Blog Archives

Germany Educational Trip - Closure

5/21/2019

At Goethe University

Thank you for following our Germany Educational Trip 2019. Mrs Lam and I had a great time learning overseas and sharing with you what we had experienced. You may revisit any of our days in Germany here:

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7

As for the answers to the daily questions, here you go:

DAY 1

1. These are love locks. They bear the names of lovers and sometimes a date and people lock them to a bridge with the key thrown away to symbolize “love forever”.

2. It's obvious that these letters are “CLOSED” in reverse. The photo was shot from the inside of a shop. When these tags were flipped, people from outside of the shop could see the word “CLOSED” spelled right to indicate that the shop was not open.

3. This was taken in a restaurant and this publication is indeed a food and drink menu!

DAY 2

1. The number tags are to label the trees so that they can be easily referred to. They are not telling you the age of the trees!

2. This silvery sculpture created by artists Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Hörbelt is located on the exterior of the Frankfurter Kunstverein’s building. The artists intend to create the sense of lightness from this object. The surface also creates textured images reflecting the surroundings. It indicates multi-perspectives and provides a contrasts to the traditional building on which it is lying.

3. This question asks for your opinions of the famous “thumb” poem in Germany. There is of course no model answer for this question. I personally think that the piece was fun to read, though it is too dark for a children's verse in today's standard. You may find its English version here and decide for yourselves!

DAY 3

1. For this mysterious figure on the floor, it was part of an exhibition designed by students of Frankfurt International School. Its theme was “Whodunit?” (Who has done it?).

DAY 4

1. These bars across the laboratory were in fact power sockets. They could be pulled down for students to plug in to provide electricity for whatever equipment involved in their science activities.

2. According to the Chemistry teacher of AHF-Elementary School in Detmold, the badminton racquet was used to introduce the special fibre to make it, which could be a good replacement to metal. It was bent to show flexibility. The hour-glass was a timer for experiments. It was to catch attention being hanged down from the broken racquet.

3. For this picture, I asked you to give me a caption. So, there is no fixed or recommended answer! Be creative!

DAY 5

1. This slide which was used by Georg-Müller-School Bielefeld during their presentation was to tell us to rethink about education. It led to questions like why do we teach? What should we teach? How do we prepare students for the real world?...etc

2. The boys had a “pupil” tag because they were learning English vocabulary. The teacher placed a tag on an object it referred to. There were several tags in the classroom not shown in this photo. The children were working on a worksheet on translating German into English at word level.

DAY 6

1. The question asks you to describe the style of buildings I saw in Frankfurt. While there is not a fixed answer, I think the buildings have a uniform and simple design featuring large windows that are lined up closely and tidily on the building.

DAY 7

1. The question asks you to name the sculpture by yourself with explanation. Therefore, no fixed answer. But the real name of this sculpture is “Body of Knowledge”, by Jaume Plensa.

2. Finally, this street bookshelf was part of Frankfurt's reading-promoting scheme known as “Open Bookshelves”. People were encouraged to borrow books there by themselves and donate their own books by shelving them there.

That's all for the Q & A! How many did you get right? Please do not worry if your answers are different from the above. Every brain is unique.

I would like to thank the Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council for organizing this Germany Educational Trip. Thanks to Principal Dion Chen and Dr Samuel Cheng for leading the tour. And most importantly, thanks to Mrs Lam for inviting me to join the tour with her. It was an excellent learning opportunity for me personally and a great chance for me to bring what I gain overseas to my students at YWPS.

Final advice: Wherever you go, open your eyes and minds to learn, think and reflect more – the world is your classroom.

Dr H C Lee

Tour participants in a meeting

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Germany Educational Trip - Day 7 (Final)

5/17/2019

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At Goethe University Frankfurt

[17 May] This was the final “working day” of the tour as tomorrow we won't have any visiting activities. After a series of school visits, today we had the opportunity to visit a university. It was Goethe (pronounced as GOOteh) University Frankfurt, which was more than a century old.

According to the international student who brought us around the campus, Goethe University Frankfurt was famous for the subjects of finance and business. While these global subjects are taught in English, other subjects are mainly taught in German. But as the German government funds all university students, it makes studying in Germany very attractive.

