Teaching

So today was the long-awaited day. I've been preparing my presentation for what feels like forever and today was my day to teach. I am so grateful that it was early in the trip because I think I have thought about this and spent more time on the $$%%# Powerpoint than I did in all of the other preparations for the trip.
The class I was to teach was at a Berufschule in Mittelfeld , a part of Wittenberg. The Berufschule seems similar to a community college and I was slated to talk on the last day of school to kids in the Culinary Arts program of Herr Weiss.
I had such a good time! Herr Weiss ended up being this funny, friendly teacher who (for any of the hundreds of people who I'm sure are now reading my blog-- HA! - who know Richey Kegler-- he looked very much like him) See photo above (below? Haven't quite worked out where pictures will pop up and I'm too lazy to micro-manage it) Anyway...So, you can see from the pictures that the kids were a bit older but they were really receptive. Immediately the technology failed. The open-sourced software that the school used was incomprehensible to Herr Weiss's computer ( and I couldn't use my computer because the computer and the "Beamer"-- the word in German for projector-- isn't that funny how they think they can speak English but can't quite? -- were one)
So on to plan B. Luckily I had xeroxed some photos and so I just showed them and talked and generally yucked it up with the kids. The Sillybands I had brought were a TREMENDOUS hit. Not too kiddy for them-- they LOVED them (although they hated the maple sugar candy and weren't shy about saying so. The class was over too soon, oddly enough, but then Herr Weiss said that the kids were clamouring for more and could I stay (You love me, you really love me... or maybe you just don't want to have to work in the next class...) Anyway, I did and yacked some more-- I felt really in the German zone -- it was fun.