Exchange program enriching for PHS teacher

Thirteen months in Germany yields many lessons for Laurence Thebault

By: Jake Uitti
   Laurence Thébault, a French and German teacher at Princeton High School, left Princeton near the end of July last year to participate for 13 months in a Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program in Germany.
   Upon her arrival in Wittenberg, Germany, she spent several days getting acclimated to a country she had not visited for about 20 years. She drove up to Wittenberg with her exchange partner, Heidi Albert-Hofmann, to an orientation meeting with nine Americans and nine Germans.
   Ms. Albert-Hofmann came to Princeton in exchange for Ms. Thébault to teach at Princeton High School.
   "We spent a few days learning the challenges ahead of us, meeting together with specialists and people who had done the program before," said Ms. Thébault, who studied medieval literature in a doctorate program at Princeton University and who was born in Senegal.
   In order to participate in the prestigious exchange program, Ms. Thébault went through a long application process consisting of essay writing, acquiring letters of recommendation and an interview in New York City.
   But all of that hard work paid off when she was accepted.
   She began teaching in Netphen, Germany, which, she explained, was a rural area about an hour and a half from both Cologne and Frankfurt. Ms. Thébault began teaching French and English at a gymnasium — a distinguished high school in Germany — on Aug. 22, 2005.
   "Because I am a language teacher," she said, "I can relate to kids learning other languages and the difficulties that can present."
   She said one of the challenges was that German students were learning British English. Despite the challenges, there were, however, many benefits to her year abroad.
   "What was great about the school system was that we started early, at 7:35 a.m., but the kids are finished every day at 12:30 p.m.," Ms. Thébault said. "So they basically go to school in the morning."
   She said the German students do not have long summer breaks, only about six weeks, though there are many short, two-week breaks throughout the year.
   "The kids work hard for a couple weeks, then have a break. I like that system much better," she noted.
   In addition, the teachers at the gymnasium — a school with grades 5 through 13, with an extra year than most American schools — collaborate closely with one another, and a group of teachers share the same 30 students between them, so there is coordination with test-giving and lesson plans.
   Teaching at the gymnasium, despite all her years of linguistics, was a bit intimidating though, she said.
   "In the beginning it was challenging. In the beginning, I would only speak French or English, but as the year went by I would interact more in German. The kids were very sweet."
   Abroad, she said, there is more of an emphasis put on language skills.
   "The thing is, languages are so important, so kids are motivated to learn. As a teacher of the language, you have a say in their future. Your position is important, so I felt more valued as a teacher than when I am here sometimes where language is not as important."
   Between her days teaching, Ms. Thébault said she was able to see some sites in Europe. She said she met frequently with her fellow Fulbrighters. In addition, she said she went to Auschwitz for four days with a group of teachers. The guest house for the group was in the center of the former concentration camp.
   "You could open the window and see the place where they hanged the commander at the end of the way, and we saw the ovens," she said with a note of sadness.
   She said her trip to Auschwitz took place a week before Pope Benedict XVI was supposed to visit, so there were television journalists following her and her group.
   "I ended up on TV," Ms. Thébault said enthusiastically, "on one of the biggest networks there. My kids came up to me later and said they saw me."
   Ms. Thébault said one of the reasons she went on the exchange program was to learn more about Germany and the language so she could infuse more knowledge into the program at Princeton — a town, she said, that many Germans speak highly of, having enthusiastically questioned her about local writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison.
   Despite that, she said, Princeton High School seems to be phasing out the German language program, no longer offering German level one this year, something she is a bit disheartened over.
   But in the end, she said she is happy to be back in Princeton, having had a once-in-a-lifetime experience she can share with her students at the high school.
   "I love Princeton and I love teaching and my colleagues," she said. "It’s what I do best."