Walking between buildings in Goethe University was supposed to be relaxing and refreshing in the morning with the whispering wind, swaying trees and inquisitive birds, only if you didn't mind the bird droppings all around your feet!

The university campus was simple-looking. We visited a few buildings and had some tea time in one of them. We listened to the introduction from the international student and finished the tour at their Psychology Department. The weird thing was, no university staff came out to receive us. They were too afraid of Mrs Lam's “Infinity Shirt” perhaps.

To end the tour we had the fortune to have bought tickets for a concert at the Alte Oper (Frankfurt Opera House). We listened to Shaham & Mälkki with Frankfurt Radio Symphony. The concert had Gil Shaham as the Principal Violinist and Susanna Mälkki as conductor. These professional musicians were flawless!

I was in awe entering such an enormous and beautiful concert hall; I was in awe seeing a house of German-speaking audience with almost no interest in playing with their mobile phones; I was in awe witnessing the self-discipline of the audience who knew when to clap and when not to and the time to leave for intermission without any announcement at all!

People here seem to have developed a respectful culture in attending classical music concerts. My experience tonight was much better than the one I had in the Golden Hall of Vienna which was filled with 70 percent Asian with loud talking noise and mobile phone playing habits. While I might not have totally enjoyed the music tonight, this German experience of attending a concert gave me a great impression. And I think it was a very important lesson to learn, musically and culturally.

I'm closing this journey with two questions for you:

1. This status at Goethe University Frankfurt has a great name and meaning behind. Without further search on the origin of this statue, can you give this art work a name and explain why choosing such a name?

2. I came across this bookshelf at a random street corner in Frankfurt. What was the purpose putting it there?

That's all for my 7-day adventure and travelogues. Please continue to use your imagination and creativity to respond to my writing contents and questions, if you haven't done so. When I'm back next week, I'll discuss with you further (if you are in my class!) and look for high quality comments from you. Of course, I will continue to interact with you online through your comments. In fact, I have replied several.

As said, I will bring back a few tokens of thanks for those who have read my writing with heart and responded with thoughts and diligence. And next time when you travel, please don't forget to be hungry, reflective, and generous in sharing. See you all very soon.

Dr H C Lee

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Germany Educational Trip - Day 6

5/16/2019

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Group photo at King's College Frankfurt

[16 May] I was looking forward to visiting today's school not only because I was assigned to officially write about this school for the post-trip publication for Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council (DSSSC), but also that my own secondary school bore the same name – King's College.

My Alma Mater is of course a reputable government school in Hong Kong, not affiliated with this King's College in Frankfurt. And in fact, even though they call themselves “The British School of Frankfurt”, they are not related to the UK government. This is simply a new branch of school under the King's Group, run by a group of British people.

Their Head Teacher Ms Sharp had a very passionate and charming speech introducing to us about the governing body and their achievements in the last 50 years in other countries. But unfortunately her words could not be supported by current evidence in this Frankfurt-based school because they only came into existence in August 2018. The school was designed to have a capacity of 600 students, yet now their current number of students is 40. Their staff said that it would take 5-8 years for them to fill up the remaining places, if it could possibly be done at all. So, we probably came a bit too early today.

Despite of their seemingly unreadiness to become a model school for us to learn from, we had some funny interaction with their young children, whose parents were mainly people staying in Frankfurt for a short term for work. Here, Mrs Lam pranked a boy with dirt! Ha! Just kidding... She was half frightened by the dust on the boy's shirt and what he was holding! Can you believe it? The kids were playing with wheat flour!

Mrs Lam represented the DSSSC to present a gift flag to Ms Sharp, the Head Teacher of King's College Frankfurt. Ms Sharp got emotional when she got hold of the flag. Was the flag that heavy or burning hot? No, she yelled with joy seeing the Chinese characters on the flag. She said they looked stunningly beautiful!

The campus of King's College Frankfurt was not particularly large compared to the other schools we visited in this trip, and their rooms were yet to be fully furnished or decorated. We believed that as they grew, they would be able to enrich their teaching and learning environment for their children. And we sincerely hope that it would happen.

