A great teacher

(Connecticut, September 2006)

His Kindergarten teacher told me recently that she was a little scared too, when Jakob came to her class. “Wow, I will have a boy in my class who does not speak any English ” was what she thought. And it was tough at the beginning. Especially since his class mates did not show any interest in helping him or including him.

So she did a small experiment: She talked to her class for 10 minutes just in Spanish. She asked them questions and they did not understand. They asked her something, she answered in Spanish. After a while they got very frustrated and mad. And then she stopped and said “ And this is how Jakobs feels the whole day”. The kids in Jakobs class were wonderful and they understood. From this moment on, he did not just get help, but real friends.

They watched him speak his first English words and reported to the teacher every improvement immediately. For example when he built his first simple sentence it was a big deal in the class. They learned many German words, by the way.

I am a teacher myself and I know how difficult it is to have a student in the class who does not speak the language. But sometimes if you have a good and involved teacher and interested students it can be a great experience for everybody.

Once even a reporter from the local newspaper came to school to write about Jakobs amazing progress and to show how kids can work together.

Jakob was lucky. He came to the right school at the right time (and age), got the right teachers and class mates. This coincidence happens just once. Maybe if his school start had been different then all things would have worked out different for all of us…Who knows if we would be still here…and happy. Jakob, by the way, always went jumping and joyful to school.

Yes, unfortunately, things change when they get older…