A Series of Random Topics

13. März 2011



Berliner Dom and blue skies...finally!

 This week, Michelle finally got to come visit me. We’d been waiting for this trip for months, especially since we hadn’t seen each other since graduation in May. I started out by surprising her at the airport (we’d arranged to meet at the train station), and we headed to the main train station, locked up her bags with a fair amount of hassle, and set off for the Berliner Dom. It had been a few years since I’d there, and Michelle never had, so the monumental greatness and beauty of the massive church was not lost on either of us. After that we walked past the Synagogue, noting a surprising number of Mexican restaurants along the way, before heading back to Roßlau to prepare for two full days at school.

Mondays and Tuesdays are always crazy to begin with, and the teachers I worked with all wanted to integrate Michelle into class work and take advantage of having another native speaker around. Even I didn’t quite anticipate how much they’d want to integrate her, and I think it was a bit overwhelming at times (sorry, Michelle!). She stepped up with ferocity, though, for topics ranging from a debate about whether gun control would lower violence in schools, to the American West, to life in small-town America, to life in the South, to small talk and teenage pregnancy. It was enough for me without the jetlag, and Michelle and I were seriously exhausted. I hope that she enjoyed experiencing the Gymnasium, even if it was hectic and stressful at times.



Salsa demo

 The big reward came at the end of the day on Tuesday when we got to teach three Salsa classes! We started in my afterschool group of 9th and 10th grade gifted English students – five girls – and decided to work on the Samba line dance before teaching a few steps of partner salsa. We only had 45 minutes, but the girls learned very quickly.

Then we worked with the 6th grade dance group on the basic salsa steps through a follow-along warm-up, reviewed the Samba line dance I’d taught them the week before and then learned some new dance steps to help them with their “Salsa personalities”. It was so good to have a chance to work with them separately from the older students because they really blossomed. Usually some of the 8th graders come at that time too, so it’s really difficult to keep a balance between the levels.

The last group included the more advanced students, ranging from 6th to 11th grade. Surprisingly they all meshed together really well. The girls seemed to enjoy the salsa, and I was also glad to see a few of my English students from 9th and 11th grade join us for the day. Since most of them are already dancers, counting was not a problem, and I couldn’t believe how quickly they picked up the steps and the Spanish names for them. An hour and a half later they could dance a full song of “Micaela” and do about six steps. Wow! Half of them had to be guys, but because there were not actual guys in attendance, it wasn’t so much of a problem. They also requested to dance the Samba line dance I taught them last week again.

I could see they were having fun, and Michelle and I certainly were! It made me so proud to see how versatile they were as dancers and how willing to take on the challenge of dancing in English and Spanish they were. I’m fantastically proud and thrilled to be lucky enough to continue working in a dance group like that!

Deine,
N*