Real learning can sometimes get dirty. I agree with that. Not to mention that most students in this school are below 7. These washing machines had great responsibility to keep students' uniform clean after they have played with mud, paint, and flour.

No fancy buildings, no colourful walls, King's College Frankfurt was still in its developing stage and all plans were waiting to be implemented. The lonely blackboard at a bare corner of the school told us something about the simple layout of the school, as well as their striving for NOT becoming a Christmas-tree-school – over-decorated without much substance. However, the school looked to me “under-decorated” too.

It seemed to be a happy accident for us that we were arranged to visit a school which was not fully prepared for visitors looking for professional exchanges on teaching and learning with solid local examples. Thinking positively, we still saw a new school and appreciated what we were offered, however limited their resources and experience at the present were. But it will be a long way till they have got enough pupils to make the school fully functioning. At this moment, we could only give them our best wishes for their future growth.

Just one question today for those who has an artistic and architectural mind:

1. The above are some common buildings in Frankfurt that we observed. Can you briefly describe this particular German architectural style?

Tomorrow will be our final working day in Germany before leaving for home. We will visit a university. I hope it will give us a satisfying morning. Write you again soon!

Dr H C Lee

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Germany Educational Trip - Day 5

5/15/2019

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Tour participants at Sparrenburg Castle, Bielefeld

[15 May] The visit to Georg-Müller-School Bielefeld was the main focus of the day and it was nothing less heart-warming and fulfilling than what we experienced yesterday at AHF-Elementary School.

It was a Christian school again and we learnt about its strong Christian flavour in their curriculum design. The school has a primary section and two secondary sections depending on the levels of the students. In Germany, you study for your primary education for 4 years and then move up to secondary. Depending on your school results, you are normally sent to either general schools (Hauptschulen), intermediate schools (Realschulen) or grammar schools (Gymnasien). There is another type of secondary schools called comprehensive schools (Gesamtschulen) welcoming students of all academic levels. Georg-Müller-School Bielefeld has a primary section, a grammar school section and a comprehensive school section. It is a very interesting combination.

Representatives of Georg-Müller-School Bielefeld received souvenirs from Mrs Lam and I. They explained the Germany education system to us and how they ran their school. They were very approachable and treated us like VIPs! We really appreciated their hospitality and the time spent on us.

I think this has nothing to do with the school's style. Mrs Lam just bumped into a student with an artistic hair style and she asked if he could have a photo with her. The boy agreed swiftly. I guess that it represented the school's friendliness and respect for individual's style. And for your additional thought, haven't you noticed that the German students we visited didn't need to wear uniform?

This also has nothing to do with what we seriously learnt from the school. I just loved the orange juice they served us while the presentation was on going. “Orangesaft” is obviously a German word which obviously means orange juice. The German language seems to have lots of compound words – putting words together to form new words.

This is a shot of what a P.4 English exercise page looks like. Students were even asked to separate the fake compound words into individual words to make meanings. I think the German children are taught in class the concept of word breaks in English.

Students were all greatly friendly. It was a pity that they didn't have a Student Ambassadors Programme like we do, or else we could have learnt more from their children. But anyway, the students there tried to use their second language, which was English, to communicate with us. They might not be fluent, but they tried with their heart. And they all smiled very brightly. This told me the school was a great school. And by the way, this little guy with me in the picture was the owner of the exercise book above.

I met another new friend, Aaron, though I'm not sure if it was the right spelling of his name!

Mrs Lam successfully disturbed the School's Executive Director Mr Pieper's pizza time by introducing Ying Wa Primary School's unique features to him. Our latest Slideshow was one of the gifts for his school. Although Mrs Lam didn't put on her “Infinity Shirt” today, her power of expressivity remained invincible!

This was a shot of Mrs Lam during our Bielefeld city tour. She looked far away into the mountains and small houses, thinking about her upcoming retirement life. Well, as she would be staying in England, she would have a lot more chances pondering in the refreshing European wind like this. Only A cup of tea seemed to be missing from this picture of tranquility.

