We made the Front Page!
von Tiffany Lane, The Enquirer-Journal, Waxhaw NC, 10.03.2010
German TV shows only a partial picture of America, and American textbooks are only so accurate in describing German culture.
So say some Marvin Ridge High students and 20 of their visitors from Germany.
The school hosted the students for a couple of weeks under the German-American partnership program. The visitors left for New York this morning, and head back to Germany on Friday.
“It’s a totally different side of the world, but we’re pretty much the same,” 10th-grader Trent Morris said. Morris and his classmates helped their German peers plant a tree outside the school Monday. German teacher Harry Braun hopes to make the planting an annual event with other exchange students.
“We’ll have a whole row of international trees,” he said. Several students grabbed a shovel and formed a circle around the designated spot, digging through thick, red clay to make room for a dogwood’s roots. Braun was hoping for a German tree, but had trouble finding one. Pouring a bag of mulch around it, a student informed another in German that the hole was a little big. They soon remedied the situation with one shovelful at a time of loose, spare dirt as their classmates took pictures.
The students, all 11th graders from Krefeld, Germany, stayed with host families around Waxhaw. The group shadowed their host students in school and took a few field trips, including Discovery Place and Cedarhill Farm, a horse farm in Waxhaw.
“We want to make the connection to other cultures,” Braun said, adding that the program focuses more on cultural exchange than travel.
Marvin Ridge students learned just as much as their German counterparts. Ninth-grader Christian Styles said their visitors dress just like he and his friends do, yet his German textbook — a little old — shows them in 1980s attire. Also in class, Morris said, students take it slow when pronouncing words and occasionally trip up on some. “When you hear a German talking, they’re pronouncing perfectly, they’re talking really quickly, and sometimes you really don’t catch what they’re saying,” Morris said. Tenth-grader Katie Forsythe said the visit has improved her own German-speaking. Forsythe, whose family hosted one of the German students, will visit Germany this summer and also stay with a host family for a couple of weeks.
Q&A
German students Alex Notemann and Lea Bovenschen took a few minutes to talk about their visit to Waxhaw.
Q: What’s the biggest difference between American and German teens?
Lea: “In Germany, we’re not so dependent on the parents because it’s easier for us to come into the city, do shopping, to meet friends, because we have more bikes and public transportation. Here, everyone has to be driven by their parents.”
Alex: “The people are friendlier and they live their life more chill; there’s not so much pressure here.”
Q: What similarities are there?
Lea: “We do a lot of the same stuff — listen to the same music and do the same sports.”
Alex: “It’s similar that friends for us are the most important at the moment.”
Q: Is America what you thought it would be like or completely different? How so?
Lea: “It’s a bit like I thought. It’s like in films when you see the high school and it’s all very big — the streets, the cars and everything.”
Alex: “It is like I expected, but it’s not like the German prejudices of America are, that everybody’s dumb and fat and rude.”
Q: Describe America in one sentence or less.
Lea: “Everyone is open to foreign people and very friendly and welcome them.”
Alex: “People are much friendlier here, and everything is taller than in Germany — the schools, the buildings, the streets, the things you are buying. You’re buying gallons and not liters.”
Q: What do you want to teach the students here about Germany?
Lea: “That they are not so much different as we are, that we are all same and we have same interests.”
Alex: “The same thing.”
German students plant a tree in front of MRHS
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