I wish I had known
Beth and Julie,
Congratulations for finishing your overseas student teaching experience! I know it has been a once in a lifetime experience in so many ways for each of you!!!
For your final prompt, please post here a letter to future student teachers.
Please think about things that you wish you had known; ways to help with the adjustments to being in a foreign country as well as being part of a military community; things that were easier than expected, and also harder than expected; and the best tidbits you can think about from being in a DoDDS school and about Heidelberg specifically.
Thanks ladies for a wonderful semester, and please do keep in touch!!!!!
Come see us if you find yourself in Pullman!!!:-)
Heidi & Chris
posted by Heidi @ 2:08 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Dear Future DoDDS Student Teachers,
This was one of the best experiences of my life. However, it did take a while to become situated in the new environment. I think one of the things that I did not expect coming here is that I would be thrown into two different foreign languages: German AND military lingo. Listening to a military conversation is not easy even for a native speaker. I will list some of the terms that I learned so that maybe you will have an easier time.
Commisary- Grocery store
PX- Shopping area (like target or shopco)
On Post- On base
On the economy- Off base
Down Range- Deployed to the middle east
SOFA- your equivalent to a visa (you get it once you're here)
Something else that I was concerned about was what household things did I need to bring. You don't need to bring any. Bedding, towels, kitchen untensils, tv, and dvd player were already here. Some of the stuff was a little shabby, but you can buy what you need on base really cheap. Another thing is I packed a bunch of shampoo, conditionar, body wash, etc... But the comissary sells all of that stuff and has many different brands to pick from.
On base, everything is in dollars. You can use your debit or credit card with no foreign transaction fees, because it is just like you are shopping in the states.
My best advice for moving to a foreign country is to not be afraid to do things on your own. I'm not saying that you should walk around by yourself in the middle of the night, but if you are in a safe place (and Germany is very safe) go sit at a cafe, or go to the park. I found that when I did things without my American friends, I was much more likely to meet German people.
So it is good to try doing somethings off base by yourself, it is also really important to build good relationships with the people you are living with. It can be a little bit hectic to have 7 people all living in the same apartment, but you are all going through the same experience so if you communicate well then things will be great.
If you are coming to Heidelberg, one of the best things you can do on a warm night is walk the castle grounds. It is free, and it is breathe taking. Heidelberg is known for the castle, and I think at night is the best way to see it.
Good luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Chris and Heidi have my email. Also, if you are interested in sitting down and having a chance to talk about this, I will be home mid-June, and would love to share what I've learned.
Best Wishes!
Beth
To start this blog post off I just want to thank everyone who has made this opportunity possible for me. It has been so amazing and I have learned things that I will never forget. I have made life long friends and I am very grateful to have been able to experience my student teaching abroad.
There are a few things that I would have liked to know before coming over here. I would have liked more information on the living situation because this has been a very interesting experience. I wasn’t expecting rent to be $5 a day and to find this out was quite a shock. I would have also liked to know that I would have been sharing an apartment with 6 other people and that I would have been staying in a room similar to a door room with another person. In my experience, to be happy in your living environment, you have to be very flexible and easy to get along with. There were a total of 13 student teachers living in two apartments. All of us have come from different universities and all of us have very different personalities. If you have an issue with personal space, this might not be the best situation for you.
Another issue that arose while living on post, was garbage. For the first month or so we were clueless about how the garbage sorting worked. At first we didn’t really care, but as it turns out, if you don’t sort your trash properly every one in the apartment can get a $200 fine. There are posters to refer to when sorting, but it is useful to organize a way to sort trash from the beginning. We also made job wheels to help the apartment stay clean.
I would also liked to have had more information about a visa and if I was going to need one. In fact you do not need one because you will be able to get some thing called a SOFA card that protects you by the military if something were to happen. Along the line of travel, it is a little of a task to get into the main area of Heidelberg. You have to walk about 20 minutes to the 717 bus and then get off and take the strass ban into town. Another tip is if you are considering getting a Eurail pass, the work on the bus in Heidelberg, we didn’t find this out until the end of the trip.
I have had a lot of previous travel experience, so for me it wasn’t a huge adjustment to the culture. My advice would be to immerse your self in as much as possible and take every opportunity to get off base. Any day your teacher wants to do something with you, do it! It can be very easy to get into the routine of just coming home everyday after school and sitting in the apartment, but do your best to experience as much as possible. Since you can only really travel on the weekends, it is important to do things after school and experience the culture outside of the base. The language barrier is very frustrating and embarrassing at times. If you have time to learn some German you should do it because that is one thing I wished I had done. There is very little opportunities to learn German while here so if you don’t have time to learn any before you come, get yourself a small German language book. Other wise, most Germans know some English, but I have found them to be a lot more pleasant if you at least attempt to speech German rather than directly speaking to them in English.
The adjustment to the military base was a lot smoother than what I was expecting. I think this was because of the great community. Everyone is so generous and willing to help. I have been picked up a few times walking home from the commissary. Every one at the school has been so caring and opened their school to me with open arms. As long as you make the effort, everyone here with return the love. I think that this experience would have been very different if there wasn’t such a strong sense of community and support.
The DoDDs schools are amazing because they provide so many opportunities to learn about how to integrate technology into the classroom. It is amazing the things 2nd graders know how to do on a computer. DoDDs schools are also very diverse, with students from all of the states, who have parents from around Europe, and their family make-up if very diverse. Way of life here is very different than what we might be use to, but this is what military people are use to. You need to show respect and soak up everything, so in the future you can better understand your students.
My advice to future overseas student teachers is to come into this experience with a positive attitude and to attempt to get the most out it in everyway possible. Understand that you are going to be challenged by being away from your comfort zone and that you will feel homesick at times. This is a learning experience of a lifetime and not everything is easy, but in the end it is worth it!
I wish you all the best of luck and if there are any other questions I would be more than happier to answer them. Feel free to email me or look me up on facebook. There is a lot to talk about and I tried to cove the biggies!
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