teachers and the principals look human and very likable.

My prediction is that one far day the teachers themselves will use - or have to use - their own power in order to help create the kind of schools where not only the kids,the parents and the teachers want to belong but the sponsoring (business) community as well. These new schools will invent their own underlying structure which will then be free of the confining box structure ( see both photos ) - to make life enhancing learning and "thinking outside of the box" a common normality.

27.10.2007 structures and their consequences

When I read the blog entries of our three exchange students - who have only two more weeks to go in Belleville,Illinois - I can almost feel their enthusiasms and I am happy for them.Jan Schulze states that he prefers the US school system to the one here - it will be interesting to learn what exactly he is referring to.

Both systems have the same underlying structure and the attached photo may serve as a metaphor.The American system and the German system both rely on a number of boxes ( subjects ) that are taught without any links to each other i.e. the geography teacher may talk about the Arctic whereas the English teacher has Wales as his main theme and "the two shall never meet."

Even the layout of the schools in both countries are very similar.Long corridors with doors to wall enclosed classrooms one next to the other separated only by a wall (again see photo ).

What are the implications: Systemic Thinking can hardly be achieved in a school system based on such a fragmented and compartimentalized structure;the concept of Belonging in the sense of we are all ONE will be very difficult to achieve as well and strategies such as integration and holistic learning will most likely not get very far.

In America the National Center on Education and the Economy has just published a report which the commissioners titled:Tough Choices or Tough Times. In the report they press for dramatic changes in the entire field of education by stating :" we can get where we must go only by changing the system itself". Now that I am actively teaching again I am convinced that the German "box-based"system will also have to be replaced entirely.

21.10.2007 Dogs and Blogs

When I first discovered this cartoon in the latest edition of our popular Stern magazine I had to smile because I felt " ertappt" - for there is a certain truth in the picture when the dog compares his "marking-off territory" activity to the one we bloggers engage in. Bloggers want to leave their marks with high tech - dogs prefer to keep it low.

First we google and they sniff, then we post and they pee.....finally we wait for feedback and they for the wiff....doing it low-tech style only seems to be not very efficient for it certainly gets better results.