Dr. Johannes Latsch, "Chairman" der "George-Marshall-Gesellschaft e. V. / Verein zur Förderung der deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen und der Kreispartnerschaft MTK-Loudoun c/o"  und Koordinator des Main-Taunus-Kreises für den Schüleraustausch mit dem US-Partnerkreis Loudoun-County im Rahmen des SPEP-Programms, schreibt in einer kurzen Presseerklärung Folgendes über den diesjährigen Austausch:

"Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

im Rahmen des SPEP-Programms haben 14 Schüler aus Loudoun zwei Wochen im Main-Taunus-Kreis und der Region Frankfurt/Rhein-Main verbracht.
Ein Kernstück und Alleinstellungsmerkmal des Programms waren dabei wieder die Einblicke in das hiesige Arbeitsleben. Finanziell unterstützt und koordiniert wurde der Besuch von der George-Marshall-Gesellschaft und unseren Partnern des George C. Marshall International Centers in Leesburg.

Weitere Fotos werden demnächst auf unserer Homepage zu finden sein.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen 

Dr. Johannes Latsch"

"Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

14 Loudoun students have visited MTK and the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region for two weeks under the shield of the SPEP-Program. The visit was financially supported and coordinated by the George Marshall Society in Hofheim and our partners at the George C. Marshall International Center in Leesburg. Career explorations on German jobsites were again a crucial part and a unique selling point of our German-American exchange program.

The pictures show the SPEP group during a German crash course and attending a disaster exercise in MTK with the German Bundeswehr. More photos will be posted on our website soon.

Sincerely yours

Dr. Johannes Latsch"

Der angesprochene Link zur Homepage findet sich hier: http://www.george-marshall-gesellschaft.org .

Die entsprechende Seite des Main-Taunus-Kreises kann über diesen Link angesehen werden:  http://www.mtk.org/cps/rde/xchg/mtk_internet/hs.xsl/521.htm .

Hier der Bericht der Schülerin der AES, Lene-Marei Mrosik, aus der Stufe Q1 über ihre Zeit in ihrer Gastfamilie während des Austauschs:

Amerika – A Land of dreams

Now I am standing here, at the airport in Frankfurt on the way to America. Why? I am participating on the exchange program SPEP (Student Partnership Exchange Program). The SPEP exchange is organized by the George-Marshall society e. v. and the George Marshall international center in Leesburg, Virginia. At the exchange this year altogether 17 pupils took part, out of this two pupils from Austria. Today was the 29^th of September and the start of our two week long journey. Who would not be excited? For some of them it will be the first time flying over the big, big ocean. And we will get the chance to work at an American company to full file our English and collect new experiences. All in all we will have one week work shadowing and one week get to know the American culture through our host families. I am excited that is for sure and I am thankful to get the chance to take part at this program. It will be the biggest event that will happen in my life of an sixteen year old student (ok, one of the biggest events so far) and it will be a pleasure to write an report in two weeks J

(Part of my travel diary what was written a few hours before our take off in Frankfurt)

1st Week – Internship

For the two weeks I stayed with the Turnes who were a kind and warming family. They have five children, one dog and tree cats. You can imagine that in this household lots of activities and kids went on. At the latest when you wake up and hear the sentence “Jack! Your bus is coming! Daniel, eat your stuff! Maren! That was your first bus, hurry! And where, for gos sake, are Matthew and Samuel?!”. And that was the case. But later on more.

I had my internship at Ida Lee Recreation Center in Leesburg. It is a kind of sport center and offers a variety of programs, facilities, and services to meet ones recreation and leisure needs. Of the 16 parks, Ida Lee Park is the most popular out of the departments, featuring a recreation center with 71,000 square feet of aquatic, fitness, and recreation opportunities, as well as an 11-court tennis complex and outdoor aquatic center. Each year they offer over 3,000 recreation programs, which include programs for all ages. And last year they build two new soccer fields on which mostly Tuscarora High-School Students play they soccer games. Ida Lee Park won two awards for the best “Park and Recreation Center” in Virgina. Of course Ida Lee Park isn’t just an “ordinary sport center”, they have staff for events and youth services as well! For example the Event Team planned the Leesburg Airshow on Saturday, September the 29^th. It was an event where the show was filled with acrobatic planes and helicopters filled doing barrel rolls, nose dives and wing walking. As well, military, civilian and experimental aircrafts has been on display.

And then there is the R.O.C.K Program (picture above). It is an organization which was founded by members of the Ida Lee Park, the Town of Leesburg and the Leesburg Police Department in order to help children who have less money creating their free time. Their goals are:

• Provide activities that are designed for low to moderate income youth aged 5-12;
• Encourage more structured, positive socialization;
• Provide meaningful and structured recreation-based experiences to Leesburg youth;
• Increase children’s awareness of their community.

