Greetings and welcomes were exchanged as 17 students and two teachers stepped off the plane and onto Minnesota ground Sept. 28. A crowd of unfamiliar faces was introduced to a place entirely new to them, a place where the guidance of St. Paul Academy and Summit School students made MN their home for two weeks.

“I believe it’s very important for people to get out and see other cultures…to see other places within the United States can help you widen your mindset and outtake on the world,” sophomore Peter Schleisman said.

The German students get the chance to practice their English and teach SPA students their native language while they’re here. It’s a “unique opportunity for our students to not travel and be a tourist” and instead, “…practice language on a personal level,” US German teacher Jutta Crowder said.

Every other year, Crowder plans and coordinates the trip by contacting the German American Partnership Program (GAPP). The program is based on a network of connected schools that is funded by the German and American governments.

Applications are provided and filled out by students from SPA and the visiting school.

For the past 9 years, SPA has partnered with the Heisenberg-Gymnasium Hamburg for this exchange. Crowder pairs students up based on interests and what they enjoy doing in their free time.

This is the first year junior Maren Findlay has hosted an exchange student. “I like learning languages, so I thought I’d host,” she said.

The German Exchange Program is a language immersion opportunity that allows students in a third level language course and above the chance to host an exchange student from Germany in the fall, and then travel to Germany in the spring.

“I think [the exchange is effective] because you’re basically forced to speak the language for two weeks,” Findlay said.

While in MN, German students are shown around and brought to classes where they can take a look at how American schools work. As the foreign students are familiarized with the SPA community, they begin to observe and participate in school activities such as sports, student groups, and classes.

“I taught the German class two times; it was great. Designing Change was also a great class,” junior Leon Holtmann, a Hamburg Gymnasium student said.

In class, the students talk about their lives in school, family, and topics that concern the community like social themes and comparisons. The students learn from each other and this creates long lasting relationships that will be remembered forever.

Learning to adapt to new surroundings in an entirely different setting allows the German students to get a feel for how things work from a contrasting perspective.
“I wanted to see America, the American culture, the American life,” Holtmann said about his desire to participate in the exchange.

Students experience parts of the world that have never really been as significant or obvious in their surroundings. By immersing themselves in something entirely foreign, students take on the responsibility of learning a new way of life.

Traveling to a country whose dominant language is not native to the student provides a learning experience that is much more tangible than sitting in a classroom intaking information by reading and writing.

Students “can never learn a language as effectively as by simply going to that place,” Schleisman said.

Speaking is the key to learning a foreign language and its background. Schleisman added that“it is one of the most effective and worthwhile programs that this school offers.”

SPA will continue to participate in the German exchange program because it helps “students gain confidence in speaking,” Crowder said. It provides a sensitivity and touch on leadership towards others views and helps language skills. The German exchange program offers an unfamiliar yet refreshing outlook on life and will continue to have this effect on students every year.

From the Mall of America to the Gophers Football game, the German exchange students get the opportunity to experience a taste of the American life and bring back pieces of what they have learned to Germany.