Question time now...Wait...do you really need questions in order to respond to my travelogue? You can reflect on anything I write here! Anyway, I have two questions for you. The first one is really really hard.

1. The above picture was one of the slides we were shown during Georg-Müller-School Bielefeld's presentation. What was the common message behind all these pictures?

The above question is too hard, right? Let's try this one...may be even harder...

2. I took this picture when the P.4 students were having a lesson. This particular pupil had the word “pupil” stuck on him. Why?

Das ist alles für heute. Schreibe dir morgen. Vielen Dank.

Dr H C Lee

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Germany Educational Trip - Day 4

5/14/2019

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Mrs Lam and I meeting new friends (Grade 4) at AHF-Elementary School

[14 May] The fourth day of the tour has easily proven to be the best of the trip so far. The weather continued to be incredibly wonderful and the traffic was smooth. What was important was that we could have another school to visit!

We were arranged to visit a Christian school under August-Hermann-Franke-Schools – AHF-Elementary School in Detmold. It was a very warm and fruitful experience meeting their staff and children.

The German education system starts with a 4-year elementary programmme before they reach secondary education. I didn't see much yesterday but today I was overwhelmed by the friendliness of their children once we stepped into their large campus. I didn't know why but it seemed to be a lot more girls than boys in this photo.

The School Principal Mr Martin (right) greeted us and took us to walk around their campus. He shared a lot with us on their strong flavour of Christianity in their curriculum. And we had the chance to visit some of their classes. Mr Martin was a very sincere and generous educator.

I really enjoyed having the chance to meet the students there and speak to them. Although English wasn't their major subject to study and thus at the elementary school they might have difficulty understanding me, they were still so friendly and tried to interact with us. I talked to a few boys and they could tell me their names and they could pronounce mine as well.

My first German lesson...so funny! Thanks Ilian! ^o^

History might not be my strongest side, but I was deeply impressed by their German-Russian Museum attached to their school campus. A young gentleman explained to us the situation of the emigrated German citizens and the hardship they had been through. Indirectly, this told us the power of Christianity in uniting the German families and fighting for a better living.

A joyful dinner at a Spanish bar ended the evening. I was fortunate enough to sit beside the most “powerful” lady in the universe, Mrs Lam! Why was she so powerful? Just look at her NINE Infinity Stones around her neck! Who could possibly fight against her? Thanos? Captain Marvel? She could turn them both into ashes by a single sneeze!

Question time. This round I have got three interesting questions for you!

1. We also visited the secondary school section of AHF. When we entered the Physics lab, we noticed a bar hanging down from the ceiling and attached to it were four other movable bars. What do you think they were?

2. Another weird sight was observed as a broken badminton racquet was stuck on a beam on the ceiling with an hour glass dangling down from the tip of the bent racquet head. Why were they up there as such?

3. Here is a funnier one for you...Please give a clever photo caption to this picture!

Tomorrow we will travel back to where we started our journey, somewhere at the south of River Main. More sharing later. Auf Wiederhören!

Dr H C Lee

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Germany Educational Trip - Day 3

5/13/2019

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At the entrance of Frankfurt International School

[13 May] I guess that life will be too boring without surprises. We, participants of the Germany Educational Trip, had some wonderful accidents today to keep our journey far from boring!

The wonderful day started with a delayed coach. As we got to reach Frankfurt International School in the morning, the 12 of us took four taxis to go there while other 13 had disappeared since Thanos snapped his fingers...just kidding, they had left Frankfurt for Göttingen earlier yesterday for other visiting activities. And fortunately for that we didn't need 5 more taxis!

More interestingly, on the way to the international school, we received news from YWPS that our P.6 Beijing Tour participants was encountering a flight delay and would have to wait at the airport for 4 hours. Accidents happen everywhere around the globe!

This was taken as I was having a taxi ride in the morning with Dr Fong and Principal Man next to me. A moment later, my phone would tell me that our Vice Principal was urgently seeking advice from Mrs Lam concerning the flight delay in Beijing. Obviously Vice Principal Lee failed to reach Mrs Lam but I wasn't in the same cab with her...It took me a few group messages to reach her...Thanks to our modern technology that they were finally linked up.

