Germans Offer International Perspectives

High school exchange students from Heidelberg, Germany toured campus on October 27, hoping to experience a typical American school day.

Volunteers from David Blumberg’s German language classes acted as guides for the day, each paring up with one of the German exchange students.

Sophomore Sydney Bagley was one of the hosts. “When I was with them, I mostly spoke English,” she said., “I think they were surprised when they saw our school, but they also kind of had known what to expect at this point.”

German teacher David Blumberg said, “A lot of [the exchange students] have a certain idea of what American high schools are like and for them to come here to see what it’s really like, it’s funny to hear what their expectations were, often it’s different than what they’re expecting.”

The exchange students gave a presentation to each of Blumberg’s German classes about their life in Heidelberg.

“The presentation kind of showed us what it was like in their daily life in comparison to our daily life. In Germany, the teachers change classrooms and all of the students stay in the same classroom, instead of the other way around, which was cool,” explained Bagley.

The presentations covered the geography of Heidelberg, popular German foods, and famous German celebrities, and included a question and answer session.

“We asked them what their favorite classes were and if there were any words that were hard to pronounce in English. I also asked them what other places they would like to visit in the US besides here,” said sophomore Beck Jurasius.

Blumberg’s students were surprised at the similarities between German and American teen experience.

Jurasius said, “I was most fascinated about all of the similar sports we share with them. They talked about how rugby was pretty popular there and basketball too, and things like that.”

“They definitely bring a different perspective to Campolindo from their experiences in Germany at the Gynasium, which is the Germany college prep high school. They also give my German students the opportunity to speak German with native speakers and people their age who are fluent,” said Blumberg.