This past summer, about twenty IHS German students spent three weeks in the city of Tuttlingen in southwest Germany, studying the language while completely immersing themselves in the culture. Despite the German exchange’s long history at our school, many students are not aware of its existence or value.
Students in ICSD have the unique opportunity to study one of five world languages: Spanish, French, German, Latin, and Mandarin, the last being a new addition this year. Many schools across the country either cut their German programs or don’t have one to begin with, partly due to the fact that German students are a minority among American high school students. According to the American Councils language survey in 2017, German accounts for a mere 3.11 percent of all of the languages students are enrolled in across the county.
The IHS German Exchange Program has a long and storied history, as explained by Sabine Wintermute, the sole German teacher at IHS. The program was founded in 1989 by two teachers, Dean Williams from Homer High School and Cindy Harring from Cortland High School. Ithaca joined the exchange in 1991. Before Wintermute, Mary Bronfenbrenner and Harry Weymar were the organizers of the IHS exchange. The exchange used to be every year, but due to declining interest, it only takes place every two years now in order to accumulate enough students to participate. The reason for its declining student participation, in part, is because Homer and Cortland actually cut both of their German programs. The exchange was brought to a halt during Covid, but now it’s in full swing. According to Wintermute, the IHS German Exchange is “one of the longest running exchange programs by the German American Partnership Program (GAPP), which supports our exchange.” GAPP provides some financial support for the exchange, allotting a certain amount of money for each student.
Every other year, students taking German at level three or above are given the option to participate in the exchange program. Only around twenty students are allowed to participate, so if there are more than twenty applicants, a lottery system will determine who will join the exchange program. IHS students who participate in the exchange are matched with German students based on their hobbies, interests, and personal characteristics.
The German students come to Ithaca around October, and live for about three weeks with the families of their IHS partners. During their stay, they visit places like New York City and Niagara Falls, but they spend most of their time with their exchange partner, attending classes and after-school activities together. Some families who host an exchange partner take them to see interesting sites around New York. “In the US, it was definitely fun to show my exchange partner around Ithaca and what I like about Ithaca,” said Amalia Pellecer, an IHS senior.
The following summer, the IHS students take their turn living with their exchange partners. During the three weeks in Germany, they visit places like Freiburg, Stuttgart, and Konstanz. Students spend most of their time with their exchange families, and because school is in session in Germany in July, they attend school with their exchange partners. Leo Levy, an IHS junior, described his typical morning in Germany: “I think I’d wake up around 5:45 and we would leave for school around 6:30; the train would leave around 6:40. We would bike to the train station. They would be in school till around 12:30. School was usually pretty boring for us, but it was fun to see all the different students and teachers.” When asked about his favorite part of the exchange, Leo said, “I really liked both aspects of the exchange. I had a really fun time with my exchange partner, especially in the evenings, when we would play our daily match of FIFA and I would destroy him.”
Because high school in Germany starts and ends very early, students and their exchange partners would often explore the city of Tuttlingen after school, maybe get a bite to eat, then take the public bus back to their exchange partner’s house. “There was this ‘I’m going to go do what I want’ mentality, so after school, people would go into town and you would get lunch and just hang out,” explained Mateo Gonzales, an IHS junior. Amalia added that she “really enjoyed the independence we had. We could hop on a train and go to any surrounding city and here, that just doesn’t really work … I liked the freedom we had.”
On the weekends, students often went traveling or attended German festivals with their host families. “In Germany, definitely one of the more fun aspects was the festivals on the weekend, around every weekend,” said Leo. “Because everyone was in a small town, there would be a small festival in a nearby town, or in our town, and we would just go and hang out for half a day.” There are also typically two large trips that the entire exchange group goes on, and this year, the students went to Freiburg and to Stuttgart, major cities in that region of Germany.
The future of the German Exchange program is up to the students who are currently taking German, both at the middle school level as well as the early high school level. When asked if they’d encourage younger German students to participate in the exchange, students who went on the exchange this year talked about the cultural connections and friendships they forged. Lelia Shaffer, an IHS senior, declared, “Definitely do it. I feel like you will make a lot of good friends, both German and American, and definitely get closer to your peers.” Amalia agreed, adding, “I would say go for it because you never know when another opportunity will present itself like that.”
The exchange also provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students to completely immerse themselves in another culture and language. Leo felt “nearly fluent” in German by the time he came back from the exchange and was “really confident” in his German ability. “My conversational German improved a lot and I got a better feel for the culture, because you can’t really get that from a textbook,” added Lelia.
The IHS German Exchange has huge potential for the future. This exchange has been going on for more than two decades, but it is unfortunately not widely known, which could jeopardize the future of the program. This past summer, my own exchange partner and I made a pact that our kids would go on the exchange together. If IHS continues to support this amazing program and the study of the German language, this could very well be the case, two more decades from now.