Staff from the elementary and middle schools of Frankfurt International School came to receive us. They brought us around their enormous and green campus and had a briefing session with us on their curriculum and features. This school houses 1800 students in 58 nationality groups and English is the common language of exchange and instruction. It was unfortunate though that lesson observation couldn't be arranged due to a clash with their examination schedule.

Our coach eventually reached us after our visit and it was then that one of our participants, Principal Leung, found that her belongings were not brought by the coach. They were left in the hotel! And thus, we had to travel all the way back to our hotel. It took us half an hour. Then we had a 3-hour coach ride to Göttingen to pick up the 13 participants. The biggest surprise dropped to us from this point – the 3-hour ride to Bielefeld turned out to be 8 due to unexpected rerouting and some toilet breaks.

Funny enough, during this time, I received pictures about my students enjoying themselves in Beijing airport while they're waiting. I wondered if the leading teachers and parents on the other side of the globe were better off than us here in Germany!

We were still on the coach at 21:05 though the sky was still bright. It was half an hour later that we eventually reached the restaurant for our late dinner. When we finished our meal, it was 23:00, 05:00 Hong Kong time, the time when my students met their parents at the Hong Kong airport after their memorable tour in Beijing.

I enjoyed these happy accidents today – at least I felt weirdly connected with my students, who would soon be reading these passages I write.

Looking for some questions? I only give you one today!

This was found in a corner at Frankfurt International School. What happened?

More to come (hopefully not accidents!), stay tuned.

Dr H C Lee

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Germany Educational Trip - Day 2

5/12/2019

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At the top of the Main Tower (the boy on the right was not one of us!)

[12 May] Happy Mother's Day from Frankfurt! We were happy as well being granted a sunny day and some stunning experiences here in Germany on Day 2. The weather was still terribly cold in the morning at around 8 degrees Celsius, but it climbed up to 13 or so towards the afternoon and with the sun, I even felt a bit hot!

Our major activities today were the visit to the Main Tower , a city tour, a dinner at the farm and an evening sharing session where we listened to our tour leader's education experience in Germany. So, let's go...

What could top the bird's eye view over the central area of Frankfurt under the blue sky? Funny enough, our initial plan to visit the Sunday market was in vain as it didn't exist. And we ended up visiting the tower, which seemed to be way better! The river visible from this picture is River Main (pronounced as mine). It's like River Thames in London that runs through the city.

The city tour in the afternoon was short but highly informative. Another tour guide (lady in the middle) was invited to bring us around Bahnhofsviertel, the central business district of Frankfurt and told us funny stories of the city. The building at the background of this picture is now a restaurant but used to be a police station and a prison!

The most interesting part to me, however, was when we arrived at the entrance of the Heinrich Hoffmann museum, the guide introduced to us Dr Hoffmann's poetry work. He is one of the most influential German poets for the country. I was particularly intrigued by one of his work, “The story of little suck-a-thumb” (translated) which was about a naughty boy whose thumbs got chopped off as he sucked his thumbs too much. Imagine you learnt this poem at school!

For dinner, a special meal at a restaurant located in a farmland near our hotel impressed us all. Of course, we were glad for Mrs Lam's return from Berlin, and our mood was further boosted by the bright sky even at 8 pm! Don't mind the photo-bomber in this photo; he's a friendly local guest of the restaurant!

We ended the day with our main tour guide Tabea sharing with us her education path. It was a relaxing session at the hotel lobby. My impression was that German schools do not push students to achieve high goals but to give them space and time to explore their interests. But students were streamed into ability levels at the age of around 10 when they are allocated into secondary schools that suit their levels. It might be both a strength and weakness of the German education system. I'm looking forward to learning more as the trip unfolds.

I was very happy with this day's experience but a few questions stuck in my head that I need my students to help answer (though they are still in Beijing for an exchange tour till Monday night!). Let's see the questions:

1. We could see trees near the River Main that had a number tag attached to them. Could you guess its function?

2. An art centre we walked past this afternoon attracted us with this shiny piece of art dangling right above the entrance. How would you comment on its design and what it was trying to express? (Please be creative, there's no model answer!)

