German Classroom Sets Stage for Lessons in Diversity
By: Lisa R. Baldi
IMAGINE TAKING A UNIVERSITY COURSE THAT places you in German schools where you don’t know the language, the curriculum, or the culture. That’s what Penn State Berks students majoring in Childhood and Early Adolescent Education have been doing for two weeks each May for the last two years in order to learn about developing sensitivity to diversity.
Dr. Jayne Leh, Assistant Professor of Special Education at Penn State Berks, has a passion for preparing teachers for diverse instructional settings. Her research centers around helping pre-service teachers understand how best to work with children with disabilities who they will encounter in their future general education classrooms.
According to Leh, because of the U.S. model of inclusion, students with disabilities can be found in every classroom, but oftentimes education students are under the misnomer that the chances are slim they will encounter a child with a disability. Because many teachers are ill prepared to teach in the diverse U.S. classroom, and because very young children may not even be identified in the early elementary classroom, teachers must be experienced and educated in terms of diverse populations and should be sensitive to individual differences–in other words, they must be sensitive to diversity.
That’s where the international field experience comes in. Leh wanted to get pre-service teachers into settings where they would encounter something so completely different from what they were used to that it would force them to consider not only the differences they see, but also how to respond to and think and feel about those differences.
“Two years ago, I created an opportunity for our pre-service teachers by designing a course that would take students outside the classroom to a venue that was completely different from anything they may have ever experienced before, to a setting where they wouldn’t understand the language and they would have to look to others for interpretation,” explains Leh.
“I felt this was important as it relates to pre-service teachers because this would allow Penn State Berks students the opportunity to experience a diverse culture and feel what it might be like for a child with disabilities who is ‘different’ from everyone else, or a child who may be an English language learner. Our student teachers work with many children in the Reading School Dis trict for whom English isn’t their first language; because of this, the experience seemed invaluable and worth pursuing.”
For the last two years, Leh has been taking students to schools in Germany where German teachers give the instruction and the pre-service teachers experience the frustration of not understanding the language. This year, Penn State students will be delivering part of an English lesson to German children.
“This helps the pre-service teachers to understand the role of culture in the classroom but it has to be well planned. Penn State students are encouraged to write, reflect, discuss, and debrief frequently, ” states Leh. “Everyone comes to the table with different views, background knowledge, and experience. Teachers have to be sensitive to all aspects of diversity in the classroom and they must be experienced and comfortable supporting children who may have problems with the English language, a cognitive deficit, or an emotional disorder, or children who may be culturally diverse.”
This was a life-changing experience for Alana Augello, a senior Childhood and Early Adolescent Education major. “I was able to make so many connections to classrooms back home and also view the classroom setting from a totally different international perspective. As I begin my career as a first-year teacher, I will take with me everything I learned and implement any teaching strategies I acquired into my future teaching career.”
Leh lived in Melsungen, Germany from 1988–1990, and got to know the German school system while her children were enrolled, so she had the connections to initiate this program. The first year of the program, Leh took the pre-service teachers to three schools in Germany: the Christian-Bitter School in Melsungen, an elementary school; The Hoha Lands School, a high school in Hanau; and the University of Freiburg. Due to time constraints and to maximize the time in the elementary setting, the group visited just the Christian-Bitter School and elementary schools in the vicinity of the University of Freiburg last year.
The goal of the course was for students to identify and consider the differences between the United States and Germany in terms of school settings (teachers, students, facilities, and curriculum),
and the culture in general (school and non-school settings) while reflecting on their preconceptions. Penn State University had just signed a partnership agreement with the University of Freiburg,
who put Leh in contact with the Freiburg University of Education, a teaching university.
Before going to Germany, Leh asked her students what they thought they would see in the German classrooms, and most students believed that the classrooms would be regimented and the teachers would be strict.
The reality was very different.
“I expected the school to be completely structured with teachers acting as drill sergeants,” states Stacy Brands, a senior majoring in Childhood and Early Adolescent Education. “It was completely different. Teachers didn’t stand in front of the room lecturing students; students were responsible for their learning with the assistance of teachers.”
According to Leh, the German curriculum stresses independence and a sense of responsibility from a very early age, and it is linked to the students’ ability to reflect on their own behavior–reflectivity.
As a result of her research, Leh has written a manuscript that was accepted for publication as a book chapter on reflectivity with two other professors at the college, John Guiseppe, Instructor in Economics, and Dr. David Bender, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology. The manuscript reports on the results of the international field experience, specifically the model of reflection that was used to promote change in the affective domain of the pre-service teachers who participated, the value of placing pre-service teachers in an international classroom setting, and the importance of identifying preconceptions as a way to facilitate reflection.
Currently Leh is working on establishing an exchange program between Penn State Berks and the Freiburg University of Education in which Penn State Berks pre-service teachers will shadow German pre-service teachers, and German pre-service teachers will come to Penn State Berks and do the same. Faculty may also participate in the program and teach at the partner university. In addition, an exchange program is in the works for the education students of both Penn State Berks and Freiburg University of Education.
Last year, Germany was mandated to bring inclusion to its classrooms. Until recently, German schools placed children with disabilities in separate classrooms. So while Berks students are learning from the German curriculum, German students will learn about inclusion–Leh’s area of research–from Penn State Berks students.