In front of a sculpture of Albert Einstein.

My Timetable:

The table above shows my activities during my internship in Ida Lee Park. The first day was of course exciting and I fought with the thought that maybe my English isn’t good enough. But later on I was convinced of the opposite. With our 8 years of learning English you could understand nearly everything they were saying and of course answering without a problem. Maybe sometimes your German accent was in the way, but the more you spoke the more you copied the “American English”. (In my case I like the American English more than the British English but it’s not the point right now) Together with another German exchange student, Annie Beckmann, I began my internship with the “welcome meeting” of our supervisor and internship contact Katey. She was a kind woman who explained us all the going on in Ida Lee and introduced us to her co-workers. All of them were very nice and tried to make our stay at Ida Lee as exciting as they could. It was Ida Lee’s first time offering an internship for students, so the first day was not that exciting. We met Amber at the Front desk, where we welcomed guests and got to know the computer system. In that case the computer system was interesting because with it the users checked themselves in. It was important for the planning and coordination of all those programs and administrations as well.

The next day at my work experience was more exciting because I helped out at the childcare. Ida Lee Park is offering Child care as a service provided to parents who are utilizing the facility and have no other options for child care. The condition: Parents must remain in the building at all times with the exception of the tennis courts. If parent is using the tennis court facility, the parent must have an Ida Lee pager on them at all times. The staff at the childcare room was friendly and accepted my help from the first moment. I learned that the staff had to follow different rules (like only 2 Babies per adult and only 10 children on total per adult). As well the time of staying was limited with 2 hours per visit per child. The age range was from 3 months to 10 years. I had a lot of fun and it was a new challenge to understand the language of an 3 year old girl J On the other day I went to Preschool which took place as Ida Lee Park as well.

The philosophy of the Town of Leesburg Parks and Recreation Department’s A Room to Grow preschool at Ida Lee Park Recreation Center encourages three, four and five year olds to have a well-rounded educational and social experience. This is achieved by providing meaningful experiences that develop your child’s cognitive, social, gross and fine motor skills with age appropriate activities.  When I was there, they started the swimming lesson season which was totally awesome and cute. At the Preschool I helped out creating the timetable for the children, teaching them counting and writing or just singing songs like “Mister Pumpkin”.

It was so much fun working with the children that I thought of getting an idea of what I want to be later on.

I am afraid that my experiences cannot be summarized in just a couple of sentences. But I think that should be the case after such an awesome journey. The work experience was not what I expected, but I would not change the decision of Alisha sending me to Ida Lee Park. The best was that Ida Lee Park offered a lot of different places and programs to see and it is like we got to know a bunch of different jobs. But after all an work experience should give you an idea of what you want to be in your later lifetime and of course helping you with your decision of your subjects to study. In which case this internship was more helpful than any internship in Germany can be! Not only the fact that I learned how much fun I have in teaching also the fact that I want to take an gap year in America and maybe become an English/German/History Teacher in an foreign country.

My Hostfamily:

No word on world could ever describe the coolness of this family! Together with Insa Schütze I am the opinion that we had the best host family you can ever get.

As you can see this is my host family the Turners. Our family was really cool and motivated to show us all you can see in the area Loudoun County and Washington D.C. On our first day (Sunday) we had an all around tour through Loudoun County and a part of Maryland. We visited the German settlement, the place where the most important civil war battle took place, an old school, the only train station in 50 kilometers and in the afternoon we picked up our three  brothers Matthew, Samuel and Jack who were on a boy scout trip. Then there was Washington D.C. Our family was the opinion that we could never be able to see everything important on just one day, so we skipped Mondays program and drove to Washington. We saw nearly everything and we were exhausted to the bones, but the stitch was nothing. After visiting the Mall (American History Museum, Natural History Museum, Air and Space Museum), the archive (in which the Americans keep their constitution and civil rights as original documents!), the state department, several memorials (Lincoln memorial, Vietnam and Korean War memorial, World War II memorial, Stephenson Memorial and so on) and last but not least the white house and the capital we kind of fall in our beds.

SPEP:

It is hard to criticize a program which gave you such a great and unforgettable opportunity. And I don’t want to J All in all the communication between America/Hofheim and us students was ok and we got important documents in time. The workers behind SPEP put so much effort into this that everything went thoroughly and without any complications. On my side there aren’t any disappointing things and I hope that the SPEP program will continue this, so that more students experience an unforgettable journey. I have to thank SPEP for broaden my horizon and given me a better idea of my future and which person I want to be.

Lene-Marei Mrosik, Q1