My kids are awesome

Every once in a while I come up with a lesson idea that works really well and that I am very proud of and today was one of those days, so I want to share my lesson with you! Two weeks ago, the last time I met with this particular class of 14-15 year olds, we talked about life for an American High School Student. We discussed how American schools differ from Austrian schools and, using lots of pictures from my high school, I attempted to explain student life in a typical American public school. We talked about sports teams, school spirit, pep rallies, Homecoming, Prom, the arts, and clubs, among other things. I showed them a video clip from one of my high school’s pep rallies (which resulted in me having the Color Shout, our obnoxious school cheer, stuck in my head for weeks) and even let them ruffle through my high school yearbook (#embarrassing). I had a lot of fun reminiscing about high school while putting the lesson together.

We had a really interesting discussion because most of this stuff is absent from Austrian schools. There are no high school sports teams and very little opportunity for participation in the arts, within the context of school. There is also little freedom when it comes to electives, because the schools themselves are more specialized, so in a way students have already chosen “electives” by choosing which school to attend. My school is a general Gymanisum, intended for students who want to go on to study at University. Some schools are specialized for agriculture or business or art or sports. My friend Lizzy teaches at a horticultural school, so you can see there really are schools for everyone! 

Anyway, since a lot of the students had found the topic of school spirit so interesting and foreign in the last lesson, I decided to do some activities dealing with the same topic when I met with the same class this week. First, I had them work in groups to come up with an identity for their school: a mascot, school colors, a school cheer or song, a logo, spirit week theme ideas, etc. I showed them the mascots and logos from some high schools around Irvine to give them inspiration but didn’t give them too much direction, because I wanted them to be creative. The kinds of things these kids came up with were adorable, hilarious, bizarre, and fantastic. A lot of them chose green for one of the colors, because the school itself is green, as you've probably noticed. Some of my favorite mascots were the “Evils,” crocodiles (and everyone at the school gets free crocs), pandas, “Purkibear,” evil poisoned frogs, stick men, “holy foxes” (they’re clever and can fly because they’re holy), and two groups picked unicorns. They seemed to really enjoy choosing spirit week themes too, and came up with some interesting ones: King and Queen day, Halloween Day, Boys Dress as Girls and Girls Dress as Boys Day, Nerd Day, and Suit Up Day (I asked what the girls wear on that day and these boys said “nothing”). Below are two of the designs the kids came up with.

How cute is this!? So magical! So creative!

If you ignore the spelling mistakes, that is apparently the REAL school song for the Purkersdorf Gynamisum. It's in English. Who knew? The class broke into a spontaneous rendition of it for me, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Also, how adorable are these girls?!

These boys had lots of explanation involved in their choices. The panda mascot wears big green gloves so he can go around giving people hugs.  And green represents friendship, black represents teamwork, and white represents something I can't remember. It was cute though. Of course.

The other activity we did (we only had time for 2 out of my three ideas because they got so into it J) was more for conversation practice. I gave them a picture of two or three people—typical high school scenarios—and had them come up with a conversation between the characters in the picture. The real fun of this was choosing the right pictures for the right kids. For example, I gave two particularly chatty and ostentatious boys a picture of a girl crowning another girl Homecoming Queen. Their conversation was predictably hilarious. One of my favorite results came from a boy and girl who had received a picture of two cheerleaders talking. The boy’s “cheerleader impression” was hysterical, SO flamboyant and fantastic. The best part was when he was talking about “the CUTEST boy he met the other day” and then obviously used his own name. The kids loved it, I loved it, it was great.

Moral of the story: my kids are adorable.