#5 1. Schultag in Leipzig

March 29, 2023

The first day of school (for our kids) began with a German-style breakfast in the teacher cafeteria. Our hosts Frau Haschke, Frau Tümpel, and Principal Seffner welcomed us and laid out the plan for the next few days. Frau Legall handed Herr Seffner more South merch for his collection - the hat he's wearing in the pictures is a gift from 2018.

Then our students and their partners went to their first classes before heading for lunch and one more group event: bowling! Why bowling even though it's not exactly a new cultural nor a typically German experience? Because the bowling alley is in the basement of the elementary school! After all, our partner school is musikalisch-SPORTlich for a reason.

So, because from now on each student will make individual experiences rather than the group experiences of the past few days, they will share them in this blog. We hope everyone will contribute over the next week and a half. Ashley and Sanjay volunteered to get us started.

Ashley writes:

Today was our first day of school in Germany. My partner Clara and I had only two classes today, chemistry and German (which is like American literature at South). It was super interesting to see how classes worked in Germany. For instance, I noticed how every student worked on an iPad while in our school everyone works on a Chromebook. In the US, everyone aside from teachers bring backpacks to school; in Germany most students bring backpacks, but some don’t.

I also noticed that the students here dress a bit differently than in the US, more fancy. I really enjoyed having an hour break in between classes to go to the supermarket. In our school, leaving campus is forbidden, hahaha. All and all, it was a really relaxed day and I had a lot of fun.

Sanjay writes:

Today was exceptional! First, we went to school. I went to biology and history class. In the biology class, one of the students gave a presentation. He spoke a lot and I could only make out a few things on what he was saying, but it was long and showed the disparity in presentations between this school and our school. I had never seen a student in our school give as good a presentation as he did.

We had lunch afterward. I had the Jägerschnitzel, and it seems that their school food is much better than ours.

In the history class, it was interesting to learn about attempts to escape East Germany. Some included using tanks, swimming, tunnels, or even a Trojan cow. After school, we went bowling. Marvin and I were doing okay until we scored 0 points for two rounds in a row.

Then, we went to the Schumann Haus and it was amazing. I got to see a piano that Clara Schumann had played a concert on. I even played on it before being told I wasn’t supposed to play [Editorial note: Totally my fault, but it was a calculated risk; getting reprimanded was absolutely worth it because I believe Sanjay will never forget these 10 seconds of playing on Clara Schumann's piano.😊] Seeing the original manuscripts was so cool. We then made our way to the Bach Museum. I was able to see Johann Sebastian Bach's career within the St. Thomas Church itself and how he had composed cantatas each week for church. He was truly prolific and I was able to see more original manuscripts with it. I enjoyed both of these museums a lot. Overall, I had a fantastic time today!