Every other October, the halls of IHS are graced by the presence of about 25 German exchange students for three weeks. Since the 1980s, IHS students have participated in the German-American Partnership Program (GAPP) to host and visit students in Tuttlingen, a town in the south of Germany. Ithaca is the last school out of several in the area to continue participation in the exchange. Every other July, rising juniors and seniors are sent to Tuttlingen with German teachers Sabine O’Dell and David Isley.
The German exchange students arrived in New York City and spent three days there to see landmarks such as Times Square and the Empire State Building before taking a bus to Ithaca, where their host students anxiously waited. They shadowed their American hosts’ schedules for three weeks of school, listening and speaking English while experiencing the American school system. They were given tours of Cornell University, the Corning Museum of Glass, and Niagara Falls, and shown American traditions such as the homecoming football game and dance. Likewise, the Americans will be exposed to the German high school in Tuttlingen and practice the German language. At the end of the Americans’ stay in Germany, they will spend a few days in the city of Munich to visit famous places such as the Englischer Garten and the Nymphenburg Palace.
The German students are at an advantage in their extent of foreign language study over the Americans. While American students begin studying German in seventh grade, in Germany students begin studying English in the third grade, on top of other foreign languages such as Spanish and French. This makes it less challenging for the Germans to be immersed in the English language than vice-versa.
This isn’t the only difference between German and American school systems. The German students have a block schedule that allows them to take about 10 to 13 classes each year. Some subjects are repeated for multiple years at different levels so that knowledge of a specific subject is not lost after only taking it for one year. Depending on a student’s schedule, the school day may end earlier on some days than others. Since teachers are not allowed to assign homework due the next day when students have a longer school day, German students have a substantially lower amount of homework than the typical American student. At the end of high school, students all take a final called the Abitur, choosing some of the subjects for which they will take an exam. Lastly, in German schools, students stay with the same classmates in the same classroom while teachers change rooms between class periods.
Before leaving Tuttlingen for the United States, the German participants in the exchange created projects on subjects ranging from the factories in their town to German culture to the capital, Berlin. During their visit, the students presented their unique projects and topics to the German classes at IHS, Boynton Middle School and DeWitt Middle School. The German teachers also incorporated the visiting students into their class lessons, in which the American students tested their knowledge of German by attempting to converse with the native speakers. Additionally, some teachers at IHS attempted to have the visiting German students participate in classroom activities, discussions, labs and even tests.
In previous years, the GAPP hadn’t seen so many American applicants, though it encouraged students to begin studying German in middle school. This was the first year more Americans applied than could go, forcing the organizing teachers to choose students by hand and by lottery. However, this is not the case for the German students, since everyone is required to study English and there are more potential applicants. The Tuttlingen high school has two exchanges every other year just for 10th graders. In the years Tuttlingen does not send students to Ithaca, it sends its 10th graders to Seattle. Applicants are chosen by lottery to participate in the exchange programs.
After getting to know their German exchange partners and then seeing them leave, the American participants eagerly await their visit to Tuttlingen—where school will still be in session—to see their friends, experience a new culture, and put their German language skills to the test.