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| Seven German Students |
On April 11th, seven German students got to experience what school life at MVL was like. When asked how their classes differed from MVL's classes, the answers were very surprising. They said that their school looks a lot greener than MVL. Which meant that there are many more trees at their school compared to here. The most popular transportation to get to school is by bus, but other students bike or drive. They started off by saying that they had a different class schedule for each day of the week. This means that they only have a certain class once a week. As amazing as that sounds the long class periods are about an hour long. They also said that their classes are harder than what they experienced at MVL. Another positive about their schedule is that they have different lengths of school days. Their school days start and 7:45 and on short days ends at 12:20 and long days end at 3:15. Sounds like a dream right? The upperclassmen have a special length day too, instead of ending at 3:15 the school day can go as long as 5:30. Their passing periods are a little strange compared to other schools. After every two hours they get a break, first break is five minutes, then 25 minutes, five minutes again, and then a 30 minute break. Physiology is a class that everyone takes and they have no parenting classes. They are also allowed to have phones during the school day, but not during class. Chapel is only once a week on Fridays and is about 15 minutes long. It is not mandatory and because of this it is not very popular among students. The school is on a hill and surrounded by forest areas and many trees.
Lunch in America and Germany are very different. At their school the cafeteria and the school are two separate buildings. Their lunch period is an hour long and everyday they have a pizza bar, salad bar, and a dessert bar. Upperclassmen, which is 10th grade on up, are allowed to go off campus and going shopping during lunch. They also commented on our lunch saying that it was too much food to each in such a short amount of time.
Two thing they enjoyed were the weight room and the large grass field. At their school they said they don't have any big fields or weight rooms, but they have a school playground they call the 'cage'. An interesting thing they had said was that the middle school and the high school were combined. This includes 5th grade through 12th grade. That is a lot of kids to fit in one school and it is. They estimated that their school population was between 800 and 900 kids. With that many kids you would think there would be sports teams, but there aren't. If you want to join a sport, you join a mini club which is after school (and not very popular). Those mini clubs include sports such volleyball, dance, flag football, and soccer.
Some interesting facts about Germany itself show how different the two countries are. For starters there are many more hills, so the streets are curved and not very wide. Public transportation is also better because they have taxis and trains that are easier to access than in the United States. Oil and gas is also more expensive in Germany. Small cars in the United States are the most popular size in Germany because the trucks are very expensive. The cars are also manual shift. At age 16 you can drink beer and wine, but not hard liquor. At age 18 you can drink hard liquor and smoke just like in the United States. Their last comment was that the stereotype of Germans liking potatoes is true.
