Selected Events 2009

U.S. Hands-On at Schools in the Leipzig District

Colby  Mangels and Ivana Djak doing school outreach

June 17-22, 2009. U.S. intern Ivana Djak started her tour of German high schools on June 17 at the Thüringisches Rhön-Gymnasium in Kaltensundheim, where she spoke to roughly sixty 7^th and 11^th graders. On June 18, she addressed fourteen 11^th grade English students at the Heinrich-Böll-Gymasium in Saalfeld. As the last school, she visited was the Franziskaneum Gymnasium in Meissen, where she and fellow intern Colby Mangels engaged about eighty 9^th and 10^th graders on June 22. At all schools, the U.S and Germany were compared in terms of size, population, and the economy. Commonplace stereotypes like "obese, ignorant Americans" or "beer-drinking, sausage eating Germans" were discussed and discredited. In Kaltensundheim and Saalfeld, she also talked about high school and university experiences. Furthermore, she dealt with numerous questions about the new administration, politics, adolescence in America and many other topics.