WHen a group of 15 students return to their home in Löhne, Germany, they’ll know how to read fingerprints, prepare a delicious dish of spaghetti carbonara and film their own newscast.
The students, along with two teachers, stayed with local Columbus families for a 10-day trip to the city as part of the 25-year-old sister-city cultural exchange program with Löhne, a city of nearly 40,000 people in the wide farm country of northern Germany.
Throughout their stay, the students did just enough to understand what it’s like to live like a Hoosier.
“It’s been cool,” said Georgios Gogos, an 18-year-old student at Städtisches Gymnasium. “The first thing that was real different are the schools are a lot bigger. It has been interesting to see how many different classes you have — classes we don’t usually have.”
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Among the items on their itinerary, Gogos and his classmates attended classes at Columbus North and Columbus East high schools, toured Indiana University’s Bloomington campus where they got a taste of what college is like in America, and met Columbus city officials including Mayor Jim Lienhoop.
They also experienced a number of career pathways in Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s C4 Columbus Area Career Connections program.
Gogos said the corporation’s C4 program is nothing like what is offered in Germany, where students who want to pursue a vocational education must attend an entirely different school dedicated to vocational training.
“When it comes to the more practical stuff, we have that, but it’s different,” Gogos said. “When you do something with like mechanics, it’s pretty cool — you can get immediately recruited by these companies.”
In criminal justice teacher Mike Ward’s class, students were tasked with solving a crime scene by comparing fingerprints of suspects. They also learned how to roll and read their own thumbprints.
In broadcast teacher Jim Roeder’s television studio course, students took control of East’s daily announcements and put their own take on the show. Joleen Backs, 18, stood next to the large green screen where she projected the weather forecast for her homeland of Löhne.
The students even cooked their own lunch — spaghetti carbonara — in the C4 Culinary Arts Courtyard Restaurant.
English teacher and exchange coordinator Katherine Stahl said the German exchange program has been an important piece of BCSC’s diversity element during the past 25 years. The exchange occurs every other year with BCSC students visiting Löhne, Germany too.
“We embrace diversity, and we want kids to have the opportunity to spread their wings and see other perspectives,” Stahl said. “It’s a unique opportunity for students to grow as people and gain more confidence in themselves while exploring the world.”
Katrin Kemper, a teacher in Germany, led the students on the trip to Columbus. She said more than 60 students signed up to travel, but only 15 spots were available.
“They’ve always loved it,” said Kemper, who brings a new group of students to America every other year. “You can see how everybody wants to go and not everybody can go.”
Before their stay in Columbus, the group made a stop in the nation’s capital. While in Washington D.C., students divided into groups and toured museums, visited national monuments and experienced the iconic National Cherry Blossom festival.
“We’ve seen so much, it’s incredible,” Kemper said.
One of the most “incredible differences” Backs said she noticed when she first arrived in the United States were the toilets.
“The toilets! I don’t understand the toilets because there’s some water, you push the button and all the water is gone and then all the water comes back!” Backs said.
Instead of having a standing pool of water, toilets in Germany are essentially dry — except for a very thin pool of water. And the bottom of the toilet is flat like a shelf. When the toilet is flushed, a torrent of water rushes from the back of the bowl and sweeps everything into a drain in the front.
Beyond the toilets, Backs said she loved getting to know her host family and the way they live in America. She even took a weekend trip to Brown County with the family where she got to experience the natural beauty of Brown County State Park.
Other students spent their weekends at athletic tournaments and festivals. Gogos traveled to Louisville with his host family for the annual Thunder Over Louisville, an airshow and fireworks display to celebrate the kickoff of the Kentucky Derby festivities.
The students will spend the final days of their trip exploring Chicago before boarding a plane to head back to their homeland this week.
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Löhne, Germany
Population: 40,199 (2010)
Location: A town in the district of Herford, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Source: loehne.de
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