TAHARRA
Elementary Education Undergraduate |
TAHARRA
Elementary Education Undergraduate |
Let’s discuss some more things that I have noticed about Germany:
1. Most Germans go to the bakery every morning to buy fresh breads and pastries for breakfast. 2. Germans have small refrigerators in their apartments or houses. 3. Germany is very hilly, that sometimes you feel like you’re walking up and down an incline. 4. After work, Germans go to the market to pick up things for dinner everyday. 5. Besides being a pork culture, Germany is a very beer and chocolate culture. 6. Breakfast consists of meats, cheeses, breads, Nutella, jams, coffee, tea and fruit. 7. Not every region of Germany has the same foods. For example: In Baden-Wurttemberg, Maultaschan, which consist of a mixture of beef and pork in ravioli like dish, is a common dish that people eat. However, in North-Rhine Westphalia, that dish is not common. Lederwurst, sauerbraten and blutwurst are the foods that people eat in that region. 8. English, French and Russian are common languages that children learn in schools. 9. Markets are closed on Sundays because that is the day of leisure and relaxation. 10. Alcohol and beer is sold is mostly every market. There are not separate or specialty stores for just alcohol, wine and beer. 11. In markets, there are aisles just for CHOCOLATE!!! 12. Germans love to feed you. Those are some of the interesting facts that I noticed about Germany while being living with my host family in Dusslingen and observing the students and teachers at school. I have to say that is has been a wonderful experience living with my host family and exploring the Germany. My host family welcomed me open arms and open hearts. It was wonderful being a part of their family for more than a week. I feel like I gained a German family. Jasmin went out of her way to make feel comfortable and accepted as her mother did as well. Even though we would start most of our days at 5 am in the morning, it was worth it. It gave me time to observe and absorb the culture. Along with being at the schools in the mornings, our afternoons where filled with walking tours of different neighborhoods in Stuttgart, visits to Tubingen and Metzingen, Ludwicksburg Castle, Art Galleries, vi to Munich and more. It was amazing being able to do explore and do those things while being in Germany because it gave me a chance to learn and appreciate the culture. I love how friendly and welcoming the Germans are. One of the things that we did this past weekend was visit Dachau’s Concentration Camp Memorial Site. Being there tugged at my heart strings because no matter how many times I think I learned all that I needed to learn about the Holocaust, there is so still so much the learn. Being there was an experience that made me very humble and to experience the pain that millions of Jewish people and others went through. To this day I will never understand why killing and torturing people of a different ethnicity was okay. Walking through the bunkers, crematorium, roll call line where the prisoners had to line up and entrance to the camp was very surreal to me. I had to give myself to take it all in. As I was thinking of my visit at the concentration camp, it made me feel very fortunate that I’m going to be a teacher someday because I will educate children of all races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses and backgrounds. One of the very important things I hope to impart on my students are acceptance, respect and tolerance for everybody. If I can touch students that way besides teaching the basics and fundamentals then I know that they will be alright in this world and grow up to be very open minded and successful citizens. My experience in Germany has been very educational, exciting, fulfilling and positive. Did I mention how delicious the food is? I cannot get enough of kasespatzle, schnitzel and maultaschan. I enjoyed myself very much. However, my trip is not over. Right now I am in Bonn with my friend Laura. I am staying at her apartment for a week. She has a lot of adventures in store in me. I will post a blog a about my experience in Bonn sometime next week. Until we meet again, Tschuess!! P.S. I will post pictures to all of my blogs sometime later on today.
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On Monday we all started teaching and observing at the schools that our hosts are teacher candidates at. I was so nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. I kept thinking. “Will the students like me?” “Will they understand what I’m saying?” and “Will they enjoy what I’m teaching them?” Those thoughts kept going through my mind but on the flip side I was very excited to be able to experience to German education system.
