First Day of School

Today was our first full day in Basel.  Some students were still a bit blurry-eyed this morning as jet-lag seems to be setting in, but all were in bright spirits for the first full day at school.  Students  shadowed their host students throughout the school day getting to see first hand what a typical day at Gymnasium Leonhard is like.

The morning started with a crash course on Switzerland.  We will be doing this several times throughout our stay to try and learn as much about Swiss culture as possible.  This morning had our students working hard on a map of Europe, playing a guessing game that involved identifying as many countries as possible.  Ali, Serena, and Logan proved to be our geographic whiz's for the day.

 While there are some big differences as far as the cultural norms around school, the classes I had a chance to observed offered insights into the school`s pedagogical approach.  Students are encouraged to first comprehend material and then offer some keen critical and analytic insights into their information.  It was intriguing to see the parallels between both their school's of our school's  philosophy.  

While some of the classes were taught in English as a part of the English immersion program, others were in German, which made the lesson a bit more difficult to say the least.  Students seemed to have some interesting thoughts about the school life at Gymnasium Leonhard.  Here are some of the responses from the students about their first day in school.

After lunch, we had the chance to do a little bit of exploring around Basel.  Our first stop was to an old paper mill.  The mill was constructed in the mid 16th century, and still had a functioning water wheel.  Students had the chance to learn about the history of both paper and the written language.  They were also able to write with calligraphy and to even make their own paper.  The process was fascinating, and both Serena and Ali were quite skilled paper producers.


Our next part of the afternoon had us crossing the ferry to the other side of the Rhine, (the river that flows through the center of Basel).  The ferry man reminded me of how I'd picture Charon on the River Styx, but fortunately for us, we made the other side without incident and avoided any signs of three-headed dogs.  We strolled along the Rhine, dodging a few rain drops, on our way to our second museum of the day, the Tinguely Musem.

Jean Tinguely was a Swiss sculptor and painter, and he is most famous for his large-scale operational sculptures composed of "junk" he would find and turn into art.  The museum was a bit strict about playing with the sculptures too much, but the students enjoyed being able to interact with the art by stepping on buttons on the floor.


Tonight is a major football (their football, not ours) match between FC Basel and Tottenham Hotspur FC.  There are many Tottenham fans in town as this is a Europa league semi-final match.  One can feel the energy in the air, as all seem to have an opinion about the match.  I know a couple of students have the chance to head to the game tonight, and we are all pulling for a Basel win.

Tomorrow we are heading to Lucerne for our first outing with all of the Swiss and US students.  Until then!