3. Remember the “thumb” poem introduced above? Tell me what you think about it. (You may even search for its English version online for your reference)!

Our main duty will start tomorrow as we will visit schools in Germany. And I'm looking forward to meeting their students and teachers and writing to you about my thoughts tomorrow night. Stay tuned!

Dr H C Lee

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Germany Educational Trip 2019 - Day 1

5/11/2019

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Children having fun with a street performer at a street corner of Frankfurt

[11 May] 25 educators of Hong Kong involving school heads and senior administrators of Direct Subsidy Schools have arrived at Frankfurt for an 8-day learning programme in Germany. The 12-hour flight was a bit bumpy but we landed safely at around 6:45 am this morning.

Headmistress Mrs Lam and I represent Ying Wa Primary School this year to join the adventure. Although Mrs Lam left the group early for a music experience in Berlin on Day 1, and although this day was shadowed by annoying showers, gloomy clouds and chilling winds, this was still a greatly fruitful day for me as I could take parts in all sorts of cultural experience in Frankfurt. Some highlights are as follows:

Our main means of transportation today was the German railway (S-Bahn). Their trains seemed to be less frequent than Hong Kong's and the stations were not as modern as I expected, and yet the trains were fine and were able to take us to places.

We had a great lunch in a restaurant enjoying the food and the time sharing among colleagues from different schools. The European style of serving was usually nice and slow. I guess good things often require one to wait – an experience in a German restaurant could train up your patience!

Not far from our hotel is the famous old bridge “Alte Brücke” over River Main. The funny thing was that when I walked to the centre of the bridge, I could feel it bounce up and down a little! Also, there were plenty of locks on each side of the bridge.

Over the bridge, I walked to a small art gallery displaying a room of intriguing art form. This set of contemporary arts put together various items including dangling bells, paintings, photographs, tables of items, a TV screen, carpets and a sofa. I thought it was a studio where artists were in the progress of making something when I entered! But the leaflet told me that each item placed in the room was having artistic purposes. Although I am not an experienced visual artist, I found this hybrid form of expression meaningful. It’s like a combination of arts and daily lives.

There are certainly a lot more to share about my experience today but I do need some time to rest now! Before I sleep, how about trying to answer these questions (please leave your responses in the comments box)?

1. These locks I mentioned...what is their use? (Creative answers acceptable!)

2. I found these letters interestingly dangling from a glass door of a shop. Google translation didn't help this time. Can you help explain what these tags were for?

3. This one is tricky...what was this publication and where did I see it?

All answers will be revealed after my journey. Students with the best participation and quality of responses to my questions (due 20 May) in this trip will be awarded with gifts from Germany! And of course, your general feedback to my travelogue entries is highly welcome too and can be equally praised. Will write you again tomorrow!

Dr H C Lee

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Congratulations to our P.5 Debaters!

5/4/2019

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[4 May] Today, 6 of our P.5 Debate Club members (5B Leonardo Lo, 5C Cyrus Ngan, 5C Jayden Chow, 5E Nick Wong, 5E Jayden Leung, and 5E Luke Wong) had their very first debating attempt. They participated in the Speed-debating Competition and earned the champion by winning three debates in a row!

The Speed-debating Competition is organized by HKPTU Primary Debating Committee. There were 4 rounds of debates with the motion: That Hong Kong is a good place to have a pet dog. Our boys competed with Maryknoll Convent School (Primary Section), St. Francis of Assisi's English Primary School, Mrs Cheng Yam On School and Pui Ching Primary School.

It was an enthralling experience for our P.5 debaters as their sole aim today was to gain debating experience, and winning was the icing on the cake.

The whole debate experience is much more than just the actual debate itself. There are whole lot of preparations as well as collaborations between team members beforehand. Our boys had put in tremendous effort for the debate today. Their confidence comes from their dedication.

In the end, we, along with Kwun Tong Government Primary School (Sau Ming Road), recorded the best win-loss ratio among the 8 competing schools and were both crowned champions!

Congratulations, boys. I am proud of you all.

Miss Vera Fung
Debating Coach