Erasmus+ Schulpartnerschaft – holländisch-deutsche Begegnungen in Plochingen und Amsterdam
Begegnungen standen in den letzten zwei Jahren der Coronapandemie unter einem schlechten Stern. Auch unser Erasmus+ Austausch mit dem Vossius Gymnasium Amsterdam war davon betroffen. Anfang 2020 durften wir noch eine Gruppe junger Niederländer:innen mit ihren Lehrern bei uns willkommen heißen – dann war erst einmal Schluss.
Umso froher und begeisterter waren wir, dieses Jahr wieder bereichernde Begegnungen für 21 Zehntklässler:innen und ihre holländischen Austauschpartner:innen zu ermöglichen. Im April verbrachten wir fünf Tage gemeinsam in Plochingen und erkundeten im Rahmen eines „Geo-Future“ Projekts gemeinsam das Thema Nachhaltigkeit in unserer Region. Nur zwei Wochen später ging es für unsere Gruppe mitten ins Herz von Amsterdam – auch hier stand das Thema Nachhaltigkeit im Fokus, doch auch Kultur, das Leben in einem anderen Land, Stadtentwicklung und Gemeinschaft kamen nicht zu kurz. Begegnungen, wie wir sie schätzen und lange vermisst haben.
Wir wissen die Unterstützung durch Erasmus+ und unsere Schulleitung sehr zu schätzen. Nicht minder möchten wir uns allerdings bei allen Teilnehmenden und ihren Eltern für die große Gastfreundschaft bedanken, die diese einzigartige Erfahrung ermöglicht haben. Dank gilt auch unseren holländischen Freunden, dass sie uns mit offenen Armen empfangen haben.
(Hü, Ta, Rl)
March 12th
At 7:30 am, the alarm clock rang. We are not used to getting up that late in Germany! We went to school like every day by bike and it was so much fun. Everything is flat, you can
ride as fast as you want and the cyclists are simply the most important road users in Amsterdam.
At 9:15 a.m., we set off with all the teachers to FOAM, a museum about photography. Of course with our bicycles! (It's fun and sustainable, a win-win situation:)
In the museum, we did a guided tour through the different exhibitions which were about other cultures and their history, but at the same about the loss of these cultures.
One of the exhibitions was A Sidelong Glance by John Edmonds who examines issues of identity and power from an African-American perspective in an apparently simple yet essentially culturally
complex way.
We realized how important it is to pass on thoughts, traditions, language, music or art to future generations and that it is easier to identify yourself and to find a sense of belonging when you
deal with your origin.
We also talked a lot with the guide about photography itself and how colours, exposure and perspective affect the photo and what street photography is all about.
Lastly, it was our chance to show what we had learned. We went together in groups of two, got a camera and went outside on the street to have a try at street photography.
It was a great experience and we had such amazing results in really every group. The most important thing was actually to be quick to catch the right moment, and in such a big city like
Amsterdam.
At 12.30 pm we had lunch together, which by the way was very very tasty!
Then something quite unusual happened. We walked to our next activity. Suddenly you were in a completely different world, in a completely different city. No more narrow, small, crooked brick
houses with white window frames we were used to in Amsterdam, but huge, glass skyscrapers in the most modern architecture imaginable. It was incredible how different the same city suddenly
appeared.
Being completely overwhelmed, we got fancy construction worker helmets in blue and white and descended to the business district to find out more about a special tunnel construction. The idea of
it is to avoid breaking up the roads for every new building that needs to be connected to gas, water or electricity.
This idea is super innovative and sustainable at the same time. Trees could even be planted above the tunnel and the water in use is handled as carefully as possible.
At 3:15 pm we had the last but no less interesting tour, an architectural tour in the district with a focus on sustainability. We learned that you can make insulation from old
jeans for example, that wood is the most sustainable building material, that you can recycle concrete, and that the gardens on the rooftops are accessible to everyone, pretty cool.
In addition, the architect explained to us the 10 R‘s of sustainability, and encouraged us to think about it: Respect, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Renew, Recycle, Responsibility, Rethink, Replant,
Restore. We didn‘t have a few of those points on our radar, but of course they all have something to do with a better, more ecological lifestyle.
It is also important to know that there is no perfect sustainable solution for a building and there will
Always be advantages and disadvantages, but you should try to get the best out of it.
So in summary, this day was very exciting, with so many new impressions and we also learned a lot overall!
Antonia Behr, Betty Rudolf, Tara Weichsel
Fotos: Lukas Motykiewicz/Kadicfilms Studios, www.zuidas.nl