Jasmin took Krista and me on a tour of the school as soon as we arrived and introduced us some of the teachers and principle. The school is very small and has two classes per grade. Our first lesson was a PowerPoint presentation on Buffalo to the 7th graders. As much as I enjoyed going the presentation they could not understand us due to the language barrier. However, they’re working hard on learning English. We sat in on the 1st and 3rd grade classrooms. The students had a hard time saying my name but they Tuesday, most students would come up and say “Hello, Taharra”. That made me feel so good. For the rest of the week we read stories (Pete the Cat and A Color of His Own) to both 4th grade classes, played 7 Up Heads Up with the 1st and 2nd graders and presented a PowerPoint presentation to the eighth graders. With all of those lessons, the students enjoyed it a lot. They asked a lot of questions, made comments about the stories, predicted what going to happen next, had fun guessing who push their thumbs down during 7 Up Heads Up and loved learning about the food, buildings and festivals about Buffalo. Sometimes Jasmin or some of the other teachers who spoke English very well translated what we were saying to the students and vice versa. Between observing and doing lessons, the students very much enjoyed doing them and having Americans visit their school. Here are some things that I noticed throughout the week at the school: 1. School is starts at 7:45 and ends at 12:55. 2. The children have a 15-minute break from 10:15-10:30. They can go outside and play and have a snack. 3. The children do not have to line up when they leave their classes. They just grab their book bag and then they off to another class or taking a mini break. 4. The teachers do not have to yell for the children to be quiet. All they have to say is please be quiet and the children will stop talking. 5. The children love to sing before or another doing an English lesson, especially the first and second graders. 6. The first and second graders have school in a separate building, which is down the street from the school. 7. In between classes students can take a mini break. Observing those things made me wonder why we have such a lack of trust when it comes to our students. Why do we always have to keep things so structure? Why do we not give students recess or time for some breaks? How can we expect our students to sit in their seats for an hour without letting them stretch or take a break? I know that when I become a teacher, I could like to incorporate some of the things I noticed in the school in Germany such as giving children more breaks, giving them the freedom to express themselves, making my lessons much more engaging and not yelling so much. It was good to observe other schools systems in a different country to get a perspective of how teachers teach and how students learn. So let’s talk about a few things that I’ve noticed in Germany so far:
1. Carbonated water is very common and that it your usually your first option when you order it at a restaurant or buy it at store unless you say you say you want Still water which is water without with bubbles. 2. Little girls can walk around the swimming areas with a bikini top until they develop breast. 3. People can swim nude at beaches, seas and lakes. 4. They have apple juice that is carbonated 5. Germany has a very pork culture Those facts alone makes Germany so interesting to me because it shows how different their culture is from ours and people can take notice of that. So this past week has went by so fast and they are have been filled so much activities and excursions to get to know the German culture. Traveling to get to Germany was so tiring due to the international time zone. Once we got to Berlin, we used public transportation to get to our hostel, which was interesting and confusing at the same. The days that we stayed in Berlin consisted of walking tours (in different neighborhoods), sightseeing (The Berlin Wall, The parliament building, The Jewish museum, etc) and eating a plethora of restaurants (by the way German Cuisine is very yummy and amazing!!!). On Friday we transitioned to the other part of our trip was flying to Stuttgart and meeting up with our host families. For the past couple of months, I have been texting and FaceBooking Jasmin. I could not wait to meet her and the moment finally came. After observing the education course that Jasmin and the other German teachers take, we went to her house. Can I just say that her house is very amazing? Once she showed me the room that I would be sleeping in, I took a shower and relaxed a bit. After relaxing, I talked and hung out with Jasmin and Krista. We ate dinner which consisted of beef and potatoes cooked in a tomato and pepper sauce, had dessert which was a red current tart and raspberry pudding, played a card game and laughed the night away on the patio under the stars. It was the best that I have felt in days and made me feel very fortunate that I am able to have the opportunity to experience Germany and have a very lovely and hospitable host sister. The next day went to the Black Forest, which was breathtaking and beautiful. I could feel the history in the air as we were walking through the open air museum. Learning about the farmers and technology that they used for water and appliances was very cool. I love history and architecture; so visiting the Black Forest was right up my alley. We ate a restaurant at the top of the Black Restaurant, which had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. I had a sausage platter, which consisted of black pudding, liverwurst sausage, bratwurst and other kinds of smoked and cured sausage and pork along with butter, bread and cheese. The one thing I had to keep in mind while sampling the food was that you have to have an open mind. Just because a food does not look like something you have never had does not mean it will not be appetizing and. Never short change yourself of an experience due to biases. You have to gives things a chance before you judge. Anyhow, we ended the excursion to the Black Forest by eating yummy Black Forest Cake. Today I went to the Lake of Constance with Jasmin, her mother and Krista. It was a fantastic day to go swimming due to it being 100 degrees. As we made our way to the Lake, we took a tour of the Island (I can’t spell the name but it’s 10 minutes away from the Lake of Constance). There were beautiful mosaic plants in the shape of turkeys, swams and gnomes. We stopped the petting zoo to feed goats and visited the butterfly house then off to the lake we went. At the lake, I noticed that young children don’t have to wear a bathing suit. Girls don’t have to wear a bathing top at until they develop breast. There is a part of the lake where people can swim nude. Needless to say I saw a lot of nude people today. That made me think a lot about the our society and why nudity at the beach is so taboo and why little girls have to cover up when swimming, Starting tomorrow, I will be in the classrooms and I look forward to meeting all of the students and getting to know them. I can’t wait to observe the teachers and teach some lessons. I’m very curious to see what teaching in Germany is like. This is going to be one busy week full of new and incredible experiences. Hi, my name is Taharra Battle and I am a procrastinator!!! I have less than 72 hours before I leave for Germany. In that amount of time I have left I have to pack, get my hair done, get my feet and nails done and more packing. Before I started traveling, I never thought packing was much of a big deal and that it was so easy. Boy was I wrong!!! Packing takes so much time and practice to finesse. First and foremost, you have to make sure you have everything, which includes clothing, shoes, toiletries and other necessities that you’ll need. Secondly, you have to make sure everything will fit in your suitcase. There is so much rearranging that you will have to do. Thirdly and most importantly, you have to make sure your luggage is not over 50 pounds. Every time I prepare to go on a trip I tell myself that I’ll start packing early to make it easier on myself. As usual, I never follow through. Being the procrastinator that I am I wait to the last minute to pack, which is a big pain in the you know what. I don’t know which is worse, making sure I have all of the clothes I need or all the toiletries that I have need. They’re both equally important along with other things. However, I have to admit that one of the things that I love doing when it comes to traveling is preparing for it. As tedious as packing is it gives me something to look forward to and makes me very excited about the journey that I will be going on.
All this week, a plethora of emotions have been running through me such as excitement, nervousness, happiness and being scared. Sometimes before I leave on a trip whether it’s domestic or international I have pre-travel jitters, which puts me on edge. I’m a worrier and I worry myself over the smallest things. I’m working on trying to not sweat the small things and just live in the present. Even though I’m nervous and scared, I’m very excited. I cannot believe that I am actually going to Germany. Sometimes I want to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. I’ve blessed to be given this opportunity to partake in a different culture while learning and observing an education system in a different country. As a teacher candidate, I enjoy exploring different methods when it comes to teaching. It keeps me grounded and open minded in wanting to educate students of all different types of backgrounds and finding a method that works best for them. I believe that I will be to bring back what I have learned in Germany and somehow incorporate that into my instructional strategies when it I have my own classroom. As I’m writing this, it is really dawning on me that I will I be in Germany this time next week meeting my host family. Wow this is really happening! |
AuthorHi, my name is Taharra Battle. I am an Early Childhood Education Major with a concentration in English. at Buffalo State College. I'm grateful that i have this opportunity to travel to Stuttgart, Germany with 7 other students and and 2 faculty members. I am very excited yet nervous about this journey. My goal is to immerse myself in the German culture and language while learning different teaching styles that I can someday incorporate into my own classroom. I'm hoping my experiences in Germany will make me a culturally aware educator. I look forward to writing about my experiences. ArchivesCategories |